Closing the payroll period locks working-time data for the duration of payroll. The close is done in the Team → Period lens. It does not require everything to be finished, and it is not a precondition for exporting the payroll material.
See where the period stands
The Period lens shows the period’s phase – Open, Ready, Exported, Partly exported or Locked – along with the due date and the readiness table.
The rows that are awaiting link to the approval queue. The Period lens shows what is missing, but approval decisions are made in the queue. See Approve working time.
Remind missing is a separate action, not part of locking. Use it before the close if you want the missing days in time.
Lock period
Press Lock period. The lock is removed with Lift lock. Both are administrator and payroll rights.
The close does not require a hundred per cent readiness. You can lock the period even if days are missing. The readiness table does not block locking.
The lock is always organisation-wide. An individual team or person is not locked separately.
What the lock stops and what it does not
| The lock stops | The lock does not stop |
|---|---|
| confirming a day | punching in and out |
| approval | editing drafts |
| correction | approving absences |
| undoing an approval | sending the payroll material onward |
| returning | |
| reopening a day | |
| cancelling an export batch |
On a locked period the employee sees: “The period is locked for payroll. Changes go through once payroll lifts the lock.”
The lock sends no notification whatsoever. Nobody gets a message that the period was locked – an employee notices the lock only when trying to change a day. If you want the missing days before the close, use Remind missing separately and in good time.
Closing and exporting are different things
Closing and exporting are independent of each other. The export does not require a close, and a period can go straight from open to exported. The lock protects working-time data from changing; the export moves approved days on to payroll. See Export the payroll material.
If something goes wrong
Days are missing, but payroll has to run. Lock the period. A day approved late is not left out: the next payroll transfer picks it up automatically. The app shows the same message: “The next transfer picks up the leftovers automatically.”
The period needs a correction after the fact. The order is always the same:
- Lift lock.
- Correct the day.
- The employee confirms the day again.
- The supervisor approves it.
See Correct a day you already confirmed.
The day to be corrected has already been exported. The correction returns the day to draft as normal, but the content of the original export batch does not change. The corrected day travels with the next transfer.
An employee says they cannot confirm a day. Check the period’s phase. If it is Locked, the employee sees the message “The period is locked for payroll…”. Lift the lock if the correction is warranted.