---
title: Payroll for a Very Small Company
description: "The shortest way to use TBA for payroll when you have only a few employees: set each person up once, create a pay run, export it, and let your payroll service or accountant handle the taxes and the paying."
url: "https://theasst.com/docs/payroll-for-a-very-small-company/"
updated: "2026-10-31"
category: Human Resources (HR)
---

# Payroll for a Very Small Company

If you have only a handful of employees, you do not need every payroll feature in TBA. This page is the shortest path: set each person up once, then, on each pay day, create a pay run, approve it and hand it to whoever does your payroll.

## What TBA does, and what it does not

**TBA works out each person's gross pay and keeps the records.** It calculates salaries and hourly pay, lets you add bonuses and other amounts, locks the pay period once you approve it, exports the pay run, and can post the pay to your books.

**TBA does not calculate payroll taxes, take out deductions, pay your employees, or file returns and year-end forms.** That is done by a payroll service, or by your accountant if they run payroll for you. Plan on one of them. TBA gives them exactly what they need.

## What you can skip

For a very small company you can leave all of these alone until you need them: the timeclock and kiosk, timesheet approval, overtime rules, leave policies, pay plans, and benefits. Nothing here depends on them.

## One-time setup (about ten minutes)

1. **Set up each employee's payroll details.** Open HR/Payroll > Personnel, open the employee, and click the **Payroll** tab. Fill in:

   Save. An employee with no Payroll tab is left off the pay run, and TBA warns you.

   - **Pay type** – Hourly or Salary.
   - **Pay rate** – shown per hour for Hourly and per year for Salary.
   - **Pay frequency** – Weekly, Biweekly, Semimonthly or Monthly.
   - **Payroll service employee ID** – the ID your payroll service uses for this person. If you have several people to fill in, use **Payroll Service IDs** on the Pay Runs list to import them from a spreadsheet in one go.
2. **Pay codes.** Nothing to do. TBA creates the usual ones (Regular, Salary, Bonus and the rest) the first time they are needed.
3. **Optional: your books.** If you want each pay run posted to your accounts, open any pay run, click **G/L Accounts...** and choose a wages expense account and a payroll liabilities account. You can do this later.

## On each pay day

1. **Create the pay run.** Go to HR/Payroll > Pay Runs and click **New pay run**. TBA suggests the next two-week period; change the dates and the check date if yours differ, and click **Create**.
2. **Check the amounts.**
   - **Salaried employees** appear automatically with their pay for the period.
   - **Hourly employees** need their hours. Either use **Add a line**, choose the employee and the **Regular** pay code, and enter the hours and their rate (or just an amount), or enter their hours on the Time Tracking calendar (HR/Payroll > Time Tracking) and recalculate.
   - **Bonuses and other extras:** **Add a line** with the Bonus pay code and an amount. Manual lines stay when you recalculate.
3. **Read the warnings.** The box at the top lists anything worth a second look, such as an employee with no Payroll tab or hours with no rate. Fix it and click **Recalculate**.
4. **Approve.** Click **Approve (lock the period)**. If you made a mistake before you export, **Reopen** puts the run back to a draft.
5. **Hand it to your payroll service or accountant.** Click **Export**, choose **Generic CSV**, and download the file. The first time, click **Settings...** and set the columns and headings to match your service's import template; TBA remembers them. Or skip the file and key the amounts from the screen into your service.

All salaried? Then each pay day is three clicks: create the run, approve it, export it.

## After the payroll service has run payroll

These steps are optional, but they keep your books tidy:

- **Post to G/L** on the pay run records the gross pay and what is owed to your payroll liabilities account.
- **Import results** brings back what the service actually paid, and **Close this run** finishes the run. See [Importing Payroll Results and Closing a Pay Run](/docs/importing-payroll-results-and-closing-a-pay-run/).

Two cautions: do not import the same file into your payroll service twice, because that can pay people twice (TBA warns you if you export a run again); and a run you have exported cannot be reopened.

## When you grow

Add the pieces when you need them: the [timeclock](/docs/timeclock-and-kiosk/) and [timesheet approval](/docs/timesheet-approval/), [overtime rules](/docs/overtime-rules-setup/), [leave](/docs/leave-types-and-policies/), [pay plans](/docs/pay-plans/) for commissions and bonuses, and [benefits and labor burden](/docs/benefits-and-labor-burden/). Everything you set up now keeps working.

## More

[HR/Payroll Overview](/docs/hr-payroll-overview/) · [Pay Runs](/docs/pay-runs/) · [Pay Codes Setup](/docs/pay-codes-setup/) · [Payroll Walkthrough](/docs/payroll-walkthrough/)