The Ambiguity of ‘Biweekly’ and ‘Bimonthly’

For more information, check out the best payroll services for small businesses. Ultimately, it’s critical you consider what your competitors are doing, and what makes the most sense for your employees, when choosing a pay period. 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. Gusto offers complete employee onboarding, with employees able to access Gusto to complete employment forms and direct deposit information.

Once you start the year, you’ll pay your employees once every two weeks. This might sound simple, but that means for two months out of the year, you’ll have three pay periods instead of two. If you’re not sure how to calculate biweekly payroll, check out our biweekly pay calculator, where we’ll provide you step-by-step instructions on how biweekly pay works.

What Is a Payroll Calendar?

This is a good idea if workers have a habit of always blowing their paychecks far too early. In addition to getting paid 26 paychecks per year, employees will get twice as much money on every paycheck compared to weekly pay. When referring to semi-monthly pay periods, it means that there are two pay periods per month, usually ending on the fifteenth and the thirtieth. A payroll calendar helps to ensure that all payroll-related administration is completed on time and payroll delays are avoided. Drawing up a calendar in advance helps to identify when adjustments to the payroll process may be needed.

  • This is particularly helpful for those who live paycheck to paycheck and need the money as soon as the check doesn’t arrive.
  • Paycor’s payroll software is an easy-to-use yet powerful tool that gives your team time back.
  • This can be a great perk for those that like getting paid often as opposed to waiting a whole month before receiving their next paycheck.
  • Biweekly payroll offers consistent pay days every month, with the added bonus of two extra pay periods.

This may be a disadvantage for those that rely cannot manage their expenses. 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. A weekly pay schedule requires 52 paychecks, where as a biweekly pay schedule requires 26 paychecks. Since biweekly pay involves an employer paying their employees every two weeks, that means that the employee receives their paychecks more frequently than compared to a monthly pay schedule.

biweekly

To better understand biweekly pay, calculating it is essential. In addition, a biweekly publication is issued every two weeks and a bimonthly publication is issued every two months. There are also many similar words to biweekly, like biennial for intervals happening every two years or bi-hourly for breaks happening every second hour. Every time a word with the prefix bi- in front of it comes up, make sure to look at the usage notes to understand and use the word in the most accurate and precise way. QuickBooks Payroll includes good benefit management capability, making it easy to track all employee benefits including monthly deductions. More and more companies are switching over to biweekly pay and there are good reasons for this.

Definition of ‘Biweekly’: What Does ‘Biweekly’ Mean?

Most employers who follow this payroll calendar distribute paychecks every other Friday. This is the most commonly used option because it can keep most workers outstanding check list happy without an excessive amount of admin work. There are 26 biweekly pay periods in a year, whereas there are 24 semimonthly pay periods in a year.

Convert Hourly Wages to Bi-weekly Pay

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. Biweekly can be helpful if most of your employees are hourly workers. Additionally, your employees will be happy to be paid more often (as opposed to monthly or semimonthly). For monthly pay periods, employees would receive twelve pay distributions, once per month on a pre-determined date.

To convert into a biweekly period this number would then be doubled. So take the hourly wage, add a zero behind it, and then multiply that number by 8 to get your pre-tax biweekly income. If your effective tax rate is around 25% then that would be like subtracting 2 from the 8, so you’d take the hourly earnings, add a zero behind it & then multiply by 6.

If you want to learn more about using the English language properly, feel free to check out The Word Counter blog! We’re constantly putting up new content that can help you to understand not only what words you’re saying but why you’re saying them and where they come from! Our goal is to provide people with an invaluable resource and wealth of knowledge for speaking in the most educated way possible in the world today. On the other hand, something that is bi-weekly would be something that happens on a specific day every other week, like every other Saturday.

How many pay periods in a biweekly year 2023?

Semimonthly means your employees get paid on two specific days of the month, regardless of when they fall. For instance, you might choose to pay your employees on the 15th and 30th of every month. A bimonthly payroll calendar is when you pay your employees on two specific recurring dates. Typically, these dates are the first and 15th of every month or on the 16th and the last day of every month. 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. For example, an employee who makes $1000 per month will only receive $500 per paycheck on a biweekly schedule.

OnPay also includes unlimited payroll runs, offers mobile access, and offers varying levels of system access. Employees can be paid by direct deposit, check, or debit card, and all the necessary payroll taxes are processed and remitted by OnPay. Employers with biweekly payroll are able to more quickly re-adjust their pay to make up for any issues with employee payroll. Employees need to be more conscious that they will only get paid every other week instead of once a month. While it’s still possible to manage expenses with biweekly pay, it’s more work than with traditional weekly pay. Are you curious about what it might take to never worry about payroll again?

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. Each year has 52 weeks in it, which is equivalent to 26 biweekly periods. Many employers give employees 2 weeks off between the year end holidays and a week of vacation during the summer, reducing the work year to 25 biweekly pay periods. If vacation is paid you would still count those weeks in your calculation, whereas if time off is unpaid you would subtract the time.

We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team. Gusto also handles all tax calculations and filing, including year-end tax forms. The application also integrates with numerous accounting, time tracking and HR applications, reducing the amount of data entry. We will show you 25 ways to show proof of income, so you can move forward in your application process.

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