A punch was wrong and payroll attendance is already made
"The machine missed Asif's evening punch on the 12th so the system has marked him absent. I have already run the attendance and the payroll. Just change the punch."
What is really being asked
He wants one day corrected and everything downstream to follow. PeopleNest will not let him do it in that order, and that is deliberate: a punch that has already been paid for cannot be changed underneath the payslip.
So the real task is to unwind in the reverse of the order you built it, fix the punch at the bottom, and build back up. Nothing is lost on the way: each document rebuilds itself from the one below.
The chain, bottom to top, is: the punch, then Payroll Attendance, then Payroll, then Post Payroll. You take it down from the top.
What you need in place first
- You must know which pay period the 12th falls in. Payroll Period tells you.
- You must know whether that payroll has been posted. If a Post Payroll document exists for it and has not been reversed, the payroll cannot be deleted.
- Check whether leave balances have been reset since. If they have, the Payroll Attendance for that period can no longer be removed, and this walk stops. See "what will go wrong" below.
- Rights to delete on all four screens. An HR officer with entry rights only will get as far as step two and stop.
Do this
If the payroll was posted, reverse the posting. Open Post Payroll, find the document for the period, and reverse it. The reverse date cannot be earlier than the posting date, so use today or the posting date itself. Trying an earlier date gives you "Reverse Date cannot be less than Posting Date".
Delete the payroll for the period. Open Payroll and delete the run. If you skipped step one it refuses with "Payroll cannot be deleted. This Payroll already Post". Reversing the posting is what releases it.
Delete the Payroll Attendance for the period. Open Payroll Attendance, find the document that covers Asif, and delete it. Two things happen on their own: the leave days that the sheet consumed as a leave adjustment are given back to his balance, and the attendance allowance document it created on Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction is removed with it. You do not touch either by hand.
Now correct the punch. Open Employee Attendance for Asif and the 12th and put the missing time in. Until step three is done this screen refuses with "This document cannot be saved because attendance for 12-Mar-2026 is already processed in Payroll Attendance", which is the message that sends most people here in the first place.
If the client would rather the man raise it himself and his manager sign it, use Employee Attendance Request instead. The order above is identical. The request still cannot land on a day that a Payroll Attendance has already processed.
Re-create the Payroll Attendance for the same cycle, period, pay scale and pay area. It pulls the attendance again and Asif's absent day is gone. The allowance document is written again from scratch, so if the correction has made his month clean he now earns the attendance allowance he did not earn before.
Re-run Payroll and leave it unposted. Check Asif's salary days and his payslip before you go any further.
Post it again on Post Payroll.
Where two clients differ
| A client who corrects centrally | A client who makes the man ask | |
|---|---|---|
| Who fixes the punch | HR, on Employee Attendance | The employee, on Employee Attendance Request |
| Who signs for it | Nobody, HR is trusted | The reporting manager, through the approval on the request |
| Speed | Same day | As fast as the manager approves |
| Audit trail | The change only | The request, who asked, and who approved |
| The undo order above | Identical | Identical |
Neither route lets you change a day that Payroll Attendance has processed. The difference is only who types the correction.
How you prove it worked
- Open Employee Attendance for Asif and the 12th. The day must no longer read as absent.
- Open the new Payroll Attendance line for Asif. Adjustment Days and Salary Days are the two numbers to look at. Salary Days must be one higher than it was before, or Adjustment Days one lower, depending on whether he had leave balance to absorb the absence.
- Open his payslip on the unposted Payroll. Compare the net against the figure the client complained about. The difference should be exactly one day, plus the allowance if the correction made his month clean.
- Compare the payroll total against the posted figure you reversed. Tell the client the difference before you post, not after.
What will go wrong
- Somebody tries to fix the punch first. The attendance screen refuses and names the date. That message means step three has not been done, not that the screen is broken.
- Leave balances have been reset since. "Cannot delete the transaction because leave balances have been reset" means the leave year has rolled over and the quota the sheet drew from no longer exists. The Payroll Attendance for that period can no longer be removed. Correct the man by an adjustment in the current period instead, on Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction, and say plainly that the old period is closed.
- The period was processed in more than one document, one per pay scale or pay area. Deleting the one you are looking at does not release Asif if he is on a different one. Find the document that carries his number.
- The payroll is re-run and nobody looks at the total before posting. The whole point of the unposted run is the one minute somebody spends comparing it. Post without that and the next person to find the problem is the client.
- The allowance document is edited by hand instead of being left to rebuild. Payroll Attendance rewrites it on every save, so a hand edit is lost at the next save and nobody knows why.