Payroll systems are often implemented using batch processing :

• The master file would contain the records for all of a company's employees, including their employee number, rates of pay and how much they have been paid so far this year. The records in the master file would be sorted using the employee number as the primary key field.

• The input data put into the transaction file would consist of records showing how many hours each employee had worked in the current week. Sometimes transactions would be used to add a new record if a new employee started or delete a record when an employee left the company.

Here is an example record for an employee called Anna Jones in a master file together with an entry in the transaction file which will update her record with the number of hours she has worked this week.

After the transaction file was processed, Anna's record in the master file would show that her pay so far this year was £5762.50. This would include the £187.50 (25 hours at £7.50) she had just earned.

The transaction file would be processed at the end of each week as workers are paid weekly. Before processing it would have to be sorted into the same order as the master file, i.e. the records would be sorted into order by employee number.

The computer would then process the transactions, using the information about how many hours each employee has worked this week (from the transaction file) and their rates of pay (from the master file) to calculate the employee's wages for the week. Payslips can then be printed and the master file can be updated to increase the amount paid so far this year by the wages paid this week. An error report will also be produced.

This system flowchart shows the operation of the payroll system :

GCSE ICT Companion 04 - (C) P Meakin 2004