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Payroll & Pay Periods

ShiftFlex tracks every approved work hour, tip, and expense to generate accurate payroll summaries — ready to export to your payroll provider in one tap.

Pay Periods

A pay period is a defined date range used to group time logs, tips, expenses, and earnings into a single payroll run. You must create a pay period before you can process payroll for that period.

Creating a Pay Period

  1. Go to Settings → Pay Periods.
  2. Tap Create Pay Period.
  3. Select the Start Date and End Date for the period (e.g., 1st–15th of the month).
  4. Tap Create. The pay period is created with Open status.

All shifts completed within the pay period's date range are automatically included in its calculations.

Approving Time Logs

Before processing payroll, ensure all time logs for the period are approved. See Time & Attendance → Manager Approval for full details.

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Approve all time before exporting

Unapproved time logs are not included in payroll calculations. Always review and approve all pending time logs before running your payroll export.

Pay Period Summary

Tap any pay period to see a detailed breakdown:

  • Total hours worked per employee
  • Regular hours vs. overtime hours (1.5x rate for hours over 40/week)
  • Gross pay per employee (hours × rate + surge bonuses)
  • Tips and expenses submitted and approved for the period
  • Per-location breakdown of labor costs

Tips, Expenses & Mileage

Employees can submit tips earned, expenses incurred, and mileage from their Profile. As a manager:

  1. Go to Settings → Tips & Expenses.
  2. Review each submitted item with the receipt photo (if uploaded).
  3. Tap Approve or Reject. Rejected items are returned with an optional note.
  4. Approved items are automatically added to the employee's pay summary for the current pay period.

Overtime

ShiftFlex automatically identifies overtime. Any hours exceeding 40 per week are flagged as overtime and calculated at 1.5× the employee's base pay rate. Both regular and overtime hours are shown separately in the payroll summary.

Exporting Payroll

Once all time has been approved and the pay period is ready:

  1. Open the pay period.
  2. Tap Export Payroll.
  3. A CSV file is generated containing: employee name, hours, pay rate, overtime, tips, expenses, and gross pay.
  4. Share the file directly from your device to your payroll software (e.g. Gusto, ADP, QuickBooks).

Closing a Pay Period

After exporting, tap Close Period on the pay period. This marks it as Closed and prevents further time approvals from being added to it. Closed pay periods are kept for your records and remain viewable.