---
title: How to open a pay period?
description: Pay periods can be created well in advance and opened when needed. This also affects timesheets as a timesheet can only be created when there is an open pay period that the current day falls in betwee
---

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# How to open a pay period?

Pay periods can be created well in advance and opened when needed. This also affects timesheets as a timesheet can only be created when there is an open pay period that the current day falls in between. For example if a pay period is between July 15th, 2022, and July 31st, 2022. If an employee attempts to create a timesheet on August 1st those hours would be applied to a pay period for August if one is available.

To create a pay period navigate to the pay periods module in the navigation bar on the left hand side and click the 'create pay period' button on the right hand side.

![](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/PtJt5y0DdfhYXMEo6yONvc5YjGF7gbvCZs9qmoUdIWB8S_fSqcT-n44aGhzxXMKa99uiR5nPcWGMiwchhMW-06Q_A1n69jTbvGx_epOsqBDvvaxn6_5kV0-iwTqXdRQkhxh6DrIthBp9gtwoMZpGEko)

Here you enter in the start and end date of the pay period as long as a description about what pay runs it is being used for.

![](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/x082bJ6XHimirSekwLKvpIApgnuNHZuW7DpnV6L8MtJOhd8LQY0vx51cLqizEAiWkb_6iaZOzOWqHOVncr6xKDKt_Xv5-a7BCDL1L0-eT4jKdeo0o6N0m9AJSeJwxXm-n2V7KSA3Zorj-gqBbvEa90w)

Afterwards, click the 'create pay period' button and your pay period will show up on the list of pay periods.

### Pay Period Status

There are 3 different statuses that a pay period can have, pending, open, closed.

**Pending** means that the pay period has been created but is not yet ready to be used for payroll and timesheets.

**Open** means that the pay period is ready to be used for pay runs and timesheets, this period will be available to choose on the pay run and timesheet creation forms.

**Closed** means that this pay period is closed and will not be available for further use.

 

 

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