Payroll management is a major responsibility. Ensuring employees are paid accurately, on time, and in compliance with regulations can be complex\u2014especially if you\u2019re not fully familiar with the rules.<\/p>\n
That being said, recent reports have shown that a staggering amount of American employees have experienced payroll errors. In <\/span>2019<\/span><\/a> alone, the IRS uncovered over 5 million payroll tax errors, resulting in $13.7 billion in penalties. And, with <\/span>65% of workers <\/span><\/a>living from paycheck to paycheck, this can cause significant issues. For businesses, hefty fines and reputation damage can be problematic because of these payroll mistakes.<\/span><\/p>\n Because payroll errors impact both your team and your bottom line, we\u2019ve compiled five common payroll mistakes\u2014and how to avoid them in 2026.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re running <\/span>shift-based employee schedules<\/span><\/a> it can be tricky to keep on top of varying standard pay rates, overtime, and who has covered which shifts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You may want to prioritize keeping your non-exempt employees to less than 40 hours per week which, in itself, can be tricky. Non-exempt workers, after all, are entitled to a rate of pay that\u2019s at least time and one-half of their standard pay rate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On top of this, each state may have its own pay and overtime rules, adding further complexities to your payroll.<\/span><\/p>\n But in the midst of this juggle, it\u2019s easy to inadvertently miscalculate pay and overtime, especially if you\u2019re working with a manual scheduling system.<\/span><\/p>\n By miscalculating standard pay or overtime compensation, your employees are within their rights to file a complaint with the Department of Labor, which may see you face a <\/span>penalty of $1,000<\/span><\/a> plus any other state-specific penalties.<\/span><\/p>\n The only way to avoid pay miscalculations is to use a <\/span>robust employee scheduling system<\/span><\/a> that keeps an accurate representation of each employee\u2019s rates, hours and overtime worked. Ideally, a tool that manages this digitally, like ZoomShift, will reduce human error and also integrate with your payroll to ensure that all the right information is automatically pulled through, preventing payroll mistakes.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/span>5 common payroll mistakes and ways to eliminate them<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
1. Miscalculating pay\/overtime<\/span><\/h3>\n
How this happens<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The impact<\/strong><\/h4>\n
How to mitigate it<\/strong><\/h4>\n