Create a Payroll Calendar
The tedious just got easy
This year I stared at the payroll calendar I had to create for next year with dread. I am not [usually] a procrastinator, but I just kept the tab open and did other work. So many rules, and we keep track historically by using a google sheet with tiny cells made to look like a calendar. The idea of updating- including just the re-numbering and formatting each month- was just such a time suck.
There had to be a better way.
So of course, time to try AI. I exported last years google sheet as a PDF and uploaded it to a project in Claude. I then uploaded our company days off. I wrote down the payroll schedule rules. Here are prompts you can use to do the same.
Setup
Can you help me create a payroll calendar for [YEAR]? I need it to show: - Pay days on the 15th and last day of each month - If payday falls on a weekend or holiday, move it to the last business day before - A 12-month calendar grid layout similar to a traditional wall calendar Include a key/legend section at the bottom.
Prompt 2: Add Color Coding
I’d like to use color in the calendar blocks to represent: - Holidays: [HEX COLOR] - Pay Day: [HEX COLOR] - Payroll Processing Days: [HEX COLOR] - Payroll Blackout Days: [HEX COLOR] Update the key to show these colors.
(I used our companies brand colors, because… fancy)
Prompt 3: Define Payroll Timing
Update the calendar with these payroll rules:
- Nothing should be highlighted the day before payday
- Payroll Processing should be the 2nd and 3rd business days before payday
- Payroll Blackout should be the 4th business day before payday
Prompt 4: Add Holidays
Highlight these company holidays: [LIST YOUR HOLIDAYS] Remove [ANY BANK HOLIDAYS YOU DON’T OBSERVE] from being highlighted.
Prompt 5: Handle Exceptions
In [MONTH], we need to break the rules because of [BANKING HOLIDAY]. Leave payday the same but move payroll processing to [DATES] and blackout to [DATE].
Prompt 6: Clean Up** From the key, remove: [ANY ITEMS YOU DON’T NEED] Update the description for [CATEGORY] to say: [YOUR TEXT]
And that’s it! Probably 10 minutes of work versus a few hours.
Next up: I am going to create a script to export all this for my work calendar. Instructions coming in the next post.