Toast Payroll: Make a Pay Change

There are different types of pay changes you can make and different times these changes can be made. After making pay changes, Toast Payroll strongly recommends double-checking their accuracy on the Employee Earnings step of the upcoming payroll.

In this Article:

Important Notes About Employee Pay Changes
Update Individual Employees - Pay Change Drawer
- Update an Employee's Pay
- Pay Changes in the Past
Make a Pay Change for Multiple Employees

Important Notes About Employee Pay Changes

Changes to an employee's pay must be completed before opening a payroll (selecting Preview) if they are to take effect on that payroll.
The Salary Effective Date should be set so all hours worked on or after this date reflect the new wage amount. This date may not always be the current day. For example, setting up a pay change effective today and posting payroll today will not change the employee's rate on payroll since no hours were worked between the pay change date and payroll run date. The only exception to this is with salaried employees.
The set the federal minimum wage for covered non-exempt employees as $7.25 per hour. Many states also have minimum wage laws. When an employee is subject to both the state and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages. Use the Pay Change feature to make minimum wage updates for an individual employee or a group of employees or visit to view the default rates in our system.

Update Individual Employees - Pay Change Drawer

Update an Employee's Pay

Discover how to make a pay change using the Pay Change Drawer.

Navigate to the employee's profile and select Change pay found within the Jobs & Pay tile.
1. If you do not see a Change pay link, the employee's may need attention. Navigate to the Position page by selecting the top-most > icon in the Jobs & Pay tile, select Edit on the next page, and then confirm that the Salary Type and Default Earning Type settings have a selection chosen.
The Pay Change Drawer will open on the right side of your screen. The first field will be pre-populated with the employee's current salary or hourly rate. Until the pay field is updated with a different salary or hourly rate, the date selection will not be available.
After changing an employee's pay, select the date the pay change should take effect (this date can be in the past). For convenience, Toast Payroll has provided your pay dates in solid blue circles and your pay period start dates in dotted blue circles.
Select Save to finalize the pay change.
Future pay changes will show up on the Jobs & Pay tile on the Employment page. You may select the View button to revisit the details of this pay change or remove this pay change by selecting the trash can icon. At this time, you cannot schedule two future pay changes.
The new rate will sync with Toast Web in one hour or less. This is not necessary, but you can speed up the rate sync by selecting Sync to POS from the employee's Employment tab of their profile.
1. If you return to the Employment page and the Jobs & Pay tile does not show the correct rate, simply select the > caret icon in the Employment Details tile, select as the Reason, and then select without making any changes to the page. This will queue the system to incorporate any unsynced changes and should correct the employee's pay rate.

Employee Pay Changes in the Past

You may find yourself in a position where you need to change the pay for an employee for work they've done in the past. Toast Payroll allows you to set a pay change for a date in the past, but you will most likely want to take one of two follow-up actions:

Navigate to the employee's profile > Employment > Change pay.
Enter in the new pay rate and the date in the fields provided.
If the past date you selected is during a timesheet that has already been approved (see step 4 for timesheets that have not been approved):
1. The Retroactive pay calculator will pop up. This allows you to add the retroactive pay for the hours worked since that date as a one-time, lump sum payment.
2. To add retroactive pay, categorize the payment with an earning code. The displayed amount and earning code will appear on the employee's current pay period.
  1. Choose the earning code you'd like the retro pay recorded on (e.g. Retro Pay) or submit to if you need a new earning code.
  2. Keep in mind that some earning codes are set to calculate . Using them in pay change settings can cause tip makeup to appear for an employee.
3. The Retroactive pay calculator does not account for blended overtime pay or deductions occurring during those dates. The employee will be taxed once the earnings are calculated on a payroll in accordance with the earning code that you selected.
If the past date you selected is during a timesheet that has not been approved, the employee's pay will be automatically adjusted. Timesheets will reflect this change once into the payroll run (if applicable).
If this pay change should apply to a timesheet that has already been approved, you'll want to:
1. Reset the payroll (if it's been started)
2. Navigate to the employee's profile > Pay History > Timesheets.
3. Select Re-Open for the timesheet.
4. Select the timesheets's hyperlink.
5. Now select and open a day on this timesheet. Make sure the Update Rate upon save checkbox is checked and select Save.
6. Repeat this for any other applicable days on this timesheet. Then you can reapprove it.

Make a Pay Change for Multiple Employees

It is important to note that using the process outlined in step 1 below to update pay changes for multiple employees will only allow updates for an employee's primary rate of pay and will require additional action in the system in order to update secondary position rates.

Step 1 - Employee Pay Change

To make a pay change for multiple employees, navigate to Team > Team Actions > Bulk pay change.
Select the Start button to process the pay change.
You will be prompted to complete the following steps:
1. Reason: Select a reason code from the drop-down menu. Minimum Wage Increase is commonly selected here.
2. Salary Type: Select Hourly or Salary. You can only update one set of employees at once.
3. Employees: Select the employees whose rate you wish to modify. To make wage updates for all employees, select the entire list of employees using the check box highlighted in orange below.
4. Pay Change: Select either Full Amount (entering the new rate) or Differential (the amount you would like to change the rate by) and enter the rate change effective date. Additionally, select whether or not you'd like to apply this change to secondary rates (jobs).
  1. If you select Yes, the rate update will be identical across all primary and secondary jobs for each employee.
  2. If you select No here, you may wish to follow the steps in the section below.
5. Review: Verify your selections.
Select Finish to submit.

If you are looking to update any employees' secondary rates and they were not identical to the rate change made for primary jobs above (i.e. you selected No on the Pay Change step above), follow these directions:

Note: If you are apprehensive about the import process, we recommend trying it with only one test employee on an updated .csv file. Once you’ve completed the steps, navigate to the test employee’s profile and view the import results in the Jobs & Pay tile on the Employment tab. Once you’ve successfully imported one employee, you can repeat the above steps to import multiple employees’ hourly rates for different jobs worked at once.

Navigate to Settings > Payroll.
Select the Jobs tab. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and select Download.
Open the downloaded file in Excel.
1. Toast recommends making a copy of the download to save for your records of the rates per employee before the update and a second report to use for updates.
Update the Hourly Rates column ONLY. Changing or removing any other columns may cause an import error.
Save your updated file on your computer as a .csv file format (not .xls or .xlsx).
Next, go back to the Jobs tab and select the blue Upload button at the bottom of the page next to the Download button.
Scroll down and select Update Existing and Import New.
Next, select Choose file and select the saved .csv file from your computer that you just updated.
Select the Upload button beneath the file you just imported.

Pro Tip: Be mindful to audit for duplicate jobs roles with different rates, which can cause discrepancy.

Step 3 - Update Employee Hourly Rates on Timesheets (if applicable)

If you are processing pay changes for a group of employees retroactive to the effective date of the pay change (meaning you need to provide back pay) and employees have timesheet entries at the old rate of pay, updates to the timesheets are required to apply the pay change. You will need to manually adjust each employee’s timesheets by following these steps:

Navigate to Settings > Timekeeping > Settings.
Make sure the Make Timesheets Read Only setting is flagged to No. This will allow you to edit the timesheets within Toast Payroll.
Next, for each employee who needs a rate change added or updated, navigate to the employee's timesheet (employee profile > Pay History > Timesheets) to make a manual adjustment.
Each time entry with the old rate will need to be updated by selecting the applicable day to open Edit functionality. Begin by selecting a timesheet as seen below.
Once you have selected the date, select the Update Rate Upon Save box. This action will "resave" the employee punch with the updated rate.
Select Save to finalize. Repeat this action as necessary because it is required per clock in/out, per employee in order to update all timesheet entries.

This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or any other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for advice.