Save Yourself From Future Dilemmas by Always Checking Your Pay Stubs
Who doesn’t love payday? Well, if your pay stub is inaccurate, payday can turn into more of a hassle than a celebration. But, what’s even worse than that? Not checking your pay stub and remaining blissfully unaware of any inaccuracies and then realizing in the future that you have been getting underpaid! That is why, as an employee, you should get in the habit of always checking your pay stubs on payday.
Eventually, after a few paydays, getting your pay stub will seem very routine to you. You may begin to start slacking on reading over your pay stub and checking out all of the information. You are thinking, the money’s in my account, I’m all set! But, you should never stop checking your pay stub! Your pay stub is full of important information so it’s crucial you check it to ensure the information is correct.
Making a mistake when creating pay stubs manually is very common. Each employee’s pay stub will look different and there are several tricky calculations you will have to handle on each pay stub. Using an online pay stub generator can help solve all of your payroll problems. With a pay stub provider such as 123PayStubs, you can ensure the pay stubs you generate are accurate and professional. But, even so, it is still important for you to check your pay stubs.
You should always be on the lookout to make sure the following information is correct on your pay stub:
What’s on your Pay Stub?
The items you will typically find on your pay stub include:
- Gross Wages
- Employee taxes
- Deductions
- Employer Contributions
- Employer Taxes
- Net Pay
These items will provide employers and employees a way to keep track of their payments, taxes, and deductions which are all important and should be correct on your pay stub.
Employee Information
This may seem like overkill, but the first thing you should check on your pay stub is your name, address, social security number, and pay rate. Although your employer should have this information readily available, everyone makes mistakes. One wrong number in your social security number could cause a whole slew of problems. So, you should review this information right away so that if it is wrong you can get it taken care of quickly and avoid an even bigger hassle in the future.
With 123PayStubs, employers can make an unlimited number of corrections on the paystubs they are creating for no additional charge.
Hours Worked and Time Off
As a salaried employee, you may think you are exempt from having to check your pay stub for the number of hours you work, but we are here to advise your otherwise. It is always important to check your hours worked whether you are a salaried or hourly employee. Employees working on an hourly basis should track their hours and compare their records with the information on their pay stubs every pay period. Whereas salaried employees should ensure that their hours worked are the same every month.
Employees and contractors should also keep a record of any leave time they take throughout the year and check to make sure it aligns with what is on their pay stub. Oftentimes, people will need to take a few hours or a day off from work every now and then, but it can become very challenging to remember all the time you took off and when. Thus, it’s helpful to keep a record of your time off so that when you check your pay stubs, you can ensure the correct amount of time-off was included on your pay stub.
Correct Taxes and Withholdings
Everyone always complains about how much of their paycheck is lost in taxes to the IRS. Can you imagine having to pay more taxes than necessary due to a payroll discrepancy? Ugh, the horror! To avoid this, you must check your paystubs every month to ensure that you have not been overcharged.
If you’re an employee, when you were hired, your employer gave you a W-4 to complete. On your W-4 you were required to provide information about your filing status which determines the personal allowances you owe to the IRS. So, employers use this form to determine the federal income tax amount to withhold from the employee’s paycheck every pay period.
Also, employers deduct a certain amount from employee paychecks to pay FICA taxes (Social Security and Medicare), and state or local taxes, if any.
You should always make sure the withholdings on your pay stub reflect the information on your W-4 and that too much or too little wasn’t withheld. If too much was withheld, you will have to wait until tax time to file a refund and get some of your money back. And if too little was withheld, you will eventually have to pay it all back at once. No one wants that, so check your pay stubs!
Benefits and Deductions
Employees should ensure that their benefit deductions have been calculated correctly. These deductions come from company benefits such as health and dental insurance, 401(k), etc. These are important things in people’s lives so they should always be accurate.
It’s also important to see whether or not your benefits are being deducted from your payroll at all. If they are not mentioned in your pay stub, that means you may not be accurately signed up for your company benefits plans. If you intended to be enrolled in your companies benefits plan and realize you aren’t, this could be an issue the next time you go to the dentist and receive your bill.
Net Pay
Probably the most important part of the pay stub for most people is the net pay. Net pay is an employee’s earnings after all deductions are taken out. It is the money you get to take home. Your net pay will allow you to accurately and confidently plan your monthly and yearly budgets. So, having this number be correct is crucial. All of your withholdings and deductions will affect your net pay, so ensuring they are accurate is very important.
Employees should be sure to check that the information on their last pay stub of the year matches the information on their W-2 form, which reports their wages and taxes paid for the year.
For Record-Keeping
We know many people are quick to throw away their pay stubs after receiving it. But, even if you have read and checked over your entire pay stub, you should still keep it. It is good practice to keep a record of your pay stubs for at least 7 years because you may need to use them in the future. Your pay stubs can be used for proof of income, which you will need for things such as buying a home or car, and they will provide you with useful information that can make filing your taxes easier.
When you use an online pay stub generator, your pay stubs are stored securely within your account so you don’t need to hold on to a bunch of paper copies. This makes for easy record-keeping and guarantees your pay stubs will always be readily available to you.
Create Pay Stubs in minutes with 123PayStubs
If anything is incorrect with an employee’s pay stub, it’s going to take time and effort to correct it. That is why employers should use an online paystub generator to create their pay stubs. Not only will an online pay stub generator save you time, but it will also ensure your pay stubs are accurate. Employers should use 123PayStubs as their go-to spot to create professional and accurate pay stubs in a matter of minutes! 123PayStubs offers a variety of pay stub templates that you can choose from to fit the needs of your business. Meeting your payroll requirement is easy with 123PayStubs!
