Compare the current preview with the last processed payroll for the same pay group. Review who is being paid, which codes changed, how much changed, statutory deductions, and hours rules. Explain or fix every exception, refresh the preview, and rerun the audit before processing.
Start with the right baseline
A payroll preview is the closest version of the final register available before money moves. It reflects imported hours, one-time earnings, deduction changes, new hires, terminations, and rate changes, but it can still be corrected.
The right baseline is the last processed payroll for the same pay group—not the last preview. That run was reviewed, signed off, funded, and paid. Every audit check asks one question: what changed between that trusted run and this preview, and can the difference be explained?
| Comparison side | Earnings | Deductions | Taxes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last processed payroll | Paid earnings by employee and code | Final deductions | Final statutory taxes |
| Current preview | Preview earnings by employee and code | Preview deductions | Preview statutory deductions |
Match each side by pay group and pay date, then compare only pay groups present in the preview. This prevents a weekly group being compared with an unrelated monthly or executive run.
The checks that catch real money
Focus the review on meaningful differences
A useful audit excludes activity that is supposed to move. Gross-based deductions and direct deposit splits change naturally with net pay. First-time earning codes should be checked against employee history, not only the prior run. Earnings and deductions should match on stable codes because descriptions may differ between preview and processed exports.
Audit Your Payroll Before You Process It
Compare the current preview with your last processed payroll, surface unexplained changes, and clear exceptions before money moves.
See Payroll Preview Auditing →Run the audit inside the payroll calendar
- Move payroll to preview in your payroll system.
- Refresh the preview data so the current register is available for review.
- Work the audit in order: data status, presence, codes, amounts, statutory checks, then hours.
- Explain each valid difference or correct the source payroll record.
- Refresh and rerun the audit after corrections. The goal is a clean run, not a documented dirty one.
- Have an approver review the final result, sign off, and process payroll.
The preparer and approver should see the same fixed reports. Stored rules, documented thresholds, and reproducible results create evidence of what was reviewed—not merely a cover sheet saying a review happened.
Tuning lessons from real payroll teams
- Match on codes, not descriptions. Labels often differ in capitalization, punctuation, or wording between exports.
- Compare new codes against history. This removes recurring noise from bonuses, holidays, and on-call pay.
- Exclude expected movement. Gross-based deductions and direct-deposit lines should not flood the exception list.
- Configure each organization’s vocabulary. Regular, overtime, holiday, retirement, and benefit codes are not universal.
- Use the change log when employee records are incomplete. Leave and status dates may live outside the main employee record.
- Remove checks that do not apply. An empty report every cycle weakens attention rather than strengthening control.
Add statutory checks to the same pass
Run-to-run consistency is only half the review. The same payroll data can also test external rules and plan limits:
- Weekly and state-specific daily overtime, regular-rate calculations, minimum wage, and final-pay timing.
- Federal, state, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, disability, and paid-leave withholding.
- Garnishment caps, order priority, implementation timing, and permitted administrative fees.
- Retirement, HSA, health FSA, dependent care, and Section 125 election limits.
- Required wage-statement fields and payroll-record retention.
Automated audit versus manual review
| Measure | Manual review | Praisidio audit |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | A sample of the register, usually sorted by variance | Every record evaluated against the configured rules |
| Baseline | Whichever prior file was exported | Latest processed run computed by pay group |
| Rule ownership | Lives in reviewer knowledge and spreadsheets | Shared, documented, reusable checks |
| Repeat work | Exports, lookups, sorting, and spot checks each cycle | Refresh, work exceptions, correct, and rerun |
| Audit evidence | Signed cover sheet and saved files | Reproducible results with documented thresholds |
| Improvement over time | Depends on someone editing the workbook | Tuning carries into every future cycle |
How much faster and more accurate
The gap between a manual preview review and an automated one is not a few minutes of convenience. It is the difference between sampling a register and evaluating every record against the same rules each cycle.
Step by step: manual audit vs. Praisidio
| Step | Manual audit | Time (manual) | Praisidio | Time (Praisidio) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Pull the preview and last processed run | Export files from payroll, rename, and align columns by hand | 30–60 min | Preview and processed data refresh automatically for the pay group | Automatic |
| 2. Build the baseline comparison | VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP every employee across both runs; fix broken matches | 1–2 hrs | Latest processed run computed by pay group, matched by person | Instant, part of the refresh |
| 3. Check presence and pay changes | Sort by variance and eyeball the largest rows; sample the rest | 2–4 hrs | Every record tested; every presence, gross, and net difference flagged with a reason | Under a minute |
| 4. Verify deductions and garnishments | Line-by-line comparison of deduction codes, amounts, and new/missing lines | 2–4 hrs | Deduction mismatches, garnishment errors, and stopped withholding flagged by rule | Under a minute |
| 5. Validate taxes, hours, and rates | Separate checks per category, each in its own tab or workbook | 2–3 hrs | Tax-line stops, hours exceptions, and rate changes evaluated in the same collection | Same run |
| 6. Work the exceptions | Email owners, wait for answers, mark up the spreadsheet | A day or more (elapsed) | Time spent only on real exceptions; assignments and status tracked in one place | Hours, not days |
| 7. Rerun after fixes | Re-export, re-align, and redo every lookup from scratch | 1–2 hrs per rerun | Refresh and rerun; prior thresholds and rules carry over | Minutes |
| 8. Document the audit | Signed cover sheet and saved files; evidence varies by reviewer | 30–60 min | Reproducible results with documented thresholds, ready for preparer and approver | Generated with the run |
Manual totals assume a large hourly population; smaller pay groups scale the same steps down but keep the same order. The manual figures reflect what a senior payroll manager reported before automation; individual cycles vary.
| Per pay cycle | Manual spreadsheet review | Praisidio preview audit |
|---|---|---|
| Pulling and aligning preview and prior-run data | Repeated exports, lookups, and manual matching | Refreshed automatically for the pay group |
| Review effort | One or more people, a day or more of focused work in large hourly populations | Minutes to refresh, then time spent only on exceptions |
| Records examined | A sample, usually the largest variances | Every record, every rule, every cycle |
| Error types caught | Whatever the reviewer thinks to look for that day | Deduction mismatches, garnishment errors, rate changes, stopped withholding, and hours exceptions by rule |
| Consistency between reviewers | Varies with experience and time pressure | Preparer and approver see identical, reproducible reports |
| Cost of a miss | Off-cycle checks, retro adjustments, amendments | Corrected while the register is still editable |
What customers say
“Payroll audit used to be a 3-person, 2-day exercise every pay period. Praisidio flags deduction mismatches, garnishment errors, and rate changes automatically.”Senior Payroll Manager, logistics — 4,500 drivers and warehouse staff (customer testimonial)
“Detailed reports on PTO, payroll, sick time, and evaluations now take less than a minute.”Gabriel M., General Manager, mid-market (G2 review)
“Praisidio has made handling a large amount of data much easier, reducing the time taken to less than a minute with automated or one-click reports.”G2 reviewer
“Our compliance team now flags meal-break violations within 24 hours instead of month-end.”Chief Compliance Officer, retail — 8,000 hourly workers (customer testimonial)
Reviewers also note an initial learning curve while checks are configured to each organization’s codes and policies; that tuning then carries into every future cycle.
Before you process: cycle checklist
- The expected preview date, processed date, and pay groups are loaded.
- Every presence difference has a reason or a correction.
- No first-time earning code remains unexplained.
- No deduction appeared, disappeared, or changed without support.
- Material gross, net, benefit, and retirement changes are explained.
- Every stopped tax line and garnishment has been reviewed.
- No terminated employee carries inappropriate benefit deductions.
- Overtime, short-hours, holiday, and paid-time-off exceptions are cleared.
- The data was refreshed after fixes and the collection reran cleanly.
Frequently asked questions
What should a payroll preview be compared against?
Compare it with the last processed payroll for the same pay group. That run was reviewed, funded, and paid, making it the strongest available baseline.
When should the audit run?
After payroll moves to preview and before processing. Correct or explain each exception, refresh the data, and rerun the audit until the result is clean.
Does this require replacing the payroll system?
No. Praisidio reads the preview and processed payroll data from the systems you already use and turns the comparison into a repeatable collection of reports.
See a Payroll Preview Audit on Your Data
We’ll show how Praisidio compares payroll runs, prioritizes exceptions, and creates a repeatable preparer-and-approver workflow.
Book a demo