Recently, I was asked to help with a payroll reconciliation project. However, the methodology will work on any two sets of data. See my website for more information.

1. AUTOMATED PAYROLL
DATA RECONCILIATION

2. PROJECT BACKGROUND
• The Company is on a payroll timekeeping system called Atlas.
• At the end of each bi-weekly payroll cycle, the time data is imported from Atlas into
Great Plains for final processing, calculation and paycheck generation.
• However, in order to be paid on Friday, the file must be transmitted to the bank
within 2 days. To successfully make that deadline, the reconciliation between the
two systems must be complete by the morning of the second day.
• As the Company grew quickly, the reconciliation process became more time
consuming. Frequently, a new employee might be in one system, and not another.
Or, overtime hours might not be calculated correctly. As a result, the average time to
complete the reconciliation gradually rose to about ½ day per pay period.

3. WHAT COULD THE DIFFERENCES BE?
• Absent data anomalies, the individual
employee differences between systems
could fall into one of four categories:
I. An employee’s data is the same in both
systems – great!
II. An employee’s record is in the time-
keeping system, but not in the payroll
system – research & correct
III. An employee’s record is in the payroll
system, but not in the time-keeping
system – research & correct
IV. An employee’s record is in both
systems, but the hours are different –
research & correct
I
or
IV
II III

4. AUTOMATING THE RECONCILIATION PROCESS –
MY SOLUTION
• Using Excel 2013 and Visual Basic, I created an application for the Company that will
reconcile two data sets, and provide a reconciliation report on the differences.
• In total, the process takes 5 to 10 seconds to reconcile 4,000 payroll records.
• The employee that used to perform the reconciliation manually can now do
something else that morning.
• For more details go to www.randyhohn.com/portfolio
Note: To protect confidentiality, portions of this process have been changed from the original project.
However, the methodology used to solve the issues has been preserved. The names used in this
demonstration are completely fictitious, and not intended to represent real people.

5. • This image shows the data
from the timekeeping system
on Sheet 1.
• The comparative data from
the payroll system is on
Sheet 2, in the same layout.
• The only instructions are:
1. For both tabs, make sure
the ids are in Column C.
2. Put the hours in Column F, D
& E are optional.
3. Push the button.
4. Check out the report.

6. • This image shows the Report
tab, which is updated each
time the reconciliation is run.
• The summary reconciliation
from Sheet 1 to Sheet 2 is at
the top.
• The detailed list of
differences begins at row 12
and ties to the summary.
• The reconciliation status is
reported in Column C.
• When duplicate entries are
identified, the application
applies shading to the ID in
Column A.
• The application took just
over 6 seconds to run.