Free Payroll Template for Google Sheets [Easy 2024 Guide] (2024)

Organizations spend a lot of time recruiting, training, and maintaining an efficient employee base for smooth business operations. A payroll template for Google Sheets can be an essential part of such systems.

Large organizations use software like Rippling, Gusto, and Paycheck Flex to maintain payroll records. But smaller organizations usually rely on user-friendly and affordable software like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel (even for something like calculating compound interest). These spreadsheets can also scale with your business as it grows, so they’re a smart choice for beginning entrepreneurs.

This article will provide a step-by-step guide for creating your payroll template Google Sheets. Read on to learn how to use the template and build your own from scratch.

What is Payroll?

Payroll is the total compensation an employer must pay to the employee according to the set period on a specified date for the settled wage rate. It is the process of compensating employees in exchange for the work they do or your organization.

It features a list of:

• Company’s employees’ names
• Dates of record
• Sign-in and sign-out timings
• Total hours worked
• Settled wage rate
• The total compensation due

Larger organizations outsource this task to personalized specific firms for efficiency. These firms handle paycheck processing, employee benefits, insurance, and accounting tasks such as tax calculation, etc.

Why Use a Payroll Spreadsheet?

The main aim of maintaining successful payroll operations is to reduce mistakes and boost productivity. The second key point is ensuring timely payments to promote job satisfaction.

Many finance technology firms, including Finch, Bitwage, Atomic, and Wage Stream, are leveraging technology to simplify the payroll process.

This technological addition to the important payroll maintenance task provides excellent convenience and speed along with digital pay-roll related documents that withhold innovative technology-enabled services required by the gig and outsourcing economy.

But, these services are costly.

That’s why a payroll spreadsheet is the right solution for smaller businesses. A well-established system to calculate payroll has multiple benefits.

Using a Google Sheet Payroll Template

Using a Google Sheets payroll template for recording payroll activities is a smart move, as the user-friendly interface allows you to edit and store information all in one place. The changes are saved automatically, so you do not have to worry about losing your data!

It is simple to use and super easy to set up and get running. And the inherent sharing capabilities of Google Sheets makes it easy to scale as your HR team grows.

Free Payroll Templates for Google Sheets to Download

1. Payroll Template Monthly: This payroll spreadsheet Google Sheets template is suitable for tracking a monthly payroll for your employees. It accounts for hours worked, taxation, and other variables to provide each employee’s net income per month.
2. Payroll Register Annual: This payroll template is suitable for keeping track of employees’ annual compensation, taxation, and other details.

Let’s take a look at how we built these templates so you can make your own payroll template.

Step-By-Step Guide for a Payroll Template in Google Sheets

STEP 1: Open a new sheet on Google Sheets and add the following headers:

STEP 2:Fill in the different fields with the relevant information.

• Payment Date: The date the payment is, was, or will be made.
• Pay Period: The Period, e.g., Weekly, Monthly, Annual.
• Name: The Employee name (Same as in company records)
• Reg Hrs. (Regular Working Hours): The standard working hours for an employee as specified by the company.
• Vac Hrs. (Vacation Hours): The total hours that the employee has taken for vacation.
• Sick Hrs. (Sick Hours): The total hours the employee has taken off due to sickness.
• Holid. Hrs. (Holiday Hours): Total hours spent on holiday time off.
• Pers. Hrs. (Personal Hours): Total hours spent on personal matters during regular work time.
• O.T Hrs. (Overtime Hours): The hours worked beyond the regular hours.
• Total Reg. Pay (Total Regular Pay): Regular pay without any deductions.
• Total O.T Pay (Total Overtime Pay): Pay for Overtime work.
• Reimbursem*nts paid: Reimbursem*nts paid to employees.
• Gross Pay: Total pay without any deductions.
• Tax: Tax rate.
• Social Security: Social Security Payments.
• Insur. Deduct. (Insurance Deduction): Insurance plan payments.
• Other Deduct. (Other Deduction): Miscellaneous payments.
• Net Pay: Final pay after all deductions.

NOTE: For the tax field, enter the tax percentage in decimals, e.g. 0.2 for 20%, and then format the cell as a percentage.

Calculating Overtime Pay: For the Total O.T.pay field, use the =MULTIPLYfunction to multiply the total overtime hours by the specific Over Time rate for each employee.

STEP 3:Next, use the =SUMfunction to calculate the Gross Pay. You can also include cell L3in the function like so

=SUM(J3,K3,L3)

if there is a value in the reimbursem*nts field.

STEP 4: Use the following formula to calculate the Net Pay

=(M3+L3-(M3*N3))-SUM(O3:Q3)

Done! That’s how easy it is to create a payroll Sheet template!

Additional Things to Know About Building a Payroll Template for Google Sheets

• It is crucial to keep an unedited copy of your template for future transactions.
• Data heads are customizable according to your choices.
• Do not overwrite your formula cells. They can automatically calculate the data for you and overwriting in those cells will generate inaccurate data results.
• Always create a new payroll Google Sheets sheet for each month in the “existing spreadsheet” so that your data stays in one place.
• Always ensure accurate data is filled in the cells so the generated results are error-free.
• It is also important to make sure the right formula is written in the formula bar.

Other Sheet Templates to Help Track Business Expenses

In addition to payroll, you can use various other Google Sheets template can be used to track your cash flow. Some of the applicable Google Sheets templates include:

• Google Sheets Expense Tracker Template
• Google Sheets Invoice Template
• Google Sheets Ledger Template

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I Do Payroll in Google Sheets? / Can You Make a Payroll Spreadsheet in a Google Sheet?

You can download a payroll spreadsheet templateonline for a professional database of payment information for your employees. You could also build one from scratch. The guide on the page can help with that.

How Do I Create a Payroll Spreadsheet in Google Sheets?

To create a salary spreadsheet template for your employees, you need to identify the headers of information. Now enter the relevant information under each head. In Google Sheets, you do not need to make the calculations manually. Just enter the formula for relevant calculations, and it will perform the function for you.

You can also apply the same formula throughout the column with just one click. Read the step-by-step guide provided in this article to create a customized payroll spreadsheet according to your preference.

Conclusion

Small-scale organization managers have multiple administrative tasks on their hands. Mismanaged payroll can lead to delayed payments and, therefore, dissatisfied employees. You may also overpay or underpay your staff without effective payroll. Using the payroll template for Google Sheetsincluded in this article can help avoid these issues and is an excellent option for a growing business.

Related:

• Free Google Sheets Task List Template
• Easy-to-Use Google Sheets Project Management Templates
• Timesheet Templates for Google Sheets
• How to Build a Dashboard in Google Sheets