---
title: Pay Periods
keywords: pay periods, payroll periods, work quota, working hours, payroll overview, close pay period, delete pay period, daytime working hours, future periods, payroll
summary: "Guide to pay periods in Manor Payroll: how periods are generated from firm payroll settings, the pay period overview list, the period detail view (pay period, statistics and work quotas cards plus the users table), editing daily work quotas, adjusting the future periods buffer, and closing or deleting a period."
url: /payroll
---

# Pay Periods

## Introduction

A **pay period** is a defined window of time — usually a calendar month — for which Manor calculates expected working hours, gathers logged time and hours confirmations, and prepares payroll. Pay periods are the backbone of the Payroll module: every confirmation, alert and payroll batch belongs to a period.

The **Payroll** section appears in the main navigation once the payroll feature is enabled. Its **Overview** page (the default landing page of the Payroll section) lists all pay periods for the selected firm.

![Payroll overview listing pay periods](../screenshots/payroll-overview.png)

## How Pay Periods Are Generated

Pay periods are created automatically from the firm's payroll settings. Manor keeps a rolling buffer of future periods based on the **Future periods count** configured for the firm (Management > Firms > [Firm Name] > Payroll settings). When the payroll settings are saved, Manor fills any missing periods up to and including the current period and then tops up the buffer with the configured number of future periods.

Because generation depends on the firm's payroll settings, make sure the firm's **First day of period**, **Daily working hours** and **Future periods** are set before you expect periods to appear. See [Firm Payroll Settings](../management/firm-payroll-settings.md) for details.

> **Tip:** If no periods appear after enabling payroll, open the firm's **Payroll settings** and click **Save**. This triggers generation using the current settings.

> **Note:** Saving the payroll settings also **recalculates the working quota of every existing pay period** for the firm — past, current and future periods, including closed ones. The quotas already listed here are re-derived from the current **Daily working hours** and **Friday working hours**, so changing those fields rewrites historical and already-confirmed periods too. See [Firm Payroll Settings](../management/firm-payroll-settings.md) for details.

### Reducing the future periods buffer

Lowering the **Future periods count** and saving the payroll settings also **silently removes trailing future periods** — the newest periods are deleted automatically so that only the configured number of future periods remain. There is no extra confirmation dialog.

Manor only does this while nobody in the period it is about to remove has already confirmed their hours. As soon as any user in the last (newest) future period has confirmed their hours — either themselves or via a manager — Manor **stops deleting and keeps all remaining periods**, even though the number of future periods is now higher than the configured count. To shrink the buffer further you must first clear those confirmations (or wait until the confirmed period is no longer a future period).

By contrast, **increasing** the count only adds new periods; it never removes any.

## The Overview List

The **Overview** page displays one row per pay period with these columns:

| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| **No.** | The period number. |
| **Name** | The period name, usually the month and year (for example "September 2026"). |
| **Start date** / **End date** | The first and last day of the period. |
| **Working quota** | The total expected working hours for a full-time employee in the period, excluding weekends and firm holidays. |
| **Status** | **Open** or **Closed**. |
| **Active users** | Number of active employees included in the period. |
| **Confirmed users** | Number of employees who have confirmed their hours. |
| **Confirmation ratio** | Percentage of active employees who have confirmed. |
| **Billable ratio** | Percentage of logged hours that were added to billable projects. |

Use **Quick filter** to narrow the list. The quick filter matches the period's **start date**, **end date**, **period number** and **creation date** — it does **not** match the period's name, so typing a month name such as "December" returns no results. Use the **Open status** dropdown to show **Both open and closed**, **Open** or **Closed** periods, and the **Firm and department** dropdown (when more than one firm exists) to restrict the list. **Export** downloads the list.

Click any row to open the period details.

## Period Details

Opening a period shows a summary on the left and the users list on the right.

![Pay period details with the pay period, statistics and work quotas cards and the users table](../screenshots/payroll-period-details.png)

### Pay period card

Shows the period **Name**, **Firm**, **Start date**, **End date**, **Daytime working hours** (the total working quota for the period) and **Status**.

### Statistics card

- **Total number of users** — employees included in the period.
- **Confirmed users** — percentage of users who have confirmed.
- **Total hours logged** — sum of all logged hours in the period.
- **Average hours logged** — average per user.
- **Billable ratio** — percentage of logged hours on billable projects.

### Work quotas card

Lists every day of the period with the expected hours for that day. Weekends and firm holidays show no hours. The **Total** row is the period's working quota (for example 176.00 hours). Click **Edit work quota** to adjust the expected hours for individual days.

> **Note:** The **Daytime working hours** shown in the **Pay period** card and the **Total** row of the **Work quotas** card are produced from different sources and can disagree, even in a period that has never been edited. For example, a period may show **170** as its Daytime working hours while the per-day table totals **168.00** (see the screenshot below), or **182** against **176.00**. The mismatch is visible as soon as the period is opened and survives page reloads; it is also reflected in the **Working quota** column of the Payroll overview and the **Working hours** column of the users table. Not every period is affected — some show matching figures. The day-by-day rows are the itemised breakdown of the hours applied to each individual day; treat them as the detail behind the period and expect the headline figure and the per-day Total not to always add up.

![A pay period whose Pay period card shows 170 daytime working hours while the Work quotas Total reads 168.00](../screenshots/payroll-period-summary-vs-total.png)

### Users table

The **Users** card lists the employees included in the period. Columns are:

| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| **No.** | The row number. |
| **Name** | The user's name. |
| **Unit** | The user's unit (department). |
| **Firm** | The user's firm. |
| **Location** | The user's location. |
| **Level** | The user's level (for example Lögmaður or Fulltrúi). |
| **Hours logged** | The total hours the user logged in the period. |
| **Working quota** | The user's expected working hours for the period, based on their employment ratio. |
| **Hours for monthly salary** | The hours that count towards the user's monthly salary. |
| **Working hours** | The user's normal working hours in the period. |
| **Overtime hours** | Hours the user worked beyond their working hours. |
| **Billable ratio** | Percentage of the user's logged hours that were added to billable projects. |

When the firm has configured special payroll projects (for example summer vacation, paid leave or sick leave), additional columns appear between **Working quota** and **Hours for monthly salary**, each headed with the name of the configured project.

> **Note:** A user's **Working quota** is the period's **Daytime working hours** figure scaled by that user's employment ratio. If a period's Daytime working hours reads 170, a full-time (100%) employee shows 170.00, a 50% employee 85.00 and an 80% employee 136.00. Because the ratio scales that headline figure rather than the itemised per-day **Work quotas** total, a user's Working quota can differ from the sum of the per-day figures for the same period (for example, a user might show a Working quota of 140.80 while the per-day table totals 176.00). The user's ratio is the **Current employment ratio** shown on the Employments page. See [Payroll](payroll.md) and [Employments](employments.md).

![A pay period showing Daytime working hours 136 while the user's Working quota is 108.80, i.e. 80% of 136](../screenshots/payroll-period-working-quota-ratio.png)

Use **Quick filter**, **Unit**, **Location**, **Level** and **Employment ratio** to narrow the list, and **Export** to download it.

Clicking a user's row opens that user's period confirmation dialog, which contains a **Hours are confirmed by user.** field (and, depending on the firm's configuration and your permissions, additional fields such as manager confirmation or a flextime deposit). Click **Save** to apply the change. See [Confirmations](confirmations.md) for how confirmations work.

## Editing Daily Work Quotas

Clicking **Edit work quota** on a period opens a dialog listing every day of the period, each with an editable hours value. Weekdays default to the firm's **Daily working hours** and weekends default to 0. Adjust a day's value to reflect a shorter day, a half-day or a firm-specific exception, then click **Save**.

The value you enter is saved and does take effect: the period's **Daytime working hours** and the users' **Working quota** update after saving and the change survives later saves of the firm's payroll settings. Note, however, that the dialog is shown as a placeholder only — when you reopen it, a day you previously set to a custom value (for example 4) is displayed as the standard default (for example 8) rather than your saved number, so the dialog does not show the current override. Always enter the intended value again if you re-save the dialog, because re-saving without re-entering your custom value writes the standard default and overwrites the override. The blank/default shown is not the stored value.

![Edit work quota dialog with an editable hours field for every day of the period](../screenshots/payroll-period-work-quota-dialog.png)

## Closing a Pay Period

When the hours for a period have been reviewed and confirmed, click **Close** at the top of the period details to mark the period **Closed**. A closed period locks its time records: time entries that belong to a closed period can no longer be added, edited or deleted, and employees are no longer prompted to confirm it.

The **Close** button is a toggle — clicking it again on a closed period reopens the period.

> **Important:** Only close a period once you are confident all time entries are complete, because closing prevents further edits to the underlying time records.

## Deleting a Pay Period

The **Delete pay period** button removes a period. Only the most recent pay period can be deleted; the button is disabled (with the note **"Only the last pay period can be deleted."**) for earlier periods. Deletion is therefore intended for cleaning up the most recently generated period — for example after lowering the **Future periods count** while no one had confirmed yet.

Deleting a period asks for confirmation before it is removed.

## Related Documentation

- [Payroll](payroll.md) — Overview of the Payroll section
- [Firm Payroll Settings](../management/firm-payroll-settings.md) — Configuring period dates, daily working hours and the future periods buffer
- [Confirmations](confirmations.md) — Reviewing and confirming employee hours
- [Payroll Alerts](payroll-alerts.md) — Reminding employees to confirm before a period closes
- [Employments](employments.md) — Employment records that drive expected hours