What advances do
Sometimes you give a worker cash before payday, or lend them money for an emergency. The Advances screen keeps track of what each employee owes you. When you run their pay, Worklog shows the outstanding balance and lets you take some or all of it back off their wages.
As soon as someone owes you money, an Outstanding advances card appears near the top of the screen. It shows the total owed across everyone, with a line for each employee who still owes something.
Before you start
- The worker must already be in your Staff Register. If you have not added them yet, do that first.
- Advances are part of the Team and Complete plans, together with the rest of payroll.
Record a new advance
- Open Advances from the Payroll section.
- Under Record new advance, tap the 👤 Pick button next to the Employee box.
- Choose the worker from the list. If they already owe you money, their outstanding amount shows next to their name.
- In Amount (R), type how much cash you gave them.
- In Repay per pay run (R), you can set an amount to take back automatically each payday, for example 200. Leave it blank to deduct by hand each time. When you fill in both an amount and a repay figure, a line shows roughly how many pay runs it will take to clear.
- In Reason - optional, you can note why, for example transport, groceries or an emergency. You can leave this blank.
- Tap Record Advance.
The advance is saved straight away and added to that worker's balance. If they already owed money, Worklog shows a note telling you the new amount is added on top of what they owe.
See what someone owes
Once you have picked an employee, their history appears lower down the screen. It lists each advance you gave (shown with a plus) and each repayment taken off their wages (shown with a minus), newest first, with the date and any note. The Outstanding advances card at the top always shows the up-to-date balance.
A repayment taken off wages in a pay run is recorded here and on the payslip, but it is deliberately NOT a bank transaction — no money moved. The wage payment you see in Banking is the net amount after the repayment, exactly like your bank statement, and the advance balance comes down at the same time.
Fix an advance you got wrong
Typed the wrong amount or repay figure? You can edit an advance you recorded. In the worker's history, every "Advance given" row has a ✏️ pencil next to it.
- Pick the worker, then find the advance under their history.
- Tap the ✏️ pencil on the "Advance given" row. The heading changes to Edit advance and loads the amount, the repay-per-pay-run figure and the reason.
- Change what's wrong. You can even bring the amount down to 0 to cancel one you logged by mistake.
- Tap Update Advance to save, or Cancel edit to back out.
Set up a repayment plan
Instead of remembering to deduct an advance by hand every payday, you can give it a repayment plan. In Repay per pay run (R), enter how much to take back each pay run, say 200 on a 1000 advance. As you type, Worklog shows about how many pay runs it will take to repay, so you can pick an amount that suits the worker.
Next time you run that worker's pay, the Deductions step already has the repay amount filled in for you, never more than they still owe, so you can just confirm it. If a payday is tight you can still change the figure or skip it that round.
On the Outstanding advances card, any worker with a plan shows their repay amount per pay run and roughly how many runs are left, so you can see at a glance how everyone is tracking.
Getting the money back in Pay Run
You do not record repayments here. That happens when you run their pay.
- Start a Pay Run and pick the worker who owes you.
- Work through the wizard to the Deductions step. If they owe money, you will see an Outstanding advance block with the amount.
- In Deduct from this pay run (R), type how much to take back this pay, or tap Deduct all to take the full balance (or as much as their wages allow). Tap None this time to skip it this round.
- Finish the Pay Run. The repayment comes off their net pay and shows on the payslip as Loan / advance repayment.