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School-level feature — managed within your school portal at yourschool.deandesk.com, but access is institution-gated: Super Admin Identities can view and edit, and Admin Read-Only Identities can view. Other school admins see this page only if they have been granted delegated payroll access; payroll changes always remain limited to institution super-admins. See Institutions & Schools for how the two levels relate.

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Video walkthrough

This walkthrough uses the real DeanDesk interface with the fictional Northstar Academy demo school and a calm, AI-generated English voice. Payments and outside services are not connected in the demo.
Screenshots use fictional Northstar demo data. Payment and integration screens illustrate the demo setup; no live transactions or connections are shown. Time and Payroll computes what each staff member earns per pay period based on your scheduled course sessions. You set hourly and per-period rates once, and DeanDesk attributes course hours to staff automatically each period — no timesheets required for regular teaching time. Open Time and Payroll from the school Admin Dashboard. On the Records tab, three stat pills at the top summarize the selected period: Staff, Hours, and Gross.

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How pay is calculated

For each pay period, DeanDesk attributes scheduled course session hours to your staff. Gross pay for each role is:
payable hours × hourly rate + per-period pay + ad-hoc pay
A staff member with multiple roles (e.g., teacher in one course, TA in another) gets a separate line per role, and their record totals the roles together.

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Who gets the hours for a session

Each course schedule entry can have an assigned Teacher/TA, set when creating or editing the course (the default is Unassigned).
  • If a session has assigned staff, that person receives the payroll hours for the session.
  • If a session is unassigned, the hours go to the course instructor.
Assigned staff also appear on calendar views, so the schedule and payroll always agree on who is teaching.

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Set up payroll

1

Configure settings

On the Settings tab, set:
  • Pay period — Bi-Monthly or Bi-Weekly (default bi-weekly)
  • Payroll processed day — bi-weekly only: the weekday each period closes (default Friday)
  • Default teacher attendance — Mark Present counts scheduled course hours toward pay by default; Mark Absent keeps scheduled hours visible but unpaid until you override them
  • Allow teachers to log additional hours — toggle whether staff can record hours beyond their scheduled course time from their own profile (see My Hours)
Northstar demo: Time and Payroll — Settings

Northstar demo — Time and Payroll — Settings

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2

Set staff rates

On the Staff Rates tab, each staff member has one row per role (teacher, TA, admin). For each row, set:
  • Hourly Rate — applied to payable hours
  • Per Period — a flat amount added every pay period
Edit as many rows as you need, then click Save changes to save them together.
Northstar demo: Time and Payroll — Staff Rates

Northstar demo — Time and Payroll — Staff Rates

Open full-size screenshot
3

Set course rates (optional)

On the Course Rates tab, fine-tune pay per course:
  • Paid checkbox — unmark a course so its sessions generate no pay (useful for volunteer-led or free classes)
  • Per-staff overrides — for a specific staff member on a specific course, set hours per week, an hourly rate, and a note
Course overrides take precedence over the staff rates you set in the previous step.
Northstar demo: Time and Payroll — Course Rates

Northstar demo — Time and Payroll — Course Rates

Open full-size screenshot
4

Review records each period

On the Records tab, review the payroll run, verify each staff member’s pay, and mark records paid. See below for everything you can do here.

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Records

The Records tab is the payroll run view — one row per staff member for the selected pay period.
Northstar demo: Time and Payroll — Records

Northstar demo — Time and Payroll — Records

Open full-size screenshot
  • Pay period navigation — move between pay periods to review past or upcoming runs
  • Search — find staff by name
  • Filters — by status (All statuses, Pending, Verified, Paid) and by role (All roles, Teacher, TA, Admin)
  • Sort — by employee, hours, or gross pay

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Verifying and paying

Each row has Verify and Mark Paid actions. Mark Paid records that payment has been handled; it does not transfer wages or run a bank payout. To process many records at once, select multiple rows with the checkboxes, choose a status under Set status to, and click Apply. In the Change status dialog, add an optional Status note and click Apply.

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Record details

Expand a row to see a per-role breakdown: source hours, payable hours, hourly rate, per-period pay, ad-hoc pay, and the role total. From the expanded view you can also:
  • Add ad-hoc hours — date, hours, an optional rate, and a description (e.g., a substitute shift or event coverage)
  • Override the record — open the pay override dialog to adjust hours, hourly rate, per-period pay, or Total pay (optional). Override only the values that need adjustment — blank fields continue using the calculated value, and the total pay field shows the auto-calculated amount (e.g., Auto: $450.00) as its placeholder.
Every change to a payroll record is captured in an audit log, so you always have a trail of who adjusted what and when.

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Exporting records

Click Export on the Records tab to have the period’s payroll records emailed as an attachment. The Email payroll export dialog collects:
  • Format — CSV spreadsheet or PDF document
  • Show statuses — check Unverified (records shown as Pending elsewhere), Verified, and/or Paid (at least one)
  • Show zero values? — when off, staff with 0 hours and $0 pay are omitted
  • Email records to — choose at least one admin recipient
Click Create and email export and the file is delivered to the selected admins by email. The CSV has one row per payroll record with the columns Employee, Email, Roles, Status, Source Hours, Payable Hours, and Gross Pay. The PDF opens with a ” Payroll Summary” page — a pay-by-employee table — followed by per-employee detail pages covering role calculations, course-session actuals, overrides, and ad-hoc entries. A period that spans two months is labeled with both (e.g., “July-August 2026”).
The export email uses the Payroll Records Export system email template, which school admins can customize like any other system email.

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My Hours

When Allow teachers to log additional hours is enabled in payroll settings, staff with a payroll role (teacher, TA, or admin) get a self-service My Hours page — under Work → My Hours in their profile sidebar — to record time beyond their scheduled course sessions, without going through an admin. The pay-period card at the top shows the period’s dates, its status chip (Pending, Verified, or Paid), the total additional hours logged this period, and arrows to browse other periods. To record time, staff click Log Hours and fill in:
  • Date — hours are applied to the pay period containing this date; future dates are not allowed
  • Hours — in quarter-hour steps (e.g., 1.5 for 1 hour 30 minutes)
  • Role — one of the staff member’s own payroll roles
  • Description — what the time covers
Entries appear in the Logged Hours table (Date, Role, Hours, Description), where staff can edit or delete the entries they created themselves. Once a pay period is marked Verified or Paid, it locks: the Log Hours button is disabled and existing entries can no longer be changed.
Staff only ever see hours on this page — never pay rates or dollar amounts. Every entry a staff member adds, edits, or deletes is recorded in the payroll audit log.

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Delegated payroll access

By default, payroll is only visible to admins with an institution Identity. The Payroll access panel in Time and Payroll lets you grant another school admin read-only access to payroll settings, rates, and records — without giving them an institution-level role. Granted admins get the Time and Payroll tile in their admin navigation. The panel lists your school’s active admins. Each row shows either a Grant access button or a badge indicating how the admin already has access:
  • Institution access — inherited from an institution role. This access is inherited from the institution role.
  • Has access — delegated access, explicitly granted here.
Granted admins can view payroll and grant access to others. This panel provides a grant action; it does not provide a revoke action. Payroll changes remain limited to institution super-admins.

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Best practices

  • Verify before you pay. Use Verify as a review checkpoint, then bulk Mark Paid once payments go out — the status filter makes it easy to see what’s left.
  • Assign staff to sessions. Setting the Teacher/TA on each schedule entry keeps payroll accurate when someone other than the instructor covers a class.
  • Use course overrides sparingly. Staff rates cover most cases; reserve course-level overrides for courses with genuinely different pay arrangements, and leave a note.
  • Always add a note when overriding a record. Notes make the audit log useful when you review pay history later.

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Time and Payroll tabs

My Hours is the staff member’s own view; it is not another administrator tab on this page. Payroll access may be delegated separately from general school administration. Review the access rules above if the tool is missing.