What's covered in this guide?
How payment dates work
When you post a pay run, your employees' payments are processed through the ACH (Automated Clearing House) banking network. The payment date — the date employees receive their funds — depends on two things:
When you post your pay run (relative to the daily cutoff)
Your processing window (how many banking days ACH takes to settle)
Your processing window is configured during onboarding and determines how far in advance you need to post. The standard processing window is two-day. If you have a history of returning payments, you may be moved to three- or four-day payroll.
Note: Banking days are Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays. If a payment date falls on a weekend or holiday, it will be moved to the next available banking day.
Daily cutoff times
There is a daily cutoff of 6:00 PM ET for submitting payroll. If you post your pay run before the cutoff, the processing window starts counting from today. If you post after the cutoff, it starts counting from the next banking day.
Example (2-Day Processing):
Post before 6:00 PM ET on Monday → employees paid Wednesday
Post after 6:00 PM ET on Monday → employees paid Thursday
Bank holidays
ACH payments are not processed on weekends or Federal Reserve bank holidays. If a payment date falls on a non-banking day, it will be moved to the next available banking day.
Note: Holidays do not count as business days for your processing window. For example, assume you have a two-day processing window, Thursday is a holiday, and Friday is your payment date. You must post before 6:00 PM ET on Tuesday (two business days before your payment date), even if you usually post on Wednesdays.
Workforce will automatically account for holidays when calculating your earliest possible payment date, and will notify you by email one week before an upcoming holiday that may affect your payroll schedule.
The Federal Reserve holidays observed are:
Holiday | Date |
New Year's Day | January 1 |
Martin Luther King Jr. Day | Third Monday in January |
Presidents' Day | Third Monday in February |
Memorial Day | Last Monday in May |
Juneteenth | July 19 |
Independence Day | July 4 |
Labor Day | First Monday in September |
Columbus Day | Second Monday in October |
Veterans Day | November 11 |
Thanksgiving | Fourth Thursday in November |
Christmas Day | December 25 |
Note: When a holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is also a non-banking day. When a holiday falls on a Saturday, the preceding Friday may be observed — check your payment date in Workforce to confirm. Plan to post your pay run at least one extra banking day early during holiday weeks.
Kotapay Customers
If your payroll is processed through Kotapay, cutoff times depend on your arrangement with Kotapay. Reach out to your Kotapay contact to confirm when you need to submit payroll.
What If You Miss the Deadline?
If you miss the daily cutoff, you can mark the pay run as a wire transfer and wire the funds. See the Wiring Funds for Payroll help guide for more information.
Reverting a Posted Pay Run
You can revert a posted pay run back to draft status to make changes on the day you posted if it is before 6pm ET.
When you revert:
PTO accruals will be reversed
You can edit the pay run and post it again when ready
You cannot revert if:
It is later than 6pm ET
You are a Kotapay customer and you have already downloaded the NACHA file
There are non-sufficient fund (NSF) returns on the pay run
Note: When you revert, tax funds may have already been submitted to the bank as part of the nightly processing cycle. If you revert a pay run after tax funds have already been submitted, you will see a warning:
"Tax funds have already been submitted to the bank. If taxes change after reverting this pay run, the difference will be made up in your account on the following day."
This means if your revised pay run results in different tax amounts, the difference will be automatically reconciled the next business day. To avoid this situation, try to revert pay runs as early as possible after posting.