A bonus is paid once, in one month only

"Eid bonus, one basic salary, this month only. Last year somebody set it up and it came out again in April. That must not happen."

What is really being asked

He wants a payment that happens exactly once. The fear is well founded, because PeopleNest has two payment documents that look similar on screen and behave completely differently, and the wrong one pays every month forever.

• Recurring Payments and Deductions is the man's standing salary record. It is open ended. This is not where a bonus goes.
• Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction is the one-off document. This is where a bonus goes.

There is no "one off" tick anywhere. What makes a payment one-off is that the document carries a Payroll Period From and a Payroll Period To, and the payroll run only picks it up for a period inside that window. Set both ends to the same month and it is paid once, by construction.

What you need in place first

• Wage Type - a bonus wage type, Wage Type Direction D Debit so it adds to pay, Wage Type indicator E Earning, and Taxable ticked or not according to the client's tax adviser.
• Payroll Period - the period the bonus is to be paid in must exist.
• Recurring Payments and Deductions - each man's salary must be on record, because "one basic salary" is read from it.

Do this

1. Create the wage type if it does not exist. Code BONUS-EID, Name "Eid bonus", direction D Debit, indicator E Earning. Set Sort so it prints where the client wants it on the slip.

2. Open Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction and create a document for the payroll cycle.

3. Set the window to one period. Payroll Period From 2026-04 and Payroll Period To 2026-04. The same period on both ends. This is the whole mechanism, and it is the only thing standing between the client and a bonus that repeats.

   The only check the screen makes is "Starting date cannot be greater than end date", so nothing will stop you leaving the To end open. Read it back before you save.

4. Add a line per man: the employee, wage type BONUS-EID, the quantity and the amount. For "one basic salary" you type the figure; the document does not read a multiple of salary for you.

5. Send it for approval if the client's route requires one, then run Payroll unposted for that period and check the line is on the payslips.

6. Then check the following period. Create the next period's payroll unposted, before anybody has posted it, and confirm the bonus is not there. Delete that trial run afterwards. This is the only proof that satisfies a client who has been bitten before, and it costs ten minutes.

Where two clients differ

	Eid bonus, everybody	Performance bonus, after the appraisal
Who creates the document	HR, by hand	Performance Payout, automatically
How the amount is arrived at	One basic salary, typed	A percentage from the increment matrix band
Where it lands	A document you create	A document the payout creates for you
The window	One period, typed	One day at the payout date
What to check	The To period	That the payout status is Approved or Posted

A performance bonus does not need this screen opened by hand. Performance Payout writes the same kind of one-off document itself, and moving the payout's status back deletes it again. See raise everybody after the appraisal.

How you prove it worked

1. Run Payroll unposted for the bonus period. The line must be on every intended payslip and on no other.
2. Count the lines. Compare the bonus total on the payroll against the number of men multiplied by the amount. A total that is a multiple of what you expected means the document was saved twice.
3. Run the next period unposted and confirm the bonus is absent. Then delete that run.
4. After posting, try to delete the document. It must refuse: "Employee Additional Payment / Deduction: 24 cannot be deleted. This Employee : 1043 Already Referred in Payroll". A document that still deletes freely was never picked up, which means the window did not cover the period.

What will go wrong

• The bonus is put on the recurring salary record because that screen was already open. It is then paid every month until somebody notices, and correcting it means recovering money from five hundred men.
• Payroll Period To is left blank or set to the end of the year. Same outcome, one document later. The screen will not stop you.
• The document is created and payroll was already run for that period. The run does not pick up a document created afterwards. Delete the payroll, re-create it, then look.
• The wage type has direction C Credit because it was copied from a deduction. The bonus comes off the man's pay instead of adding to it. See an amount must print on the payslip but not be deducted for what each direction does.
• Nobody checks the next period. Do the ten-minute trial run. It is the whole point of the page.