How to compare the payroll with the previous month

What is it for?

It shows what changed in the payroll from one month to the next, pay item by pay item: how much it was, how much it is, the difference in amount and as a percentage. It helps you catch mistakes (a duplicated pay item, a deduction that disappeared, an absence that was not entered) before paying. It only reads payslips already closed; it does not calculate or change anything.

When to use it?

• After processing the month and before paying, to confirm nothing is out of the ordinary.
• When an employee says their payslip changed and wants to know why.

Where to find it?

Payroll › Process › Month against the month before

Before you start

• Payroll Processor profile, with which the whole walkthrough in this article was done.
• There are closed payslips (validated or paid) in the month and in the previous month. Draft payslips do not count.

How to use it

1. Open Payroll › Process › Month against the month before. The screen suggests the current month (in the example, 01/11/2026).
2. Choose the Month you want to analyse. Any day of the month will do (in the example, 15/09/2026). To look only at part of the company, choose the departments in Only these departments; if blank, all are included.
3. Click Compare. The list appears with one line per pay item (Letter), with Previous month, This month, Difference and Difference (%), sorted by the largest changes, and the total at the end.
4. Look at the New and Gone columns. New marks a pay item that did not exist in the previous month; Gone, one that existed and no longer does. In the example, Retribution lost by absences is marked Gone: in August there were absences, in September there were not.
5. To understand a difference, click the Payslips magnifying glass on that line. The list of closed payslips for both months opens. In the example, on opening Retribution lost by absences, you can see that Fábio Nuno Carvalho's August payslip is 966.67 € gross, instead of the 1,450.00 € of the other months: that is where the lost retribution came from.
6. If you want to keep the comparison, click Download Excel or Print PDF. They repeat the list on the screen. The PDF is called “Mês contra o mês anterior”.

Example. In September 2026 the Base remuneration is 11,560.00 € in both months (difference 0.00) and the Retribution lost by absences goes from -483.33 € (August) to 0.00 €. The total goes from 11,076.67 € to 11,560.00 €: the difference of 483.33 € is entirely the absence that no longer exists.

Expected result

• Each pay item appears once, with the amount for both months added up across all employees (or only the chosen departments).
• The sum of the Difference column is the difference between the two totals at the end of the list.
• The Payslips magnifying glass opens the closed payslips for both months.

Important notes

• Only closed payslips. A month without closed payslips, or a previous month without payslips, does not give a valid comparison: in the first month of processing every pay item appears as New and Difference (%) stays at 0.00 (in the test, June 2026, with 11,560.00 € of Base remuneration marked New).
• What the magnifying glass does not do. The Payslips magnifying glass opens all closed payslips for both months (in the example, 16, eight for each month), not only those with the line's pay item. Look in that list for what changed.
• Read the difference in euros. Difference (%) comes out with the wrong sign for negative pay items: Retribution lost by absences from -483.33 € to 0.00 € shows a difference of 483.33 € but -100.00 %; from -58.67 € to -483.33 € (August against July) it shows 723.81 %. Trust the Difference column.
• What the screen does not see. It only compares the pay items that exist on closed payslips; it does not compare days worked, hours or IRS by bracket. A pay item never entered in either month does not appear either.
• To correct a mistake you catch here, see How to correct a payroll run.

Common problems

“There are no closed payslips in these two months”

• Symptom: when you click Compare, the strip says “There are no closed payslips in these two months.” and the list is empty. This happened with the suggested month (November 2026, not processed) and with a department with no employees with payslips (in the test, “Comercial (demonstração)”, in September).
• Cause: neither the chosen month nor the previous one has closed payslips for what you chose.
• What to do: choose a month already processed, remove the department filter or validate the month's payslips.

The Excel file has an English name

• Symptom: Download Excel saves a file called Month against the month before.xlsx.
• What to do: rename the file. The content is the list on the screen.