Understanding your payslip
Your payslip is not one number with some explanation attached. It is a short accounting of a period: what you earned, what was taken off, and what is left. This article walks the page top to bottom so you can check it yourself rather than asking someone to check it for you.
Where: My Pay in the sidebar, under Dashboard You need: nothing — you can always see your own
The two date ranges, first
Near the top of every payslip are two periods, and they are not the same range:
| Period | What it means |
|---|---|
| Payroll period | The pay period this payslip belongs to |
| Attendance period | The window of worked days this payslip was calculated from |
The attendance period is the one that decides what is on this payslip. Overtime you worked, a day you were late, an absence — each lands on the payslip whose attendance period contains it, not the one whose payroll period does.
This single distinction answers most payslip queries. Before concluding that something is missing, check whether the date falls inside the attendance period shown. If it does not, it belongs on the next payslip.
Choosing which payslip you are looking at
At the top of the page is a batch selector. A payroll batch is one run of payroll, so selecting a different batch shows a different payslip. If it says there is no payslip, none has been released to you yet for that run.
If a Download button is present you can save a copy. If it is not, downloading is a right your company has not given you — that is a decision, not a fault, and your payroll team can send you a copy.
Employee details
Your name, hire date, position, department, cost centre and employee ID, together with your statutory numbers — TIN, SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG.
All of this is copied from your profile. If a statutory number here is blank or wrong, the fix belongs on your profile rather than on the payslip, and it is worth doing quickly: contributions are reported against those numbers. See Your employee profile.
Payroll details
The payroll month, the two periods above, and the two things your pay is calculated from:
- Basic wage — your wage figure as recorded on your profile
- Wage period — whether that figure is monthly, daily or hourly
If the basic wage shown is not what you expect, that is a profile question, not a payroll one. Nothing else on the payslip will be right until it is.
Compensation
Everything being paid to you, grouped.
Wages — your base pay, adjusted for what actually happened in the attendance period:
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Monthly wage | Your wage for the period |
| Night shift | The premium for hours worked in the night window |
| OT window | Overtime, paid at the rate for the window it fell in |
| Holiday overpayment | Additional pay arising from holiday rules |
| Less total leave days | Leave days accounted for in the wage figure |
| Monthly tardy | The tardiness adjustment applied to wages |
Events — pay arising from recorded attendance events.
Other payments — allowances, bonuses and anything else your company pays outside wages. See Other payments: allowances, bonuses and deductions.
Accrual — where 13th month pay is accrued, this shows the amount accumulated for the period and the year-to-date total. It is a running total of what has built up, not a payment being made now. See 13th month pay.
Total compensation closes the section.
Deductions
Everything being taken off, in the same shape.
Wages — tardiness, absences and event-based reductions.
Employee contributions — your share of statutory contributions. The employer share is not deducted from you and does not appear here.
Other payments — deductions your company applies, including loan and advance repayments where you have them. See Your loans and advances.
Taxes — more than one line, because they are different things:
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Period tax | Tax on this period's pay |
| Bonus tax | Tax on bonus payments |
| Termination tax | Tax arising on final pay |
| Pension tax | Tax on pension-related amounts |
| Tax adjustment | A manual correction applied by payroll |
| Tax reconcile | The reconciliation that trues up tax across the year |
A tax reconciliation line is the usual reason a payslip differs noticeably from the previous one without your pay having changed. For what the tax figures are built from, see Payslip tax details explained.
Total deductions closes the section.
Payment details
Total payable — compensation minus deductions. This is the figure that reaches you.
Date paid appears once payment has been made. A payslip you can see is not necessarily a payslip that has been paid.
Reference activities
At the bottom is a dated list of the activities behind the wage adjustments — the individual days recorded as tardy or absent.
💡 This is the section to read when a deduction looks wrong. It names the actual dates, so you can compare them against what you remember and against your own records. "My pay is short" is hard to investigate; "I was marked absent on the 14th and I was there" is answered in a minute.
Simple and full payslips
There are two versions of this page:
| Version | Who sees it |
|---|---|
| Simple | Ordinary employees — everything described above |
| Full | People with payroll access — the same, plus tax detail, batch details, payslip history and a record of changes made |
If you administer payroll you get the full version on your own profile too, which is why your page may not match a colleague's. Neither version is a cut-down truth; they are the same payslip with different amounts of working shown.
Tips
- Check the attendance period before anything else. Most "this is missing" questions are answered by the date window.
- Read the reference activities, not just the totals. A wrong absence is visible there and invisible in a total.
- Query in the period it was issued. Once a payroll batch is closed, a correction becomes a retroactive adjustment on a later payslip rather than a fix to this one.
- Check statutory numbers once, properly. They are reported against you, and a blank one is easy to miss for months.
- Keep your own copies if you can download them. Payslips matter for loans, visas and disputes, sometimes years later.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
Q: My overtime is missing. Check the attendance period. Overtime worked after it ends appears on the next payslip.
Q: I was deducted for an absence I did not have. Find the date in Reference activities and raise it with your manager or payroll. If the period is still open it can be corrected there; if not it becomes an adjustment on a later payslip.
Q: My pay changed and nothing about my job did. Look for a tax reconcile or tax adjustment line. Year-end reconciliation moves take-home pay without any change to your salary.
Q: Why are there two tardiness lines? Tardiness appears as a wage line in both compensation and deductions. The dated list in Reference activities is what tells you which days produced it.
Q: There is no payslip for this batch. None has been released to you for that run yet.
Q: There is no download button. Downloading is a separate right. Ask your payroll team for a copy.
Q: My colleague's payslip page looks different. They have payroll access and are seeing the full version.
Q: The basic wage is wrong. That comes from your profile. It needs correcting there, and this payslip will not be right until it is.