Toast Payroll: Review Pay Groups

In this Article:

• Pay Groups In Toast Payroll
• Change an Employee's Pay Group
• Create a New Pay Group
  • Pay Group Examples
• Pay Groups FAQ

Pay Groups In Toast Payroll

Pay groups can be understood in two ways: portions of your organization grouped together for the purpose of payroll payment processing OR groups of employees that share a common pay date, frequency, and/or method. Pay groups are most often used when two or more FEINs are processing payments. This is important because it allows you to sort employees to be paid at different pay frequencies and out of different company accounts, if necessary. Employees can be part of multiple pay groups. 

Find which pay group an employee is assigned to by navigating to their profile and selecting the > carat icon to the right of their primary job. If an employee has more than one position, each position should be tied to a different pay group. If a second role can be paid out of the same pay group, create a job instead of a position.

Pay groups also appear underneath each payroll on the Pay Cycle Dashboard. Only employees with positions assigned to that pay group will appear on or can be added to that payroll.

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Change an Employee's Pay Group

A pay group is based on what position an employee is assigned to, so in order to change the pay group, the position must also be changed. Remember, a position is a set of professional attributes specific to an employee.

1. Navigate to a profile and select the > carat icon to the right of the employee's primary job.
2. Select Edit on the position that will be updated.
3. Select the reason named Position Update at the top of the page and confirm the details in the pop-up.
4. Now, change the Position field near the top and the Pay Group field under the Pay section at the bottom.
   
   
   
   
5. Press Submit to save these changes. Both items must be changed, not just the pay group. The position must align with the pay group it's associated with or errors may arise. 

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Create a New Pay Group

To set up a new pay group, Toast Payroll needs the following items:

• Bank routing and account numbers
• A blank check
• This form filled out

These can be set up with a Toast Onboarding Consultant during the onboarding process. Otherwise, once you're live with Toast Payroll, you can add a new pay group by gathering the three items and send them to us via the blue chat dot in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page.

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Pay Group Examples 

• Check Frequency Based Pay Groups: Pay groups are often labeled by check frequency if more than one frequency exists within an FEIN. Check frequencies include weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, and monthly.
• Location Based Pay groups: If you have multiple locations, you may indicate that the location has a separate pay group and name your pay groups after your locations (e.g. Chicago and Boston).
• Hourly vs. Salary: Employers may choose to put hourly employees and salary employees on two separate payrolls and call these the Hourly and Salary pay groups. These might instead be classified by whether or not the employees are exempt or non-exempt.
• Executive vs. Regular Employees: To ensure that some payroll administrators do not see executive pay information, you may choose to have a separate pay group for just these employees and an executive may run and submit this payroll.

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Pay Groups FAQ

The most important thing to remember is if an employee is being paid out of two pay groups, they must have two positions. A secondary position should only be present if it is tied to a secondary pay group.

How do I add an employee to a new pay group?

If the employee is a new hire, this will be done via the employee onboarding process. If they have an existing position, they will need a second one built out for the new pay group. Watch the video on this page for directions.

I approved my employee's time entries, but they don't show up on payroll.

Among other things, this may indicate an employee has more than one position and those time entries and earnings are tied to a different pay group. Therefore, they may be on another payroll. Double check the pay group for each of the employee's positions by navigating to their profile and selecting the > carat icon to the right of the employee's primary job. Match the pay groups on their profile with the pay groups listed under each payroll on the Pay Cycle Dashboard.

Do I need to add a new position for each new job my employee works?

If a second job can be paid out of the same pay group, create a job instead of a position.

Can I rename my pay group(s)?

Pay groups names can only be updated by Toast admins and only under the right circumstances. For instance, if a pay group name should be changed, Toast Payroll would also need to know if an FEIN change or a change in ownership has taken place so we can accommodate those changes as well. Contact us via the blue dot in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page to discuss your situation.