Pay Period Definitions, Restrictions and Offsets

How are Pay Periods Defined

A pay period is the range for which payroll is calculated. There are key dates that can be set during the Run Payroll Process.

• Pay Date
  The date on which employees will be paid
• Period Start
  Start of the pay period. Defaulted to the day after the last pay period ends.
  This also determines the payroll number.
• Pay Period End
  End of the pay period. Can be adjusted as long as they are within legal limits
• Include Bonus Until Date
  The date until when government bonuses are calculated.
  This is defaulted to be until 1 day before the following period's pay day, but can be adjusted manually in case bonus needs to be paid earlier.
• Timesheet Cut-Off Date
  The date until which timesheets will be considered for processing, such as overtime and allowances
• Leave Cut-Off Date
  The date until which leave will be considered. Any leave approved after this date will be included in a future pay-period

Generally, when a business requires a non-standard processing, it is recommended that only the timesheet and leave cut-off dates are updated, whilst the period start and end comply with standard practices.

In case you make any changes during payroll, please make sure to re-save or re-process all payslips.

Pay Period Numbering

In Malta, the Pay Period numbering is defined based on the period end, compared to the legal week number.

It is recommended that the legal weeks be abided by. Any change in periods can risk:

• incorrect SSC Calculations
• incorrect number of SSC weeks in a year, blocking FSS submissions
• incorrect tax calculations
• inability to create new periods due to overlapping period number*

Note that if you are unable to create pay periods, you would need to align your dates with standard practices or consider applying an offset.

2026 Week Dates

In 2026, the first Monday lands on 5th January. The below are the recommended week starts

There are instances where there may be longer/adjusted periods, for example, to start the year on 1st January instead of the first Monday.

If you implement such changes, make sure you are well-prepared and planned to ensure accuracy. 

Offsets

There is a possibility to set a permanent offset, currently created through Buddy's backend.

For example, if your Fortnightly period starts a week early/later, a -1 or +1 week offset can be set. 

The offset has two main functionalities:

• Change the FSS Calculation to add or remove weeks for to-date projections
  (e.g. consider fortnight 2 as week 3)
• Update the expected pay period numbering when creating new pay periods 
  (e.g. consider the period starting January 12th 2026 as fortnight 2)

When utilising offsets, it's important that when processing the final pay run of the year, the offset is removed or corrected to ensure the FSS is accurate at the end of year. 

Responsibility for Payroll Officers

Due to such complications, the recommendation is to abide by payroll standards:

• Start payroll periods on Mondays
• Refrain from utilising offsets or changing the period date
• If implementing any changes, ensure that total SSCs paid in the year equal to the legal requirements
• When using non-monthly payroll, prepare a solid plan for the first and last periods to ensure they comply with the above considerations.