{"id":2831,"date":"2026-02-01T05:51:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T11:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/?p=2831"},"modified":"2026-03-27T09:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T14:50:19","slug":"pay-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay Period"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"what-is-a-pay-period\"><\/span>What Is a Pay Period?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A pay period is a defined amount of time over which an employee is paid. This is a recurring amount of time and generally falls into one of these four time periods:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Monthly<\/li>\n<li>Bi-monthly<\/li>\n<li>Weekly<\/li>\n<li>Bi-weekly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pay period can also be referred to by several other terms, including payroll schedule, pay frequency, payroll frequency, and payroll period. There is no difference between any of these terms \u2013 they all mean the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>There are additional requirements for employers in some states, but consistent pay periods have to be set by the employer as a general rule.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how-are-pay-periods-determined\"><\/span>How Are Pay Periods Determined?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>There is no hard and fast rule for what your business should determine is the best pay period for you and your employees. Here are a couple of questions you should be asking before setting your business\u2019s pay period:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are you employees paid by the hour, or are they salaried?<\/li>\n<li>What type of business do you run?<\/li>\n<li>Who handles your payroll?<\/li>\n<li>What is your cash flow situation?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When setting up your business and deciding on your pay period, you should consult with your accountant as they can offer professional advice on what pay period would work best for you and your employees.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how-different-pay-periods-work\"><\/span>How Different Pay Periods Work<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>While monthly and weekly pay periods are relatively straightforward, there can be some confusion around bi-weekly and bi-monthly. From a payroll perspective, bi-weekly means that employees are paid every two weeks, and bi-monthly means they are paid twice a month.<\/p>\n<p>This may seem like the same thing, but there are slight differences. With bi-monthly pay periods, employees receive exactly two payments each month \u2013 generally on the 15th and the last day of the month \u2013 for a total of 24 payments per year. Since the payments are usually determined by date, they can fall on any day of the week depending on the month.<\/p>\n<p>Bi-weekly pay periods, on the other hand, usually designate specific days of the week as payment days \u2013 for example, every other Friday. Since there aren&#8217;t exactly four weeks in every month, bi-weekly pay periods mean that employees may sometimes receive three payments in a month. They usually receive a total of 26 payments per year.<\/p>\n<p>******<\/p>\n<p><em>See our full list of over 50 Small Business Terms <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/small-business-glossary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Is a Pay Period? A pay period is a defined amount of time over which an employee is paid. This is a recurring amount of time and generally falls into one of these four time periods: Monthly Bi-monthly Weekly Bi-weekly Pay period can also be referred to by several other terms, including payroll schedule, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.10 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Demystifying Pay Periods: Understanding the Basics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Explore the concept of pay periods, which are defined amounts of time over which employees are paid.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Demystifying Pay Periods: Understanding the Basics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Explore the concept of pay periods, which are defined amounts of time over which employees are paid.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zoomshift\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-01T11:51:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-27T14:50:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ZoomShift\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ZoomShift\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/\",\"name\":\"Demystifying Pay Periods: Understanding the Basics\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-01T11:51:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-27T14:50:19+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9ba35c556ffdf9d8dab06992b17a4b0d\"},\"description\":\"Explore the concept of pay periods, which are defined amounts of time over which employees are paid.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/pay-period\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pay Period\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Zoomshift\",\"description\":\"SMB Management Blog\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9ba35c556ffdf9d8dab06992b17a4b0d\",\"name\":\"ZoomShift\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zoomshift.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/05af010fb3485fa8095793cfff89a5e6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/05af010fb3485fa8095793cfff89a5e6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"ZoomShift\"},\"description\":\"The leading scheduling software designed for hourly employees. 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