Payroll Processing Checklist

Export approved timesheets from AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi, or whichever HRIS the firm uses. Confirm every maintenance tech, leasing agent, and office staff member has a supervisor-approved card — unapproved time is the most common reason a register has to be reopened. Flag any techs missing entire days against the on-call roster.

Pull executed leases and renewals from the period and tie each commission earner to the firm's plan (per-lease flat, percent of first month, renewal bonus). Verify lease execution date falls inside the commission cutoff — leases signed after cutoff move to the next period, a frequent dispute with leasing agents.

Maintenance techs covering after-hours dispatch (Latchel, in-house pager rotation) accrue FLSA overtime once weekly hours exceed 40. Match the dispatch log to timesheet entries; missing on-call hours is the single largest source of wage-and-hour back-pay claims in this industry.

Process new hires, terminations, and approved leave from the HRIS. Final paychecks for terminated employees must follow state final-pay rules — California requires payment on the last day worked for involuntary terminations; many states require the next regular payday. Don't roll a terminated employee's final pay into the regular cycle without checking the state rule.

Identify employees working across state lines (regional managers covering multi-state portfolios) and any active garnishment orders (child support is the most common; IRS levies and creditor judgments also appear). These two flags drive the conditional steps further down — get them right here and the rest of the run is clean.

Run gross pay across hourly maintenance, salaried managers, and commission-based leasing staff. Verify overtime is calculated on the regular rate including non-discretionary bonuses (FLSA regular-rate rule) — flat hourly times 1.5 understates OT when leasing bonuses are involved.

Apply current federal income tax tables, FICA (Social Security + Medicare), and state withholding per each employee's W-4 / state equivalent. Don't forget local taxes — Ohio RITA, Pennsylvania PSD, NYC resident tax, and similar locality withholdings often get missed when the firm expands into a new market.

Apply each garnishment per the order's withholding instructions and the CCPA caps (50-65% of disposable earnings depending on circumstance). Child support orders take priority over creditor garnishments. Remit to the state disbursement unit by the order's due date — late remittance can make the firm liable for the full underlying obligation.

Apply 401(k) deferrals (pre-tax and Roth), employer match, Section 125 health/dental/vision premiums, HSA/FSA contributions, and any post-tax deductions. Confirm new enrollments and election changes from the prior open-enrollment window have flowed through.

Controller or operations director reviews the preview register against the prior period — investigate any line that swings more than 10% without a documented reason (raise, bonus, leave). Once locked, corrections require an off-cycle run, so spend the time here.

Originate the direct-deposit NACHA file at least two banking days before pay date — most banks have a 3pm or 5pm cutoff. Confirm the operating account has cleared funds to cover gross payroll plus employer taxes before release; an NSF return on payroll triggers immediate bank scrutiny and employee complaints.

Pay stubs become visible on pay date through the firm's payroll portal. Several states (CA, NY, MA, TX) have specific pay stub content requirements — gross/net, hours, rate, deductions itemized, employer info, pay period dates. Confirm the template still meets state requirements after any payroll-software update.

Submit federal income tax withholding plus employer + employee FICA via EFTPS on the firm's deposit schedule (semiweekly or monthly). Late deposits trigger a tiered penalty — 2% at 1-5 days late, 5% at 6-15 days, 10% at 16+ days. Schedule the EFTPS payment the day the register locks, not the day before the deadline.

Remit state income tax withholding and state unemployment (SUTA) per each state's deposit schedule. SUTA wage base and rate vary by state and by the firm's experience rating — confirm the current-year rate notice from each state agency is loaded in the payroll system.

For employees working in one state and living in another, apply the reciprocity rule (PA-NJ, OH-WV-KY-IN-MI-PA, MD-VA-DC, IL-IA-KY-MI-WI) or the non-resident filing requirement. Regional managers covering multi-state portfolios are the typical case — withholding to the wrong state forces W-2c corrections at year-end.

Push the labor allocation journal to the GL by property — onsite managers and dedicated maintenance allocate to a single property; floating techs and regional staff allocate by hours worked or by door count. Owner statements depend on this; misallocation surfaces in monthly owner reporting.

FLSA requires three-year retention of payroll records (rates, hours, gross/net, deductions) and two-year retention of supporting timecards. State rules can be longer (NY requires six years). Store the period's register PDF, timecard exports, and approval log in the document vault under a tamper-evident path.

Office staff (clerical class code) carry a much lower comp rate than maintenance techs (building maintenance class code). A leasing agent who picks up turn-cleaning shifts is a frequent miscoding. Audit class assignments at each pay period — workers' comp audits at year-end reclassify miscoded hours and bill the differential plus penalty.

Reconcile the pay register total to the ACH credit batch, EFTPS debit, and state tax debits hitting the operating account. Catching a missed direct deposit return or a duplicated tax debit here is far cheaper than catching it at month-end close.

Confirm the payroll system is running the current quarter's federal tables and any mid-year state changes (annual SUTA rate updates, locality rate changes). Most modern payroll providers push these automatically — verify the version stamp rather than assume.

Review the user roster in AppFolio / Buildium / Yardi payroll. Remove access for terminated staff, downgrade managers who no longer need to approve registers, and confirm the segregation between register prep (administrator) and register approval (controller). SOC compliance and owner audits will check this.

Run the period's payroll-data backup and spot-check a restore on the test instance. Cloud-hosted payroll providers handle the backup; what the firm controls is the export of register PDFs, ACH files, and tax filings to its own document vault.

At quarter end, tie the sum of weekly registers to Form 941 line totals (wages, federal withholding, FICA). Variances must be resolved before the 941 is filed — a mismatch between quarterly 941s and the year-end W-3 triggers an IRS CP 2100 notice, which is a multi-month back-and-forth to clear.