# A first payroll run, reviewed and approved by someone else Continuing from [A draft payroll contract, reviewed and explicitly activated](https://docs.blueonehr.com/books/enterprise/page/a-draft-payroll-contract-reviewed-and-explicitly-activated): once people have active contracts and recorded attendance, payroll can be run. This page follows one month's **Payroll Register** run from the first click to an approval given by a different person, and ends at the payout page, which is a mock in this workspace. *Illustrative demonstration prepared using publicly available company context and synthetic data. This page does not represent a production deployment, customer endorsement, or use of real employee data.*

A first payroll run: validation, approval by a different person, and a mock payout

## The company this page follows Same illustrative demo structure as the rest of this book: one fictional company, Meridian Interiors. Its name, its people and every figure shown are synthetic; none of it represents a real customer, a real headcount or a real payroll. ## Before you begin A run prices people who have an **Active** contract that covers the month. A contract that is still Draft is not included. Pay for a month also follows each person's **validated attendance** and approved leave for the month's working days: a working day with no validated attendance is treated as unpaid. See [Contracts](https://docs.blueonehr.com/books/payroll/page/contracts) and [Attendance, a geo-fence, and leave for a distributed project team](https://docs.blueonehr.com/books/enterprise/page/attendance-a-geo-fence-and-leave-for-a-distributed-project-team). Weekly offs are read from the company's own calendar, so a new company needs its weekly offs set up before a run prices a month correctly. ## Start a run 1. Go to **Payroll → Payroll Operations → Payroll Register**. A company with no runs shows an empty list and a **Start a new run** button. 2. Choose the month and year, then select **Start run**. 3. The new run opens as a **Draft**. It shows the gross, deductions and net totals for the month, a count of people whose bank details are missing, and one row per person with gross, deduction and net pay. Nothing is paid by starting a run. The screen says so itself: nothing is paid until the run is approved. ## Validate before submitting Select **Run validation** on the run. The checks list findings by severity. Findings that can stop a run from moving forward, such as a missing PAN, are **Critical**. Open the exceptions list and record a **Resolve** (or **Waive**) decision with a written note. The note is required, the finding is not deleted, and the decision is stored with who made it and when. A missing bank account is also shown as Critical, but it does not stop the run from being submitted. It stops a payment from being made later, so it stays visible on the run. ## Submit, then approve: a different person **Submit for approval** moves the run to **Pending Approval**. The run goes to the people in the company's payroll approval group, who see it under **Payroll → Governance → My Approvals**. The person who generated the run and the person who submitted it cannot approve it. If nobody else is eligible, the submission is refused up front rather than left waiting. When an approver selects **Approve**, the run becomes **Approved** and the payslips in it are confirmed. ## Payout is a mock here The Payout page lists payout batches and says plainly that it uses a mock provider and that no real money moves. A batch can only be prepared for people whose bank details are on record, so until those exist the batch list stays empty. This page makes no claim of a live bank or payment provider connection. ## Not shown on this page - Statutory computation and filing for the month: see the India payroll compliance topic. - Preparing and approving a payout batch. ## Related reading - [A draft payroll contract, reviewed and explicitly activated](https://docs.blueonehr.com/books/enterprise/page/a-draft-payroll-contract-reviewed-and-explicitly-activated) - [Running payroll](https://docs.blueonehr.com/books/payroll/page/running-payroll) - [Payslips](https://docs.blueonehr.com/books/payroll/page/payslips)