When you get paid every week, do you look at your paystub? Do you even get a paystub? If you’re like most people, your paycheck is probably direct deposited, but there should be a paystub somewhere. Mine’s available online, and sometimes also gets mailed to me (I’m not sure why that is, since I’m fine with the electronic version). I have a feeling most people don’t pay much attention to the paystub. After all, the important part is what gets deposited into your bank account, right?
Wrong.
Well, partially right. It is important that the right amount of money end up in your bank account. But it’s also important that the other information is correct as well. If your net pay is correct, the odds are good that all your other deductions (retirement, insurance, etc) are correct, but it’s not a guarantee. It’s probably a good idea to take a quick glance at the numbers.
What about your sick leave and vacation leave? For me, these both accumulate every week. I get a certain number of hours every pay period and these are applied to my totals. While I’ve never seen an error, today a co-worker noticed that her sick leave was wrong. Somehow, her paystub was showing she had a full week less of leave than she should have. Clearly an error happened somewhere. Maybe she took 4 hours off one week for a doctor’s appointment and somehow, the system interpreted it as 40 hours. Who knows. Either way, it’s an easy problem to correct because she knows that it happened between last pay period and this pay period. But what if you don’t notice such an error? It might be that much harder to correct.
So your paystub isn’t exactly exciting reading material. And sometimes it’s a little painful to see the difference between your gross pay and what actually ends up in your bank account. But it’s important to take a few minutes and make sure things are right. If you’re paid the same amount every pay period, you’ll quickly notice the patterns and discover errors quite easily. If your pay varies every pay period, it’s especially important to make sure all of your hours are calculated.
It’s your money. You worked for it. Make sure it’s right.
We don’t even get a pay stub unless we look at it online the friday we get paid which sometimes isn’t good because where I work makes errors all the time.