Deciding on a pay frequency for a small business is an important decision. Pay frequency determines how often the business must process payroll and when employees receive their paychecks. There are four common pay period options, including weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, and monthly. Two popular, yet easily confused, pay periods are biweekly and semimonthly. Knowing the difference between biweekly vs. semimonthly payroll can prevent financial setbacks, keep the business legally compliant, and more.

For HR or payroll administrators, it also means that processing day only comes once every two weeks. Semimonthly pay schedules for hourly employees are more complex than biweekly schedules. Because semimonthly schedules can https://www.bookstime.com/articles/semimonthly-vs-biweekly-payroll consist of 15 to 16 days, hourly employees may report different hours each cycle. Employers who pay semimonthly may provide a payroll calendar to notify employees of when their time cards are due and when they’ll be paid.

What is the difference between bi-weekly pay and semi-monthly pay?

Lack of Consistency- Another con of this payroll schedule is its lack of consistency which can prove to be a turnoff for employees and businesses. In this case, payroll gets processed on a different weekday, the employee who is running payroll seems to lose track of this responsibility. A bi-weekly payroll schedule may work better for some businesses than others.

Another difference between semimonthly pay vs. biweekly pay is what day of the week you run payroll and which day employees receive their paychecks. Depending on several factors, employers choose to pay their employees biweekly, weekly, monthly, and semi-monthly. In this article, we’ll discuss the difference between bi-weekly and semi-monthly pay periods. Depending on the choice made between the two, the budget of a company is impacted. In semi-monthly frequencies, payroll is processed fewer times than biweekly, so employees’ paychecks are larger.

What Is the Meaning of an HR Payroll Specialist?

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• As the name suggests, biweekly payroll involves paying employees on a set day every other week, resulting in 26 paydays per year, or 27 if it’s a leap year.
• Let us ponder over what is the difference between semi-monthly and biweekly pay periods with the help of an example.
• But before detailing how to structure semi-monthly pay for your company, it’s first important to clearly understand what semi-monthly pay means.
• There will be no change to these flat rate monthly premiums because the total number of deductions in the payroll is 24 per year, meaning two per month.
• It can be easy to confuse bi-weekly and semi-monthly payroll schedules, however, the key difference between the two lies in how often payment occurs.
• If payday falls on a holiday or weekend, you will either need to advance or delay payroll, adding another responsibility to your plate.
• The business may consider choosing a provider that allows unlimited payroll runs, regardless of frequency.