Underpayment of wages

Chamscents

Hi back in November my employer underpaid me. I raised the issue on the 27th of November the day our wage slip was generated and after going back and forwards over 4 weeks of perseverance and standing my ground they finally admitted they'd made a mistake and paid me what was owed on the 20th of December. Fast forward to December pay and they've taken the amount of the underpayment from my wages as a recovery of advanced payment. Either I'm being thick or are they not paying what was initially owed to me as it was my understanding that they'd rectified the underpayment and that was that? To me it seems that they've paid it on the 20th then taken it back today leaving me still being owed if that makes sense? Can someone please advise me. 

FlorayG

Do you work for a small company or a large one? I ask because I work for a large employer and one of my duties is fixing this sort of mistake for employees, there are always a few, because HR - who make the adjustments on paper - and Payroll - who make the adjustments on a spreadsheet - frequently make this sort of mistake between them. If you call HR they should be able to look at your last two payslips and sort it out.
One thing that happens here though and you should check your payslip carefully; employee gets sent the owed amount out of pay cycle. The owed amount is then ADDED to the next payslip and taken back as 'repayment of advance' to keep their records straight, because payments out of sync with payday and set down as 'pay advance'. Make sure they haven't added the amount you were owed and then taken it back again on December payslip

Grumpy_chap

Chamscents said:

Hi back in November my employer underpaid me. I raised the issue on the 27th of November the day our wage slip was generated and after going back and forwards over 4 weeks of perseverance and standing my ground they finally admitted they'd made a mistake and paid me what was owed on the 20th of December. Fast forward to December pay and they've taken the amount of the underpayment from my wages as a recovery of advanced payment. Either I'm being thick or are they not paying what was initially owed to me as it was my understanding that they'd rectified the underpayment and that was that? To me it seems that they've paid it on the 20th then taken it back today leaving me still being owed if that makes sense? Can someone please advise me. 

It is quite possible that the underpayment from November was processed as an "advance of wages" to get the money to you as swiftly as possible once the company realised the error was theirs to correct.

BUT, the admin gone wrong (incomplete) so the increase in pay required not added to December payroll, resulting in actual December pay having the "advance of wages" deducted again.  Especially if things were processed on or around 20th December - that is quite late in a normal month for payroll adjustments and many companies run payroll earlier because of the Christmas break.

I suspect this is all admin errors and a polite mention back to HR / payroll once you are in work in the New Year will see it resolved properly.

Very annoying in the mean-time though.

EnPointe

Chamscents said:

Hi back in November my employer underpaid me. I raised the issue on the 27th of November the day our wage slip was generated and after going back and forwards over 4 weeks of perseverance and standing my ground they finally admitted they'd made a mistake and paid me what was owed on the 20th of December. Fast forward to December pay and they've taken the amount of the underpayment from my wages as a recovery of advanced payment. Either I'm being thick or are they not paying what was initially owed to me as it was my understanding that they'd rectified the underpayment and that was that? To me it seems that they've paid it on the 20th then taken it back today leaving me still being owed if that makes sense? Can someone please advise me. 

were you  paid the sum owed outside of the pay cycle ?

if so  it's entirely correct  

you would have been advanced  an approximation of the take home  element of the payment that was missed by  BACS / Cheque   on the 20th 

This then needs to be reconciled in the next pay roll - the typical way this is done  is to pay the arrears on that  roll  calculate the tax , NI and pension on the sum  and then  'recover  the advance'   asa deduction 

FLMs and  union reps  spent so much time trying to get this across to people in particular role  where  things had to be paid out of trun  , second only to  getting people to understand the cut off  dates for  pay roll  and idea of 'variable elements are paid a month in arrears ' ...

EnPointe

Grumpy_chap said:

Chamscents said:

Hi back in November my employer underpaid me. I raised the issue on the 27th of November the day our wage slip was generated and after going back and forwards over 4 weeks of perseverance and standing my ground they finally admitted they'd made a mistake and paid me what was owed on the 20th of December. Fast forward to December pay and they've taken the amount of the underpayment from my wages as a recovery of advanced payment. Either I'm being thick or are they not paying what was initially owed to me as it was my understanding that they'd rectified the underpayment and that was that? To me it seems that they've paid it on the 20th then taken it back today leaving me still being owed if that makes sense? Can someone please advise me. 

It is quite possible that the underpayment from November was processed as an "advance of wages" to get the money to you as swiftly as possible once the company realised the error was theirs to correct.

BUT, the admin gone wrong (incomplete) so the increase in pay required not added to December payroll, resulting in actual December pay having the "advance of wages" deducted again.  Especially if things were processed on or around 20th December - that is quite late in a normal month for payroll adjustments and many companies run payroll earlier because of the Christmas break.

I suspect this is all admin errors and a polite mention back to HR / payroll once you are in work in the New Year will see it resolved properly.

Very annoying in the mean-time though.

the OP doesn;t make it clear if the payment on the 20th was outside the standard pay cycle even if the 20th was the normal pay day  ( or  the pay day for  Decembmer but the pay date  for tax purposes being the 27th ... )