Calculating the semi-monthly pay is not as simple as it sounds, it requires a bit of technical knowledge. Let us first try to understand the difference between the payment basis mentioned above. Since anything over 40 is considered semi monthly vs bi weekly overtime hours, you pay for 28 regular hours in the previous pay period and 12 regular and 4 overtime hours in the current pay period. Add that to the other hours they worked in each pay period—and you’ll have their paycheck.
The 15th and the last day of the month are typically the days on which employees paid semi-monthly are paid, but the employer is free to select two additional dates, such as the 1st and the 15th. The day each pay date falls on can change, even though the date of payment is always the same. For instance, the fifteenth might fall on a Friday while the fifteenth falls on a Tuesday. Unlike biweekly pay, where pay periods occur every two weeks, semimonthly paychecks occur 24 times a year, or twice a month for 12 months.
How to calculate semimonthly pay periods
For example, say you pay a salaried employee $72,000 annually using a semimonthly payroll calendar. In other words, you’ll pay them a https://www.bookstime.com/ gross salary of $3,000 each pay period. Now, while this may seem clear-cut, the reality of pay schedules can be a little more complex.
Some deductions are carried out on a monthly basis, which needs to be converted into the 24 pay periods for a semi-monthly payment system so that they can be matched with monthly deductions. Now we already know that a semi-monthly payment regime has 24 pay periods. So now we simply need to divide the annual gross income by the number of pay periods. The semi-monthly payment method requires payment of wages twice every month.