In a company, payroll is the sum of all financial records of salaries, wages, bonuses and deductions.

Paycheck

A paycheck, is traditionally a paper document issued by an employer to pay an employee for services rendered. While most commonly used in the United States, recently the physical paycheck has been increasingly replaced by electronic direct deposit to bank accounts.

In most countries with a developed wire transfer system, using a physical check for paying wages and salaries has been uncommon for the past several decades. However, vocabulary referring to the figurative "paycheck" does exist in some languages, like German (Gehaltsscheck), partially due to the influence of US popular media, but this commonly refers to a payslip or stub rather than an actual check. Some company payrolls have eliminated both the paper check and stub, in which case an electronic image of the stub is available on an Internet website.

Payroll taxes

Federal/national, state/provincial, and/or local agencies require employers to perform various payroll functions, such as withholding amounts from employees' compensation to cover income tax, Social Security, and Medicare.

Payroll taxes are levied by government agencies on employees' wages, tips, and other compensation. The amounts withheld by employers from employees' pay for federal income, social security, and Medicare taxes are considered to be trust-fund taxes, because the money is held in a special trust fund for the U.S. government. Amounts withheld for state and local income taxes are held in trust for the state and local governments.

Pay slip

A pay stub, paystub, pay slip, pay advice, or sometimes paycheck stub, is a document an employee receives either as a notice that the direct deposit transaction has gone through, or as part of their paycheck. It will typically detail the gross income and all taxes and any other deductions such as retirement plan contributions, insurances, garnishments, or charitable contributions taken out of the gross amount to arrive at the final net amount of the pay, also including the year to date totals in some circumstances.

Payroll card

A payroll card is a plastic card allowing an employee to access their pay by using a debit card. A payroll card can be more convenient than using a check casher, because it can be used at participating automatic teller machines to withdraw cash, or in retail environments to make purchases. Some payroll cards are cheaper than payday loans available from retail check cashing stores, but others are not. Most payroll cards will charge a fee if used at an ATM more than once per pay period.

The payroll card account may be held as a single account in the employer's name. In that case, the account holds the payroll funds for all employees using the payroll card system. Some payroll card programs establish a separate account for each employee, but others do not.