Payroll → Forecast shows the employee-related expenditure recorded so far, what is expected next, and how reliable that expectation is. It uses recorded compensation, recurring transactions, benefit arrangements, schedules, and finalised payroll for one selected organisation. A finalised posting replaces its matching scheduled expectation so an occurrence is counted once.

Steps

  1. Set the period and scope

    Open Payroll forecast. Choose a calendar quarter, a year, or Custom range. Narrow the view by department, employee, transaction, currency, or search. Confirm the organisation and data as at date.

  2. Choose one financial measure

    Select Company expense, Cash funding, Benefit valuation, Taxable benefit, or Employee-funded. These measures describe different facts and must not be added together. Currency totals stay separate.

  3. Read the certainty and gaps

    Use the status legend: Finalised comes from completed payroll, Scheduled from a determinable arrangement, Estimated from an explicit planning assumption, and Unresolved means the value cannot yet be established. Certainty can differ between measures for the same occurrence. An incomplete banner or payroll-calendar gap means displayed totals include known values only.

  4. Inspect contributing occurrences

    Group the selected measure by Employee, Department, Transaction, or Currency. Select a row to open the occurrence details and inspect its employee, transaction, dates, values, status, and assumptions. The grouping changes attribution, not the financial meaning or totals for the selected scope.

  5. Investigate payroll progress and attention items

    Review Payroll progress for completed and remaining periods, partial periods, calendar gaps, and any recorded difference from an earlier expectation. Use Needs attention to find missing amounts, dates, or other evidence. Open the source arrangement to correct a missing fact.

  6. Inspect education commitments

    Review Education commitments for each instalment’s arrangement, expense, cash funding, benefit valuation, employee-funded amount, and the period in which each effect falls. An instalment can affect cash in one quarter and expense or benefit value in another.

  7. Add an estimate only when justified

    For an eligible unknown amount, choose Add estimate and enter the amount, as-of date, financial basis, and an explanation where useful. You can edit, remove, or clear planning estimates. An estimate cannot supply a missing payment date, satisfy an approval requirement, or replace a known or finalised value.

Reading the measures

Company expense attributes employer cost to the relevant period. Cash funding follows a payment or processing date. Benefit valuation is the value of a benefit and can differ from cost or cash. Taxable benefit is established through payroll and is not the PAYE amount payable. Employee-funded shows employee contributions, deductions, or recoveries.

The five measure cards and grouped table must be read independently. Adding their figures together would double count or combine unlike effects. For example, loan principal recovery is not a new employer expense, and a non-cash benefit need not create an equivalent cash payment. A genuine zero is different from an unresolved value; Known total excludes unresolved amounts.

Timing and reconciliation

The forecast follows each recorded schedule rather than assuming every item repeats monthly. An annual commitment remains allocated to its scheduled dates when you select a shorter period; the full annual amount is not moved into one quarter. A period can contain finalised results alongside remaining scheduled or estimated amounts. Where a finalised occurrence has an earlier recorded expected amount, the view can show the difference. A reversal retains its financial effect without implying that money has been recovered.

For education, compare Company expense, Cash funding, and Benefit valuation separately. Actual school-term dates, unequal instalments, reimbursements, employee contributions, and waived fees can affect these measures differently. The reimbursement portion is included in company cash funding and must not be added a second time. See Record education benefits and school fee instalments.

Limits of the forecast

Planning estimates apply to the active forecast view. They do not change the employee arrangement, establish a missing payment date, or alter a finalised payroll result. Finalised means payroll processed an amount; it does not confirm a bank or supplier payment. The forecast keeps currencies separate and does not automatically convert or consolidate them.

Coverage depends on the arrangements, calendars, approvals, and calculation inputs recorded for the organisation. The forecast does not anticipate unrecorded hiring or salary increases, calculate future PAYE, manage a general ledger or budget comparison, confirm settlement, or export reports. Resolve source-record gaps before treating known totals as a complete commitment.