The Ambiguity of ‘Biweekly’ and ‘Bimonthly’

Remember that a biweekly pay period is a good choice for those with hourly employees to pay, but if the majority of your employees are salaried, you may be better off choosing semimonthly. Just keep in mind that changing your payroll cycle can negatively affect your employees, so choose wisely. The cons of biweekly pay center around the fact that employees may receive less pay in a given pay check than on a monthly pay schedule.

However, since their paycheck is actually half of their monthly salary, the employee will simply receive this total 26 times over the course of the year. Like almost any other year, 2023 has 26 biweekly pay periods, with two of the twelve months having three payments. 🙋 Don’t confuse this tool with our semi-monthly pay calculator. While semi-monthly pay occurs twice a month, biweekly payment occurs every two weeks (usually on Fridays). Some months can have three Fridays on which you can receive pay. Biweekly pay periods run a close second among small businesses at 32%.

• Both biweekly and semimonthly payroll cycles have numerous advantages and disadvantages.
• The Ascent is a Motley Fool service that rates and reviews essential products for your everyday money matters.
• Gusto includes flexible payroll schedules, unlimited payroll runs, and multistate payroll capability.
• Biweekly pay is payment of salary created on the basis of every other Friday.
• How often you pay employees is much more than an administrative decision as it affects your ability to attract and retain great performers.
• If you deduct benefits from your workers’ paychecks, a bimonthly schedule is a smart choice.

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Cons of Bi-Weekly Pay: Employee’s Perspective

Depending on the makeup of your workforce, your recruiting goals, and your bookkeeping practices, weekly pay periods may be worth the expense. If you pay weekly or biweekly on one of those days, you’ll have an extra pay period that year. Biweekly is a good option to consider, and it’s also the most popular option in the U.S. — the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 36.5% of private businesses have decided to use biweekly pay as their pay system of choice. At work today, I had a few clients asking me how do you determine the number of hours for each pay period? To  begin this analysis, let’s determine, how many hours are in a year?

• In 2023, if you will be managing a traditional biweekly pay schedule, those who are paid biweekly will receive 26 paychecks.
• Since many types of benefits, including health insurance benefits, come with premiums that are charged every month, a bimonthly schedule will make processing them easier.
• Employers can adapt their payroll calendar to accommodate this since there are fewer pay dates each year.
• This is because there’s a good chance they’re used to this pay frequency and will find it easier to transition.

This might sound simple, but that means for two months out of the year, you’ll have three pay periods instead of two. In addition to getting paid 26 paychecks per year, employees will get twice as much money on every paycheck compared to weekly pay. As much as it may initially seem like choosing a payroll calendar is no big deal, the accounting software for small business reality is that it can have a major impact on your workers and business. Before you decide how often to pay your employees, consider all your options and compare their benefits and drawbacks. In addition, depending on where you’re located and who you hire, you may be legally required to pay your workers more than once per month.

By using a pay period calendar, employees can anticipate when they will receive their paychecks, and employers can manage their payroll processes more efficiently. A payroll calendar can help companies to budget and plan for compensation expenses over the entire year. For U.S.-based businesses, payroll departments will need to pay attention to major holidays when banks may be closed, and the timing of pay dates throughout the year. Biweekly is the most common option for a business’s pay period in the U.S. Biweekly pay means you pay your employees on a set day once every two weeks, resulting in 26 paychecks per year. Because payday occurs once every two weeks, some months will have three paychecks.

There are 26 biweekly pay periods in a year, whereas there are 24 semimonthly pay periods in a year. A biweekly pay cycle means that your employees are paid every two weeks, always on the same day. Biweekly payroll offers consistent pay days every month, with the added bonus of two extra pay periods. 2023 Payroll Calendar – A pay period calendar is a schedule that outlines the dates for an organization’s pay periods.

Pros of Bi-Weekly Pay: Employer’s Perspective

Your decision might vary depending on the size of your HR team, whether you can find a payroll provider with fair payroll fees, and whether your employees are salaried or hourly workers. For instance, let’s say you choose to pay your employees once every two weeks, on Friday. There is pride in knowing that you can pay your own bills and stay on top of other financial steps and responsibilities that come naturally and automatically with a biweekly paycheck system. This can be useful in helping employees to budget their finances with their biweekly pay. But what about when you’re at the mercy of English as it’s wielded by others?

As we enter 2021, it is important to note that some employers will have 27 pay periods this year due to the extra Friday that falls on the payroll calendar. This is in contrast to the normal biweekly 26 pay periods we see during a typical year. The majority of company in USA pay biweekly salary, that mean if you are paid biweekly, you will have 26 pay checks. Paycor’s payroll software is an easy-to-use yet powerful tool that gives your team time back.

Semi-monthly Payroll Calendar

As business size increases, biweekly pay becomes the clear favorite, with 73% of very large companies paying on this schedule. Biweekly pay is also favored across the board in the education and health service industries. Biweekly pay, as explained above, means that you pay your employees once every two weeks on a specific day. Bureau of Labor Statistics, biweekly pay is the most popular payroll cycle in the U.S., with almost 37% of businesses opting to pay their employees biweekly. Semimonthly means employees receive 24 paychecks per year, instead of 26.

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We’re providing these payroll calendar templates to help you keep track of pay periods and paydays. It may seem simple, but tools and resources like these 2023 Payroll Calendar Templates can make a world of difference for HR teams. Weekly pay periods are particularly important to lower-wage employees who may lack a financial safety net for unexpected expenses. This frequency is the most costly and time-intensive payroll schedule, though. One of the biggest things to consider when making the decision whether to pay employees biweekly versus semimonthly is the number of hourly employees you currently need to pay. Once you start the year, you’ll pay your employees once every two weeks.

Employees can be paid by direct deposit, check, or debit card, and all the necessary payroll taxes are processed and remitted by OnPay. As you can see, it doesn’t matter which day of the month you pay your employees — you can pay them on the 4th one month, and then the 1st another. There are 26 pay periods in a year when you are paid bi-weekly.

Employee Benefits

There are 26 pay periods in a year when you are paid bi­­­­­weekly. To make the process easier and remove much of the guesswork, many businesses opt to use a payroll service. For more information, check out the best payroll services for small businesses. Roughly 23% of small businesses pay semi-monthly, with its popularity declining as company size increases. Among those, salaried professions such as finance, information, and professional services are most likely to pay semi-monthly.

A weekly pay schedule requires 52 paychecks, where as a biweekly pay schedule requires 26 paychecks. A weekly payroll calendar is where you pay your employees each week. While you can choose when your workers receive their paychecks, most employers deliver them every Friday. The four types of pay periods are weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, and monthly. If your payday falls on one of these “extra” days in the calendar year, you could have 53 weekly pay periods instead of 52, or 27 biweekly pay periods instead of 26.

Typically, these dates are the first and 15th of every month or on the 16th and the last day of every month. In fact, in the U.S., the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that 43% of businesses use a biweekly pay schedule. If you hire a lot of new employees on a regular basis, a biweekly schedule might be your best bet. This is because there’s a good chance they’re used to this pay frequency and will find it easier to transition. Examples of where adjustments may be needed include when a review of the upcoming calendar also shows that one or more paydays fall on holidays.

A payroll calendar can be used to identify the payroll date for each month, working around holidays and weekends. Each year has 52 weeks in it, which is equivalent to 26 biweekly pay periods. Many employers give employees 2 weeks off between the year end holidays and a week of vacation during the summer. The following table highlights the equivalent biweekly salary for 48-week, 50-week & 52-week work years. Biweekly pay is payment of salary created on the basis of every other Friday.

Biweekly pay periods are the most common with 36.5% of private U.S. businesses paying employees this way. When doing payroll, companies typically adhere to a specific schedule, such as biweekly pay dates. Scheduling payroll dates in a calendar year prior to the beginning of the year helps employers to budget properly and maintain their compliance with wage payment laws and regulations. Detailed calendars can incorporate not just actual pay dates, but additional information such as pay period end dates, time sheet due dates and the workdays covered by each pay period. Biweekly payroll is easier to manage without the need for expensive software systems. Compared to a weekly pay schedule, biweekly payroll systems are likely less expensive to administer, though it will depend on the organization.