Precise Wage Statements

“You mentioned that employees’ pay stubs needed to include specific information. What information?”

Your HR Survival Tip

California is very specific about what an employee’s wage statement (aka pay stub) must include. First and foremost, they want it complete and easy to read. Even if you include all the information and it’s hard to understand, you could still be in trouble.HR Jungle

A complete wage statement must be available for every paycheck (and final check) you provide and at the same time you provide the check. If you find an error or omission, new rules state you have 33 days to replace EVERY wrong wage statement. Yes, even if you had 100 employees paid weekly and found an error that’s been on those wage statements for the whole past year, that’s 100 employees x 52 weeks = 5200 wage statements you’d need to replace.

If you want to see a larger image of the sample on the right, click here. Below is the list of what must be on the wage statement:

  • The full legal name of the company (ABC Cosmetic Company, Inc.).
  • The complete address of the company (123 Main Street, Suite 5, San Diego, CA 92101).
  • The full legal name of the employee, but it’s okay to leave off middle initials.
  • The last 4 digits of the employee’s social security number (XXX-XX-1234) or an ID number.
  • The dates of the pay period this check covers (1/16/2017 to 1/31/2017).
  • Each of the employee’s pay rates, such as $12.00 regular and (if OT is paid) $18.00 overtime.
  • Total hours worked at each pay rate, including the gross amount earned at each pay rate.
  • Every deduction pulled from the gross earnings; both the name of the deduction and amount.
  • Totals of (1) gross earnings, (2) total deductions, and (3) net earnings that match the check amount.

Your company is responsible for ensuring the employee receives the wage statement. You can’t just process a direct deposit, then wait for that remote employee to finally show up to pick up their pay stub. If the employee doesn’t work onsite, you either need to mail their pay stub to them or make sure they have online access to it (plus computer access).

Once you know your wage statements are compliant, audit them at least twice per year. We all know computer glitches happen and you don’t want to find out 3 years later that your company name is now missing a word or space… that’s the stuff of lawsuits these days.

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