Overview

Payroll on Autopilot is designed to help Global Payroll customers keep payroll running smoothly, on time, and with minimal effort. All clients are enrolled, ensuring immediate benefit from a more reliable and predictable payroll experience.

With Payroll on Autopilot, payroll submission and approval happen automatically based on the guardrails you’ve configured. You stay fully in control — the system simply takes care of the routine steps so payroll doesn’t stall due to missed deadlines or last-minute approvals.

Auto-submit and auto-approve operate independently, each following its own rules and thresholds (even when both use the same percentage in your policy). This gives you flexibility to fine-tune how automation works across your payroll process.

This feature is available for Global Payroll entities only (excluding the US).
 

In this article:

Video walkthrough

Managing your payroll automation policy

Adjusting your variance threshold

Disabling a payroll submission policy

Frequently asked questions

Video Demonstration - Payroll experience

Managing your automation policy

Step 1 - Open entity details

Org Settings > Entities > select the entity >  Payroll policies tab

Step 2 - Review policy details policy

Select a payroll policy to review or edit the details (such as threshold limits).

If you wish to create a new policy, click the Create a policy button

Step 3 - Name and configure policy details

After you name and describe the policy, you must choose what to automate, as each can be set independently:

• Report submission: Automatic or Manual
• Package approval: Automatic or Manual (auto-approval works with or without auto-submission)

Step 3a - Add approvers and levels (if a step is manual)

• Same level = any order (optionally set # approvals required)
• Multiple levels = sequential notifications

Approvers can be set by name or role

Step 3b Adjust the variance threshold (for automatic policy) - 

Set a cost variance threshold (%) vs the previous cycle.

If this threshold is exceeded, a manual review is triggered and routed to your designated approvers (levels supported). You will see a red warning and be prompted to manually review payroll.

The threshold is calculated based on gross payroll cost, not net amounts.

Optional: add substitutes and notification preferences

Step 4 - Payroll will auto-submit/auto-approve 

If auto-submit and/or auto-approve is enabled, the automation will run on the due date when thresholds are met.

If thresholds aren’t met, the payroll is routed to the configured approvers and moves into an “awaiting review/approval” state.

[ACCORDION] If auto-submission is not triggered:

If auto-submission is not triggered, the approval flow starts for the payroll submission report

If automatic report submission is not enabled (or submission conditions aren’t met), payroll submission is routed to the configured approvers instead of proceeding directly to processing.

• Approvers receive notifications, and the submission appears in their Global Payroll task view.
• Pending approvals can also be accessed from the Global Payroll overview page or the Home page via the cycle tracker.
• If the user is an assigned approver, they’ll see an Approve submission action.
• If multiple approval levels are configured, approvals happen sequentially by level: the next level is notified only after the previous level completes.
• While the cycle is awaiting review, the user who submitted can still edit the report.

[ACCORDION] If auto-approval is not triggered:

If auto-approval is not triggered, the approval flow starts for the payroll package

If automatic package approval is not enabled in the policy (or the approval conditions aren’t met), the payroll will not proceed directly to funding. Instead, it will be routed to the configured approvers.

• Approvers receive notifications, and the payroll package appears in their Global Payroll task view.
• Approvers can also access pending approvals from the Global Payroll overview page or the Home page via the cycle tracker.
• If the user is an assigned approver, they’ll see a Review approval action.
• If multiple approval levels are configured, approvals happen sequentially by level: the next level is notified only after the previous level completes.
• The next phase of the payroll cycle is unlocked only after the required approvals are completed (based on your level setup).

Auto-approval and auto-submission run independently and have independent thresholds, even if they use the same percentage value in the policy. Either step can fail and then trigger manual intervention.

[/ACCORDION]

Disabling a payroll submission policy

Once a policy is active, changes must be made through Entity Settings → Payroll Policies. You can disable or adjust a policy directly from your Entity Settings:

1. Go to Entity Settings → Global Payroll
2. Find the policy you want to change
3. Click the three dots (⋯) on the right side of the policy

From there, you can:

• Delete the policy to turn it off completely
• Edit the policy to:
  - Switch between Manual and Automatic, or
  - Update the threshold for an automatic policy

Changes are saved as soon as you confirm the update.

Frequently Asked Questions

[ACCORDION] I am clicking submit payroll, but nothing is happening. Why?

If you're clicking "submit payroll" and nothing happens, there might be a multiple approvers policy for the organization, and the payroll has been sent for additional, mandatory approvals
 

[ACCORDION] What’s the difference between adding approvers at the same level vs. different levels?

When you add multiple approvers at the same level, all of them are notified at the same time, and you can set how many approvals are required before moving to the next level.

When you create different approval levels, the process becomes sequential — the second level is only notified once everyone (or the required number of approvers) from the previous level has approved.

[ACCORDION] What if an approver is out of the office?

If an approver is out of office, sick, or otherwise unavailable, you can follow the on-screen prompts during the policy creation to nominate substitutes for approvers.

[/ACCORDION]