Closing a pay period without redoing it

Finalizing a pay period in Firmhours locks the hours, posts time-off accrual, and hands you the payroll file. An admin can reopen it within four hours. If you missed someone, pay that person off-cycle instead of redoing the run.

Approve the days first

Payday is built from approved days. People punch on a phone or a shared tablet. Managers approve one day at a time, for their own team. Nothing is corrected for you.

A punch away from a work site, with no location shared, or with a long break, carries a flag and the reason, so you know which days to look at before you approve. If something is wrong, fix the punch, the activity, or the customer, then approve. The editor's name stays on the record and the employee is notified. You can withdraw an approval if you need to. Only people with the approve-time permission can sign days off.

Anyone can leave a note on a day, like "I forgot to clock out at 4:30," for whoever approves it. If someone called in sick earlier in the week, you can enter that time off later, as long as the period isn't closed.

Location is read only at the moment of a punch, and only if the person allows it. Nothing runs in the background. A punch away from a work site is flagged. It's never blocked.

What finalize does

Finalize locks the period, posts time-off accrual, and hands you the hours file you already built. That file carries regular, overtime, double time, PTO, and holiday hours for each person, written as decimals, like 7.93. Download it and import it into the payroll you already run.

You map those import columns once, by drag and drop: the order, headers, and date style. Simple formats take seconds. Complex ones take a few minutes. Save it, and every payday export is one click. How that builder works is on Product. Before your first payday, make sure the hours import is turned on in payroll. The checklist lives on the payroll file page.

If you run QuickBooks Online Payroll, there's no hours file to upload. Go to Reports, then Hours summary. Run it as is and type the hours into your pay run.

Hours summary is also the payday report for everyone else: each person's hours for the period, in one place. It doesn't change shape. If you want different columns, build a custom report and download it as a CSV.

People are told when their day is edited or their time-off request is decided. Firmhours reminds anyone who forgot to clock out, or is still clocked in, on a schedule you set. Get those days clean before you finalize.

The four-hour reopen window

An admin can reopen the period within four hours. If you catch a mistake inside that window, reopen it, fix the day, and finalize again. After that, pay the one person off-cycle instead of redoing the run.

If you missed someone

Pay one person off-cycle instead of redoing the run. That's the path when someone was left off the file, or their day wasn't approved in time. The rest of the period stays closed.

One login, many client firms

If you're a bookkeeper, you can switch between client firms from one login. Each client keeps its own payroll and its own file. You close their week and hand them the file their payroll already imports. You don't move them onto a new processor. More on that seat is on Firmhours for bookkeepers.

FAQ

What does finalizing a pay period do?

It locks the hours, posts time-off accrual, and hands you the file. An admin can reopen the period within four hours.

Someone was missed. Do I redo the whole run?

No. Pay one person off-cycle instead of redoing the run.

Can I add time off after the week is over?

Yes, as long as the period isn't closed. Once you finalize, the period is locked. An admin can reopen it within four hours if you need to fix a day.

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Sources

• Firmhours product, FAQ, payroll file, pricing, and bookkeepers pages, retrieved November 13, 2026: product, FAQ, payroll file, pricing, for bookkeepers