Payroll, attendance and time off in one system: what small teams need

Why the handoffs cause the errors

A typical small team tracks hours in one place, leave in another and payroll in a third. Before every pay run someone gathers the numbers: how many hours did each person work, who was on leave, who earned overtime. Each number is copied by hand, usually in a hurry, usually close to a deadline.

The pay run itself may be calculated correctly. The error is in what went into it. A missed day of leave or an unapproved overtime entry produces a payslip that is wrong in a way nobody notices until the employee does.

The chain from the clock to the payslip

In a connected system the same record carries the person through every step. In Agaro the chain reads Employee, Attendance, Time Off, Payroll, Expense and Journal.

1. Employee. The employment record holds the contract, the schedule and the compensation. See Employees.
2. Attendance. People clock in and out, working schedules are set, and overtime rules are defined. Approved hours and overtime flow into payroll work entries. See Attendance.
3. Time off. Employees request leave, managers approve it, and allocations are tracked per person. Approved leave carries into working schedules and payroll work entries. See Time Off.
4. Payroll. A run is built from contracts, salary structures, work entries and approved adjustments. Each run produces payslips, payouts and bank files, and a payroll journal for accounting. See Payroll.
5. Expense and journal. Approved reimbursements are added to net pay, and the journal entry lands in the books without retyping.

The important property is direction. Information flows one way, from the approved record to the pay run. Nobody copies a number from one screen to another.

What the pay run calculates

The calculation is deliberately plain, and the ERP does it, not an AI model. Gross pay, minus taxes and deductions, plus approved reimbursements, equals net pay. Amounts are held in integer currency units and the period is locked once the run is closed, so the result stays the same. The post on why the ERP should do the arithmetic explains the reasoning.

For US payroll, the module covers W4 elections, Forms 941 and 940 and W2, and the Taxes module lets you review payroll taxes alongside your other tax records. Rules differ by state and by employer, so confirm the exact coverage you need during the Preview / Pilot.

Employees can see their own side

Much of the work in payroll is answering the same questions: how many days of leave do I have left, where is my payslip, did my overtime count. Employee accounts give people self service for their own attendance, time off and payslips. On paid plans employee accounts are free, so you pay for the people who manage the business and not for everyone who clocks in. They cannot manage other employees or reach the wider ERP.

Questions to ask any payroll tool

• Do approved attendance, overtime and leave reach the pay run automatically, or does someone export a file?
• Does one run produce the payslips, the payout file and the accounting journal?
• Is a closed period locked, and how are corrections recorded?
• Can an employee see their own payslips and request leave without a full licence?
• How are US payroll forms and taxes handled, and who confirms that for my state?

Questions people ask