Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks

Nature of the Work
Employment
Job Outlook

(D.O.T. 215.362-018, .367-022, .382-014, .482-010)

• Nature of the Work

  Payroll and timekeeping clerks perform a vital function—ensuring that employees are paid on time and that their paychecks are correct. They adjust monetary errors or incorrect amounts of vacation time, research these records, and perform other clerical tasks.
  
  Timekeeping clerks distribute and collect timecards each pay period. These workers review employee workcharts, timesheets, and timecards to ensure that information is properly recorded, and that the records have the signatures of authorizing officials. For example, they may recalculate total hours on a timesheet that has many complex entries. In companies that bill for the time spent by staff, such as law or accounting firms, timekeeping clerks make sure the hours recorded are charged to the correct job so the client can be properly billed. They review computer reports listing timecards that cannot be processed because of errors and contact the employee or the employee's supervisor to resolve the problem. Timekeeping clerks also keep informed of new payroll policies and inform managers and other employees of procedural changes.
  
  In the payroll department, payroll clerks, also called payroll technicians, screen the timecards for calculating, coding, or other errors. Then they compute pay by subtracting allotments like retirement, Federal and State taxes, insurance, or savings from gross earnings. Increasingly, computers perform these calculations and alert payroll clerks to problems or errors in the data. For small organizations or for new employees whose records are not yet entered into a computer system, clerks may perform all the necessary calculations. In some small offices, payroll is processed by clerks or other employees in the accounting department.
  
  Payroll clerks also maintain paper backup files for research and reference. They record changes in employee addresses; close out files when workers retire, resign, or transfer; and advise employees on income tax withholding and other mandatory deductions. They also issue and record adjustments to pay because of previous errors or retroactive increases. Payroll clerks must follow changes in tax and deduction laws, so they have to be aware of the most current revisions. They prepare and mail earnings and tax withholding statements in early January for employees' use in preparing their income tax returns.
  
  In small offices, payroll and timekeeping duties are more likely to be included in the duties of a general office clerk, secretary, or accounting clerk. Larger organizations employ specialized payroll and timekeeping clerks to perform these functions.

• Employment

  Payroll and timekeeping clerks held about 161,000 jobs in 1996. About 35 percent of all payroll and timekeeping clerks worked in business, health, education, and social services; about 25 percent worked in manufacturing; and more than 10 percent were in wholesale and retail trade or in government. About 14 percent of all payroll and timekeeping clerks worked part time in 1996.

• Job Outlook

  Numerous job openings for persons seeking work as payroll and timekeeping clerks should be available through the year 2006. Many jobs will open up each year as these workers transfer to other occupations—many payroll clerks use this position as a steppingstone to higher-level accounting jobs—or leave the labor force.
  
  Employment of payroll and timekeeping clerks is expected to decline through the year 2006 as continuing automation of the payroll and timekeeping function makes these workers more productive. The technology having the greatest effect on employment is the expanding use of automated timeclocks to calculate employees' hours and balances. These automated timeclocks allow large organizations to centralize their timekeeping duties in one location. At individual sites, employee hours are increasingly tracked by computer and verified by managers. Then, this information is compiled and sent to a central office to be processed by payroll clerks. This eliminates the need to have payroll clerks at every site. Also, timekeeping duties are more commonly being distributed to secretaries, general office clerks, or accounting clerks, or are being contracted out to organizations that specialize in these services.
  
  (See introductory statement on record clerks for information on working conditions, training requirements, and earnings.)

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