For finance
Construction Payroll Journals: One Pay Run, One Journal, Every Line Substantiated
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The gap
Three reports, none of them a journal
The gross-to-net report is a payment view. The costing report is an allocation view. The pay run audit report is a change log. Finance needs a fourth thing that none of them is: a balanced journal where the leave, RDO and on-cost lines are substantiated in dollars.
Gross-to-net report
- Answers
- What was paid, taxed and withheld
- Cannot answer
- What moved on the leave and RDO provisions
- Common workaround
- Plug the difference and move on
Costing report
- Answers
- Where labour was allocated
- Cannot answer
- Liability side of the entry, and on-costs not paid this period
- Common workaround
- A second manual journal for accruals
Pay run audit report
- Answers
- What changed, and who changed it
- Cannot answer
- Balances, in dollars
- Common workaround
- Ignored at month end
Reconciled Employment Hero journal
- Answers
- Every line, expense and liability, in dollars, with its source
- Cannot answer
- Check leave and RDO movement against the liability balances
- Common workaround
- Review the ledger connection and reconciliation at setup
| Approach | Answers | Cannot answer | Common workaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross-to-net report | What was paid, taxed and withheld | What moved on the leave and RDO provisions | Plug the difference and move on |
| Costing report | Where labour was allocated | Liability side of the entry, and on-costs not paid this period | A second manual journal for accruals |
| Pay run audit report | What changed, and who changed it | Balances, in dollars | Ignored at month end |
| Reconciled Employment Hero journal | Every line, expense and liability, in dollars, with its source | Check leave and RDO movement against the liability balances | Review the ledger connection and reconciliation at setup |
Leave and RDOs
Hours-only leave reports cannot substantiate dollars
Leave reports are built in hours because that is what workers ask about. Journals are built in dollars because that is what the balance sheet holds. The bridge between them is the leave rate at the moment of payment, which in construction includes all-purpose allowances, so it is rarely the base rate on the employee record.
RDO dollars are worse again, because the accrual is created by a pay condition rule, taken through a leave category, and paid at a buyback rate. Three places, one number.
The mechanics are set out on the RDO rules page .
The method
This period minus last period
Accrual movement is a delta, not a report. Take the closing liability per leave type for this period, subtract the closing liability from last period, and journal the difference. It is reproducible, it reconciles to the balance sheet by construction, and it survives rate steps because both balances are valued on the same basis.
Calculating liability movement for the period…
Per leave type, per entity
Annual leave, personal leave, RDO and long service leave each carry their own provision and their own movement line.Revaluation is visible
When a rate step revalues a balance, the revaluation shows as its own component instead of hiding inside the movement.
Cost centres
Expense side and liability side are mapped differently
Labour expense belongs to the job or cost centre where the work happened. The matching liability usually belongs to a shared bucket, because you do not carry an annual leave provision per project. Mapping both sides to the job splits the provision across cost centres and makes it unreconcilable the moment someone transfers between sites.
Expense follows the job
Wages, allowances and on-costs land against the cost code the hours were booked to.Liability sits in shared buckets
One provision per leave type per entity, so the balance sheet stays reconcilable.Portable long service leave
Contributions are an expense, not a provision. Accruing on the books as well overstates the provision. See portable scheme treatment .On-costs, accrued or paid
Super and payroll tax accrue against the period the labour belongs to. Contributions paid in the period are expensed. Both are job-costed with the labour, not dumped into overheads.
Standard practice
The journal pack, every pay run
Your payroll and finance teams should reconcile each Employment Hero journal to the pay run and liability balances. Consulting can help review construction coding and configuration, but Project Payroll does not produce or lodge payroll on your behalf.
Related: job costing to cost codes and payroll operations .
Journal questions
Why can't we tie leave taken back to the journal?
Because standard payroll leave reports are built in hours, not dollars. They tell you a worker took 15.2 hours of annual leave, not what those hours cost or what came off the provision. The dollars exist in the pay run, but not in a report shaped like a journal line.
What is the liability delta method?
Instead of trying to derive accrual movement from a leave report, you take the closing liability balance for this period and subtract the closing balance from last period, per leave type. The difference is the movement to journal. It works because it uses the same numbers the balance sheet uses.
Why doesn't the costing report agree with gross-to-net?
They answer different questions. Gross-to-net is a payment view, the costing report is an allocation view, and the pay run audit report is a change log. None of the three is a journal, which is why manual journals built from one of them never quite balance.
How should on-costs be treated?
Split by whether they are accrued or paid. Super and payroll tax movements are accrued against the period the labour belongs to, portable long service leave contributions are paid, and workers compensation is usually a provision. All of them should be job-costed with the labour rather than dumped into overheads.
Do we have to upload a CSV to our ledger?
The journal transfer depends on your Employment Hero and ledger configuration. Crew Time sends approved timesheets to Employment Hero, not payroll journals to your ledger.
Reviewed August 2026. General information, not accounting advice.
For CFOs
Want to see a journal pack against your own numbers?
Send us a recent pay run and your chart of accounts. We can review the Employment Hero configuration and reconciliation approach with your payroll team.
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