How do I read a Payroll Report in Tilt?

Quick answer

The Payroll Report tells HR and Payroll teams how much an employee should be paid each pay period during a leave. All amounts are gross (pre-tax).

The report has four sections: Employee & Leave Details, Earnings Received in the Current Pay Period, Pay Adjustments, and Earning Totals.

Who this applies to / Prerequisites

You are an HR or Payroll user at a Tilt customer.
You've previewed or downloaded a Payroll Report. See How do I download a payroll report from Tilt? and How do I use the Company Payroll page in Tilt?
You want to understand what each section of the report is telling you. For a full list of every possible column, see What fields are on the Payroll Report in Tilt?

The four sections of the Payroll Report

1. Employee & Leave Details

Identifying info about the employee and their leave, including:

Employee Name
Employee ID
Leave Type (Caregiver, Medical, Military, Parental, Other)
Leave Start Date (or Leave Start)
Return to Work Date (or Leave Return)
Location

2. Earnings Received in the Current Pay Period

All earnings the employee is receiving from the company and from third-party programs during the current pay period. Earnings categories include:

Wages — regular pay, in dollar and hour amounts
PTO, Sick Leave, Holiday, Vacation, Flexible Time Off — pay for these categories, in dollar and hour amounts
Company Paid Leave benefits — broken out by leave type (Parental Leave, Medical Leave, Caregiver Leave, etc.), in dollar amounts
State Benefit Amount — the amount a state-paid family or medical leave program is estimated to pay the employee. The column name reflects the specific state law (like Colorado FAMLI Act: Paid Benefit or California PFL: Paid Benefit).
Disability Benefit Amount — listed as the specific disability provider (like STD Paid Benefit or LTD Paid Benefit)

3. Pay Adjustments

If Tilt needs to recalculate the amount paid to an employee in a pay period that was already paid, the adjustment appears here. Any earnings item in the current pay period can have a matching adjustment column.

Columns marked with (adjusted):
Adjusted columns are calculated as the sum of all adjustments made to that pay item across relevant pay periods.

Example: If an employee was overpaid $1,000 in wages during the 9/1–9/15 pay period and overpaid another $200 in wages during the 9/16–9/30 pay period, the adjusted wages column on the next report will show −$1,200 (the sum of both overpayments).

Total Adjustments to be Made by My Company:
Sums up all company adjustments to be made by the company (as a dollar amount) in the current pay period.

Example: Bob's company overpaid him $956.16. This includes an overpayment of $1,274.88 in wages, minus adjustments from other sources.

Reason for Adjustment:
Why the adjustment occurred and which pay periods were impacted. Options:

Salary Change
Date Change
State Benefit Adjusted
Disability Adjusted
Other

Added Pay Periods:
Lists any pay periods added to a pay calculation since the last time payroll was processed.

4. Earning Totals

Two summary columns at the end of the report:

Total Company Paid — Sum of all company-paid items (wages, company-paid leave benefits, PTO, etc.) that the company should pay the employee for this pay period.
Total Pay Received — Sum of all items (company-paid + third-party benefits) that the employee will receive for this pay period.

Important note about adjustment timing

Tilt delivers the information about overpayment (or underpayment) on the next pay period's payroll report — and only that next pay period. Tilt does not deliver adjustment information broken up over multiple pay periods.

If you don't apply the adjustment when it appears on the next pay period's report, you'll need to track it manually — it won't show up again on later reports.

What if it doesn't work

If an adjustment amount looks unfamiliar, check the Reason for Adjustment column for context.
If an adjusted column shows a large amount, remember it's the sum of adjustments across all affected pay periods, not just one.
If Added Pay Periods shows values you don't recognize, review the employee's leave history — a date change or leave extension may have added a new pay period to the calculation.
If a column you expected to see isn't there, no employee in that pay period had data in that category.

Limits and exceptions

All amounts are pre-tax. Actual take-home pay may differ.
Adjustments appear only on the next payroll report after the recalculation is done. They won't reappear later.
California PFL and other state-paid benefits are not company-paid, so they aren't included in the "Total Adjustments to be Made by My Company" column.
Column availability depends on whether any employee had data in that category during the pay period.