In PaySauce, employees can have many different payments. These might include a salary, an hourly rate, piece rates, allowances, commissions, etc.
One of these payments must be marked as the primary payment. This article explains what the primary payment does, why it's important, and how to check or change it.
What is a primary payment?
The primary payment is the payment that PaySauce treats as the employee's main, base pay. It's usually the employee's salary or main hourly rate - the payment that represents their regular wages, not an allowance, bonus, or one-off.
Every employee in PaySauce must have exactly one payment marked as primary. You can see which payment is the primary by looking at the employee's Payments tab. There's a column on the left of the payments under P for primary, and the primary payment has a tick in that column.
Why the primary payment matters
The primary payment isn't just a label. PaySauce uses the primary payment to drive several important calculations and settings:
The work pattern (the hours the employee normally works each day of the week) sits at the bottom of the primary payment. The work pattern only exists on the primary payment — you won't see those fields on other payments.
When an employee takes leave, PaySauce uses the work pattern on the primary payment to work out how many hours to pay them for the day.
The work pattern also tells PaySauce which days the employee would normally work, which determines whether a public holiday is an "otherwise working day" for that employee.
PaySauce runs background calculations every pay period to keep a record of important leave figures (such as the rate to use for a leave payout). These calculations rely on the primary payment being present and identifiable.
If an employee doesn't have a primary payment set — or if the primary payment isn't included in a pay run — you may see errors such as "Rate could not be determined for leave payout."
How to check which payment is primary
Go to the Employees tab and select the employee.
Open the Payments tab.
Look at the column on the left labelled P. The payment with a tick in that column is the primary payment.
Which payment should be the primary?
The primary payment should be the employee's main, ordinary pay — usually:
For a salaried employee, their salary
For an hourly employee, their main hourly rate
It shouldn't be an allowance, a one-off payment, a bonus, or a reimbursing payment. If you're not sure which of an employee's payments should be primary, the rule of thumb is: which payment represents their ordinary, regular wages? That's the one.
Common issues
Issue | Resolution |
The employee has no primary payment | Every employee must have a primary payment. If none is set, you'll need to tick the P column on the payment that represents the employee's ordinary pay. Without a primary payment, leave calculations and work pattern settings won't function correctly. |
The work pattern fields aren't showing | The work pattern only appears on the primary payment. If you're looking at a payment and can't see the work pattern fields, check the P column on the employee's payment list — you're probably on a non-primary payment. |
Errors during a pay run that mention the primary payment | If you see an error such as "Rate could not be determined for leave payout," it may be because the primary payment isn't included in the current pay run, or no primary payment is set at all. See Errors and warnings for resolution steps. |