To think I've been underpaid in first wage slip?

[Maria53]

I just started a new job and have only worked 7 days.

I have been paid £583.31 and no tax has been deducted.

I was told my starting salary will be £23,000 per annum. I'm no mathematician but haven't I been significantly underpaid?

A colleague was meant to go over my contract with me this week but it has now been moved to next week. Should I raise this with my manager tomorrow?

how many hours a week/days a week are you contracted to do for £23k?
how many hours/days have you actually worked?

To be able to guarantee I was paid in September for my new job (that had started 24 days earlier), I had to provide all my payroll details by the last week of July

Why? I hate these overly officious Finance and payroll departments that piss around and act like they’re doing them a massive favour by paying them.

There is nothing complicated that requires more than a month to put you on a payroll system.

Merryoldgoat

I work in payroll and have deadlines for the 5/6th of the month in order for someone to be paid that month. It isn’t that we need a whole month to put one person on the payroll, it’s that we have thousands of people’s payrolls to do and we need all the info by a certain date to make sure it goes through properly. If one person is allowed to be added after deadline then everyone will want that and then there’s no point in having a deadline in the first place

Calliecat, I really hope your company doesn't do it on the assumption that people normally work 31 days in the month!

We don’t assume people work 31 days but we work it out as if you had if that makes sense? So you get paid for every day of the month and not just the ones you work

I work in payroll and would it as 7 out of 23 working days and get the same figure as you have been paid x

So callicat, I guess everyone resigns on a Sunday..

@CallieCat19

I do too - I run Finance, Payroll and HR where I work.

I absolutely understand if you are a payroll bureau then you need deadlines like that, but a company where payroll is done in-house shouldn’t impose such rules but many do just because they can.

merryoldgoat

Yeah absolutely If you have the flexibility to be able to do it then you should. Unfortunately where I work we’re a 3rd party who do payroll for large volumes of people so we rely on the info being sent to us on time and we’ve had it a lot in the past where if we let one thing in late then they think everything can be sent late and it messes up the whole system

@CallieCat19

Plus your calculation is incorrect - OP started on the 23rd so it should be a proportion 9/31 and not 7/31 which is £556.45

Were you expecting a full month’s salary?

This is immediately what I thought to be honest.

Merryoldgoat

You’re right, should have been 9 not 7 🤦🏻‍♀️

It sounds as though you either handed in a P45 or signed a P46 and you have been given a months tax free allowance of £1041.

Your annual pay is £23,000 and if you are working a 5 day week = 260 days a year. Your daily pay is £88.46. On a month basis that is £1916.67 monthly

However most payrolls divide salaries to get the monthly payroll, and the days worked vary. There are 13 weeks to every 3 month period. As you worked 7 days in Oct and there are 21 days in both November and December you will work 49 days in total and your pay is £583.33 + £1916.67 each month for Nov and Dec = £4,416.67

If you were paid for 49 days at £88.46 this =£4,334. On a 21 day month the average pay per day is £91.27, on a 22 day month the average pay is £87.26 and on a 23 day month it's £83.46. Although you appear underpaid in Oct it's compensated for by the higher rate in Nov and Dec.

You won't be able to work it out unless your contract has cut off dates or you speak to payroll I'm afraid. Companies differ significantly as to how they pay with cut off dates, etc.

First job I had had a cut off of the 15th. You were paid at the end of the month for everything 16th-15th, all normal shifts, bonus and overtime. If you starter work on the 23rd October you wouldnt be paid til November's pay.

Second job paid basic hours for the full month on the 28th, then overtime and bonus up to the 20th. So you'd get paid a set amount of your annual pay, averaged out so you get the same every month, then your overtime from 21st to 20th. Anything extra worked 20th over would be in November's pay.

In my current job, I do the payroll, so we pay everything in the month it was worked.