Locking the Attendance Month Before Payroll
Locking attendance data once managers have approved it means payroll runs on final numbers and far fewer payslips need correcting. That takes a fixed closing routine and a controlled way to handle corrections that come in after the lock.
At the end of the month payroll needs final attendance figures, and there is nearly always something holding them up. One manager hasn't approved yet, an employee wants to add a clock-out she forgot, and someone notices that a vacation day was recorded as a workday. Without a clear closing process, the data keeps changing after salaries have already been calculated. That leads to corrected payslips, and over time to employees who stop trusting what their payslip says.
A month lock is meant to stop this. You set a point at which the month's attendance data is closed, after everyone who needs to approve it has done so, and only then does it go to payroll.
What happens when a month is locked
Locking freezes the attendance data for one pay period. From then on, employees can't add or change entries for that month, and managers can't change approvals without special permission. Payroll receives the data as it was approved, and that is the only version anyone works from.
The closing routine, step by step
In the last few days of the month, employees fill in what is missing: forgotten clock-ins, absences, vacation and sick days. An automatic reminder to anyone with gaps in their timesheet does most of the work at this stage.
Next, each manager goes through their team and approves. This is the time to look for:
- days with no clock-in at all, or a clock-in with no clock-out
- unusual overtime that wasn't approved in advance
- clock-ins from outside the defined reporting zone
- differences between the published schedule and the hours worked
When every manager is done, someone in payroll or HR confirms that all teams are approved and no exceptions are left open, and only then locks the month. The locked data is exported to the payroll system or to your payroll provider in the format you agreed on, and because the month is locked, nobody can change anything halfway through the export.
Corrections after the lock
Corrections will still come in after the month is locked. An employee discovers that a reserve duty day was never recorded, or a manager realizes they approved hours by mistake. This happens in every organization, and what matters is that the correction is controlled.
Only designated roles should be able to reopen a locked month or change data in it, and every change after the lock goes into an audit log: who made it, when, what the previous value was and the reason for the change.
Sometimes it is better to leave the previous month closed. You record the difference in next month's payroll, in coordination with your payroll advisor, and the closed month stays as it was.
The audit log also protects the organization if a dispute comes up. When an employee says their hours were changed, you can show who changed what, when and why.
Habits that shorten the close
Set a fixed timetable and make sure everyone knows it, for example manager approvals by the 2nd of the month and the lock by the 3rd. Employees who know when the month closes fix their entries on time.
We recommend asking managers to approve every week. A manager who has already approved three weeks only has the last one left to check at month end.
If you have several branches or departments, decide in advance who approves whom. And keep count of the corrections made after the lock. If there are a lot of them, the problem is probably in the approval stage.
Clockey is built around this process: managers get a list of exceptions to approve and can see who hasn't completed their timesheet, and once every team has approved, the month is locked and exported to payroll. Any change after the lock needs permission and is recorded in the audit log.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. For a specific case, consult an employment lawyer or a payroll advisor.