Payroll Prep FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Payroll Prep.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Payroll Prep Overview.
Setup
Do I need the Timesheets app before Payroll Prep works?
Yes. All hours come from approved timesheets. If there are no approved timesheets for a pay period, the report for that period will have no data. Timesheets must be enabled and employees must have submitted and approved timesheets before you generate a payroll report.
Where do I configure pay periods, overtime, and pay dates?
Pay-period settings (weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly), the weekly overtime threshold, and the overtime multiplier are shared with Timesheets, Attendance, and Scheduling. Configure them once in General Settings > Payroll Settings — they apply across all four apps. The defaults are biweekly pay periods, a 40-hour weekly overtime threshold, and a 1.5× overtime multiplier.
How do I turn the Payroll Agent on or off in Ask AI?
Go to Payroll Prep > Settings and turn Enable Payroll Agent on or off. When enabled, employees can ask pay questions in the Ask AI sidebar. Only an admin or a Payroll Prep app admin can change this setting. When Hide Pay Amounts is turned on in General Settings, the agent stops answering pay questions for anyone pay is hidden from (administrators are exempt) — it can still tell them their pay dates and, where your organization issues one, list their Form 1095-C.
Permissions and access
Who can access payroll reports?
Administrators, managers, and users who have been granted the payroll permission through your organization’s role configuration. Managers and payroll-permission holders see only the people their own payroll access covers — usually the locations they oversee and their own reporting line — and no one else’s pay. Administrators see all locations. A Payroll Prep app admin can manage settings but is still location-scoped for report data: they see pay only for people at locations where their role holds payroll access and in their own reporting line. An app admin whose role holds payroll access nowhere and who leads no one sees no one’s pay, and Payroll Prep says so instead of generating an empty report.
Why can’t a manager see a report they didn’t create?
A non-admin user can only view a report if they created it or if all of the locations in that report’s filter are within the locations they have access to. If the report includes any location outside their scope, they are blocked. Have an admin regenerate the report filtered to just that manager’s locations, or grant the manager access to the additional locations.
What is step-up verification, and why am I asked to verify my identity?
Every time someone views or downloads pay amounts, the platform requires recent identity verification (a 15-minute window). This protects sensitive compensation data. Every view and download is also logged for compliance. If you are prompted, re-enter your credentials — the verification lasts 15 minutes before it is required again.
Day-to-day
What does a payroll report contain?
Each report is a per-employee register for a pay period or custom date range. Per employee the report page shows hours (regular, overtime, total), hourly rate, regular pay, overtime pay, premium pay, total gross pay and shift count. Every export (CSV, PDF, JSON) carries the same figures plus premium hours, and the CSV adds an itemized breakdown by premium code such as night or weekend differentials. Optionally the export includes each employee’s leave balance, leave days used in the period and unpaid leave hours (N/A — null in the JSON — when the report was generated without leave data). Report-level totals cover regular pay, overtime pay, premium pay and total gross: the PDF ends on a total line and the JSON carries totals for the people in the file, who generated the report and when (with regenerated_at when it was regenerated).
Does Payroll Prep calculate taxes or net pay?
No. All amounts are gross pay — regular pay plus overtime pay plus premium pay. Net (take-home) pay, tax withholding (federal, state, local, FICA), and deductions are not calculated or subtracted here. Export the gross-pay register and hand it to your bank, accountant, or payroll provider for the net-pay and tax steps. For full-cycle payroll with an external provider, use Payroll Connect instead.
Can I regenerate a report with updated data?
Yes. Open the report and choose Regenerate. The report is recalculated from the latest approved timesheets and current employee pay rates. The regenerated report appears right away. A report scoped to a location that has since been deleted cannot be regenerated; generate a new report for the period instead. If someone else regenerates a report you created, you receive a Payroll Report Ready email, provided Payroll Report Ready Notifications is on in Admin → Notification Settings; regenerating your own report sends no email.
What export formats are available?
Reports export to CSV, PDF (print-ready, landscape), or JSON. The CSV export includes an itemized premium-pay breakdown column in your organization’s currency, a Rate Status column that flags a line with no pay rate on file, and ends with an Employee Number column holding your organization’s own employee number (the first column, Employee ID, is MangoApps’ internal id). Choose a format when you create the report; a completed report’s ⋮ menu also downloads it in the other two.
How is overtime calculated?
Overtime is calculated on a weekly basis within each timesheet — not across the entire pay period. Hours in excess of the weekly overtime threshold (default 40 hours) in any 7-day week are overtime. Overtime pay equals the employee’s hourly rate multiplied by the overtime multiplier (default 1.5×). Both the threshold and the multiplier are configurable in General Settings.
When something looks wrong
“An employee’s report line says No rate on file but they worked hours”
The employee has no pay rate on their compensation record. On the report page Payroll Prep marks the line No rate on file (the rate and pay show a dash) rather than guessing a number — the PDF prints No rate on file and a dash for regular, overtime and total pay; the CSV and JSON keep a 0.00 rate for processors that import them and flag the line — the CSV’s Rate Status column, and rate_on_file: false in the JSON — so finance can spot the gap. Set the employee’s hourly rate in their compensation record and regenerate the report — the corrected rate will be picked up.
“I enabled the Payroll Agent but employees say it’s not available in Ask AI”
Four things must all be true for the Payroll Agent to appear: (1) Payroll Prep is enabled for your organization, (2) the Timesheets app is enabled, (3) the Enable Payroll Agent switch in Payroll Prep > Settings is on, and (4) Payroll Prep is published to the employee (and they are in its access groups, if it has any) — publishing decides which employees have the Payroll Agent even though only managers, payroll-permission holders and its app admins see Payroll Prep itself in the app launcher. If Hide Pay Amounts is on in General Settings, the agent is still there but answers no pay questions for people pay is hidden from — it can only tell them their pay schedule and, where your organization issues one, list their Form 1095-C — so it cannot surface amounts the organization has chosen to suppress.
“A manager can’t see pay columns or download the report”
If Hide Pay Amounts is turned on in General Settings, non-admin users see only hours on the report page, which tells them the report file includes pay so an administrator downloads it — every export format carries pay figures, so there is no Download for them. Admins still see and download full pay data. If this is not the intended behaviour, turn off Hide Pay Amounts in General Settings.
“The report says ‘failed’ — what went wrong?”
A report is marked failed only when an error stopped it from being built. Regenerate it; if it fails again, contact support. A period with no approved timesheets does not fail — the report completes with no employee rows, and the report page says why.
“Why is someone missing from my report?”
Only approved timesheets are counted. The report page lists how many people have hours in the period on a timesheet that is not approved, and how many had a timesheet approved after the report ran. Approve the timesheets, then regenerate the report.
Licensing and limits
Does Payroll Prep require a licence?
Yes. It is a licensed marketplace app that is disabled by default. An administrator enables it per organization. It does not appear in the public app directory — it is visible only to organizations that have been explicitly licensed for it.
Are there limits I should know about?
- Export formats: CSV, PDF, JSON
- Pay-period frequencies: weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly
- Weekly overtime threshold: configurable, default 40 hours
- Overtime multiplier: configurable, default 1.5×
- Report pagination: 10 reports per page on the list view; 25 employees per page on a report
- Not included: net pay, tax withholding, direct deposit, and tax-form generation (W-2, 1099)
More help
- Payroll Prep Overview
- Ask AI — the Payroll Agent answers employee pay questions from these articles and from their own payroll data.