Payslip v what’s in the bank

[Jeezowhyisittough]

My Christmas payslip is under by about £1000 for this month. I’ve asked my work to look at it but of course payroll is now out till January so won’t get a resolution till next year! How can they get it so wrong?

What do you mean by under? Have you been paid the amount that it says on the payslip and you think that's too low or have you been paid less than the amount on the payslip?

Are you hourly paid,? More context is needed

As above, the question is slightly unclear.

Does the amount you have actually been paid match the payslip?
Are you monthly paid, have been paid early and only paid for three weeks instead of four?

Can you clearly prove it’s wrong eg “here are my approved timesheets, that’s 48 hours @ £x. Per hour and you’ve only paid me 30 hours at £x per hour.”

Make sure you haven’t had a tax code change.

I run a payroll and finance team - believe me someone is working, and they can phone payroll and ask them to check the error. I would absolutely expect to be disturbed at home for something like this - I would definitely not want one of our employees feeling stressed out and aggrieved at Christmas !

Contact your manager urgently and also your HR department and contact the Finance team. Ask for a payroll advance to be paid to you today or tomorrow to make up the shortfall. There will definitely be someone in the finance office who can work out what your net pay should have been approximately, and organise an emergency advance payment so you are not out of pocket. they can correct in payroll next month .

That would be unusual in my experience. Most companies do early payroll so they can wrap up for year end and to avoid getting tangled up with payments on holiday season.

It is very stressful doing payroll a week early, so mistakes can happen and people are only human.

Don’t be angry OP - calmly explain the error, state that no you cannot wait for the correction to be paid in January and you’d like the company to make good the error with a payroll advance. If they say “we don’t do advances” then tell them in that case you’ll need them to run a payroll correction and make the corrected payment by the normal payment date. That’s far more hassle and you might find they just agree to pay the advance!

That would be unusual in my experience. Most companies do early payroll so they can wrap up for year end and to avoid getting tangled up with payments on holiday season.

Agree but I was just looking for a simple answer to the OP's question.

Thx!
it is super bizarre. On my payslip it says an amount and then my work said the bank took the right amount from Their bank but said they presented it wrong in my bank account. The bank account amount was around £1K less then it should be. Work said my bank won’t disclose details to their bank so needed to lodge a query with my bank. My bank were not helpful at all saying they just cleared the amounts deposited by my bank! I insisted they worked with my works bank to see where along the way from wiring the money across all of a sudden money went missing!!! Pooffff! Gone! Work is going to send me money for the short fall until it’s resolved but how can money get lost in transit! I get paid monthly.

To everyone saying it can't wait until January 2nd, the money is supposed to last you a month, so surely you won't have spent it all by then?

Just seen the update. If that was us we would send the extra to you and not wait for the bank to fix etc

Mind you, in 25 years of payroll I've not seen that.

I have had mistyping of amounts when uploading the payroll file to bank. Or maybe switching 2 people around. But never all the money bar £1000 going to the wrong account?

I’d assume they switched around 2 people. But if you can show back statements showing x and payslip showing y they should make an emergency payment now and fix it in new year. Anyone with payment authority could authorise that.

It sounds like a bank issue rather than a payroll issue so whilst payroll will deal with it they will be awaiting the resolution from the banks involved. I’m glad to hear that work have paid the difference in the meantime.

Does the difference divide by 9?

Your bank doesnt take money from their bank; your employer sends money to your account. They need to start a trace on the funds from their account to see if a mistake has been made.

Im guessing something has been mistyped or they have sent the funds to the wrong account

Well all I know is the bank came back with details of whose bank it went into so I could tell my work. I know the person and for the banks to say they could do nowt at all was wrong. They should (bank) not have given me their name but could tell what the issue was when originally they said they could do nothing at all.

It depends on how the information is relayed to your bank from your companies Payroll. If it's via an upload into the banking system, then it is possible a digit could have been transposed by someone in payroll..
(You can check this.Take your payslip net pay from the amount deposited in the bank. If the difference is exactly divisible by 9, then there has been a transposition. Eg (£1,450 - £1,540) / 9 = 10. )
If your payroll has made the error then it is up to them to correct their error as soon as possible Good payrolls will do this as a current month off cycle payment (says the payroll manager who has just had to make an off cycle for a missed payment 😉) and which your company has already done for you.

This isn't making any sense, no bank is going to be telling you that. Something somewhere is getting very lost in translation

The most likely situation is that someone has either miskeyed your pay amount or mixed up two employee amounts.

Either of those would be ery easy to identify
It's nothing to do with the bank, they will be doing whatever the employer has instructed them to

Presumably it is a very small employer? Otherwise I would expect a file upload from payroll software with no re keying. Glad it's sorted, but the accountant in me feels the OP is being fobbed off with what in fact will be an in house error. Staff are trying to blame faceless " bank" when they probably fxxd something up.

So the bank gave you the name of the person it was paid into and it’s someone you know?

That sounds very different to the correct amount was paid out but the wrong amount was paid in (how does that even happen?). It sounds like either the bank or your work made an error and are trying to cover it up, which is very strange.

Have your work said what they’ll do about the £1,000 overpayment as if they are saying it is a banking error then it will most likely make it to your account at some point. Make sure they’re not deducting it in full from your next months salary if you haven’t had it into your bank account and haven’t got definitive proof that it is a banking not payroll error.

If someone’s bills are due before the 2nd (mine are all paid on the 1st, this is common afaik) and they don’t have £1,000 left after bills then waiting until the 2nd could cause issues.

Whose bank what went into? This doesn't make sense. I thought uour employer says they told the bank to pay X amount but the bank have paid X less £1000 into your bank. Which sounds like someone has mistyped a digit somewhere.

But now you are saying the £1000 has gone into someone else's account? Which wouldn't make sense at all.

Very confusing. More likely 2 people’s amounts got switched around but then how would the bank know who the other person was?
The bank splitting a single payment into 2 different accounts is not something I have ever heard of in my life? (Ie by doing payroll and other payments and online forums such as money saving expert or motley fool)

Is it your basic salary plus overtime/allowances/bonus and it's the latter part that's gone to someone else and you've only received your basic?

I can easily see a situation where someone has their mortgage, and all bills etc come out on the first of the month and leaving just disposable income for the remaining month. It’s possible for some people, especially those who are younger and not in established careers, that their disposable income isn’t £1000 and they don’t have savings to cover the shortfall.