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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-03-14
Concept: Pay On-Demand

Concept: Pay On-Demand

Traditionally, employees receive their paychecks on scheduled payroll payment dates. The pay on-demand feature enables workers to request early payment of a portion of their accumulated wages through employee self-service (ESS).
For Payroll for Canada, Workday supports both standard and same day Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) payments.
For Payroll for the U.S., Workday supports both standard and same day Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments.

The Pay On-Demand Business Process

You can enable employees to initiate the business process from:
  • The
    Pay
    tile on mobile.
  • The
    Pay On-Demand
    task.
  • The
    Pay
    worklet.
  • The
    Pay Dashboard
    .
The
Pay On-Demand Request Count
report provides details about the requests by transaction statuses.

Amount Available for Pay On-Demand

Workday calculates the amount available for pay on-demand based on rules you configure. For salaried exempt workers, Workday calculates a prorated gross based on the time you configure as the end of the working day and the worker's time zone.
To learn how Workday derives the amount, employees can click:
  • ?
    (the question mark) on mobile.
  • View Details
    on the desktop.
Workers who use Time Tracking can see how their time worked affects the available amount.
Workday also considers the status of the employee's on-cycle pay to determine the available amount:
On-Cycle Status
Available Amount
Not Yet Started
Based on the current pay period.
In Progress
Based on the current pay period.
Completed
Based on the next pay period.
When workers have arrears for deductions that aren't eligible for pay on-demand, Workday recoups them on the available amount. You can configure your eligible pay components to include those deductions to reduce the workers' available amount further by current period amounts.
For workers with multiple jobs, Workday calculates earned wages across additional jobs that are in the same pay group and company as the primary job. Workers can only submit Pay On-Demand requests for additional jobs that are in the same pay group and company as their primary job.
Pay On-Demand request and pay result processing follow the rules you configure in the
Maintain Payroll Processing Position Rules
task. These rules determine which of a worker's positions to use as the default when processing pay on-demand. When a worker has multiple jobs, Workday tags new Pay On-Demand results with Additional Job Position and Company. If you don't configure new rules, Workday continues to use the worker's primary position for processing pay on-demand for workers with multiple jobs.
For employees with gross-to-net subperiods, Workday:
  • Calculates the available amount per subperiod.
  • Sums all subperiod available amounts.
The calculation for the available amount is:
  • Based on the number of approved hours worked as of the date of the request.
  • Net - (net x percent to withhold) - past requests in the pay period.
Where the net = eligible earnings - eligible deductions.
Example
Marilyn is an hourly worker who has 20 approved hours in the current period.
For Payroll for Canada:
Pay Components
Examples
Eligible earnings
Hourly Pay
Eligible deductions
Statutory
Percent to withhold
40
Employee's pay rate
15 per hour
For Payroll for the U.S.:
Pay Components
Examples
Eligible earnings
Hourly Pay
Eligible deductions
OASDI
Percent to withhold
30
Employee's pay rate
15 per hour

Impact to On-Cycle Payroll

When you run on-cycle payroll for the period for employees who request pay on-demand, Workday reduces their pay by the total of pay on-demand payments in the period.