Payroll Change Batcher

The problem this kills

Every payroll run, the changes arrive from everywhere at once. A raise approved over Slack. A new hire's direct-deposit form attached to an email. A termination effective date buried three replies deep in a thread. A title change someone mentioned in a hallway. You're the one who has to gather all of it, key it correctly into the payroll system, and pray you didn't miss one - or enter the same raise twice.

When something slips, it's not a typo, it's a person's paycheck. Underpay someone and you've got an upset employee and an off-cycle correction. Double-enter a raise and you've overpaid - and now you're clawing it back. Miss a termination and you've paid someone who left. The chasing is exhausting and the stakes are real, and none of it is written down in one trustworthy place.

This tool replaces the scramble with a single, calm intake: every change submitted in one form, validated before it counts, approved by the right person, and bundled into one import file you can trust.

What you'll build

A small internal web app where:

• Managers submit changes - raise, title/status change, new hire, termination, direct-deposit update - each with an effective date and the old and new values, against the current roster.
• The tool validates immediately - the effective date fits the right pay period, the values are valid, the employee exists, and the right authorization level signed off for that change type.
• Payroll/HR reviews and approves each change one at a time, verifying authorization and the effective date. Nothing moves forward unapproved.
• Approved changes bundle into one batch and export as a single import CSV in your payroll provider's exact column format - plus a plain-English "what changed this run" summary you can circulate.
• Every change keeps a history per employee, so you can always answer "when did this raise take effect, and who approved it?"

It runs on the same modern, free-to-start stack the rest of runbookify uses: Next.js on Vercel for the screens, Supabase for the secure database and login, and Resend for email.

What's inside the Implementation Plan

• It starts by interviewing you about your business. Before a single line is built, the plan has the AI agent ask you about your current process, your payroll provider and its import format, your pay calendar, your change types, your authorization rules, and the messy exceptions (retro raises, mid-period changes) you actually deal with. It reflects a short tailored spec back to you and waits for your thumbs-up - so you get a tool shaped around your payroll, not a generic template.
• A step-by-step build, each step ending with a ready-to-paste prompt for your AI coding agent.
• A data model and validations tuned to your change types, your effective-date rules, and your authorization levels.
• The full governance layer (login, per-org data isolation, audit trail, approval gate, duplicate guards).
• A "No API yet?" fallback so the tool is fully usable today: import the roster from a CSV and emit the batch in your provider's exact format - no integration required.
• A verification checklist so you know it actually works before you trust it with a real run.

The governance it includes (this is the point)

This isn't a spreadsheet with a form bolted on. The plan builds in the controls payroll demands:

• Login so only your team can use the tool.
• Row-level security so each organization only ever sees its own employees and changes.
• A complete audit trail - who submitted what, who approved it, and exactly when.
• A hard human-in-the-loop approval gate before anything reaches a batch: the tool drafts and validates, a payroll/HR approver reviews and approves, and only then does the change count toward the import. Nothing reaches your provider unapproved.
• Duplicate guards so the same raise or change can't be entered - or batched - twice.

Who it's for

HR and payroll teams who currently chase changes across email, Slack, and PDFs and risk missing one every run. If you're the person assembling the next payroll run by hand and lying awake wondering what you forgot, this is for you. No coding experience needed - you'll build it by talking to an AI agent.

You've got this. Paste the first prompt and let the interview tailor the rest.