Payroll Action Center and Payroll Health Check

Purpose

UZIO scans your payroll data for anomalies: unusual, risky, or incomplete conditions such as shared bank accounts, a bank account changed right before payday, or an unexpected net pay swing. The results surface in two places. The Payroll Action Center is a panel on the Payroll Dashboard you can review any time. The Payroll Health Check is a pre-approval scan on the payroll summary step that asks you to review and acknowledge findings before you approve. This article explains both, plus the settings page where you configure which checks run and their thresholds.

When to use this: Check the Action Center whenever you open the Payroll Dashboard. Findings refresh automatically early each morning, so a quick look catches fraud signals and data gaps before they hold up a run. The Health Check is your last gate. It runs on the specific payroll you are about to approve, and everything you acknowledge or skip there goes into the audit trail.

Who can do this: Any user whose role includes the Payroll permission. This is usually the Employer Admin, but other admin roles can be granted the same access.

The four severities and what to do

The Payroll Action Center (dashboard)

The Action Center appears as a panel on the Payroll Dashboard. It shows the latest anomaly scan results across your payroll:

• Pay Group dropdown: narrow the findings to a single pay group. Findings that apply per state or per pay group, such as state tax, prior payroll and payroll calendar items, appear as one row for each state or pay group, so the filter and counts match.
• Count chips: All, Blockers, Critical, Warnings, and Alerts. Click a chip to filter the list to that severity.
• Findings, grouped by severity. The section captions read:
• Blockers · Data setup required - payroll cannot start
• Critical · Anomaly findings requiring review
• Warnings · Non-critical findings to review
• Alerts · Informational anomalies
• Each finding is a one-line summary of what was detected and how many records are affected, for example "Shared bank account detected for 3 employees."
• Footer: shows when the last scan ran (for example, "Last scan: 5 min ago - auto-refresh daily").
• Refresh icon: runs a new scan on demand instead of waiting for the daily refresh.
• Settings (gear icon): opens the Anomaly Settings page where you configure the checks (see below).

Blockers are different from anomalies. The Blockers group holds data-setup problems (missing SSNs, missing payment methods, incomplete tax setup and the like) that stop payroll from starting for the affected pay frequency. The Start Payroll button enforces them. They must be fixed, not acknowledged. The full blocker list, with the exact messages, lives in Troubleshooting: I Can't Start or Approve Payroll.

Clicking a finding opens a detail pop-up:

• It lists the affected employees, each with their employee code and details on one line. Open opens the employee's record in a new tab.
• A short line under the heading says what to check, for example "Bank account details were recently changed. Review for accuracy."
• You can add one optional note for the pop-up (up to 200 characters). Shared bank account and shared address pop-ups have a note for each shared account or address.
• Acknowledge acknowledges every employee listed in the pop-up, and they leave the panel. The acknowledgement, who made it, and the note are recorded in the audit trail.

When nothing needs attention, the panel says so: "No anomaly found." (or "No anomaly found for the selected pay group." when a pay group is selected). It also offers Run a Manual Scan.

If the scan could not run, the panel shows Anomaly scan failed with "We couldn't run the scan at {time}." Any list underneath is from the last successful scan. Click the refresh icon to try again.

The Payroll Health Check (before you approve)

On the summary step of a Regular or Special payroll in Draft, UZIO runs a pre-approval anomaly scan of that specific run. It does not run for Daily, Quarterly, or Annually pay groups. A banner above the Approve button reports the result:

• While it runs: "Running payroll health check…"
• Clean: "Payroll health check complete - No anomalies detected" and "Last scan: just now. You're good to approve." Re-run scans again.
• Findings: "Payroll health check complete - {N} findings for your review" and "Unreviewed findings will be recorded in the audit trail.", with Critical, Warning and Alert counts and a Review Findings button.
• Failed: "Scan failed - please refresh to retry". Click Refresh. You can still approve, but findings from the failed scan are not recorded.

Review Findings opens a right-side drawer titled Payroll Health Check, sub-captioned "Pre-approval anomaly scan for {pay frequency}: {start} - {end}. Unreviewed findings will be recorded in the audit trail." To work through it:

1. Use the filter chips (All, Critical, Warnings, Alerts, and Acknowledged) to move through the list. A chip with nothing in it says, for example, "No critical anomaly found."
2. Open each finding card. It names the check, the employee, and the detected values. A few checks get richer cards:
• Payroll cost trend shows Cost and Headcount change chips and a Current Run / Prior Period / 3-Period Avg table. It is informational in the Health Check: there is nothing to acknowledge.
• Outstanding arrears not recovered breaks out each deduction's remaining balance for a terminated employee and flags any deduction "not included in this run".
• Employee's Payment Method Summary shows a two-row table, Check and Direct deposit, with how many employees are paid each way.
3. Investigate the finding. If the value is expected and correct, add an optional note (up to 200 characters) and click Acknowledge on the card. Acknowledged findings move under the Acknowledged chip, keeping the note visible. If the value is wrong, fix the data (cancel and restart the run if the fix is to an earning or employee record) and re-run the check.
4. When you have reviewed the findings, continue to Approve Payroll.

Check-specific behavior

• The two termination PTO checks work as a pair when both are switched on. While a terminated employee's balance payout is actually flowing through the current run (Critical), the standing "outstanding PTO balance" warning for that same employee is suppressed. The payout is already in flight, so you are not warned twice.
• Employee excluded from payroll with pay runs only on the Health Check. If an employee with pay was in the run when it was created and a user later unchecked them, a card reads "{Employee name} ({employee code}) was manually removed from this payroll. Confirm this was intentional before approving." Opening the card records in the audit trail that you reviewed it.
• Employee's Payment Method Summary runs only on the Health Check. It is informational:
• Both rows, Check and Direct deposit, always show, even when a count is zero.
• Employees with $0 pay, and voided or removed paychecks, are not counted.
• Use it to know how many checks to print.
• Detect terminated employees leaving with outstanding arrears fires before approval when an employee terminated within the run's pay period still owes arrears on any deduction. It raises one finding per affected deduction. See Understanding Automatic Deduction Arrears for how those balances arise, including deductions set to Method "None", which never collect through payroll.

Configuring anomaly checks and thresholds

Click the gear icon on the Action Center. The Anomaly Settings page opens on the Anomaly Detection tab. Each check shows a severity badge, a description and an On/Off switch. Locked checks are listed first with a Locked badge and have no switch.

Catch-up contribution check. One more check covers retirement catch-up contributions.

Payroll setup checks. Five more checks look for setup gaps that can quietly produce a wrong paycheck or W-2. Two are locked on. The other three are on by default and can be switched off. All five apply to regular and special payrolls.

The "Default" column is the out-of-the-box configuration for a new employer. Every check that is not locked can be switched on or off to suit your company.

Detect PTO payouts for terminated employees is switched Off for every company that was already using UZIO when the check was introduced, so most companies see it Off. Only companies set up after that start with it On. To be warned when a terminated employee's PTO payout is in a run, open Anomaly Settings and switch it on.

Older payroll notifications you can switch off

The settings page also lists four older pre-payroll notifications that were always on. You can switch each one on or off for your company:

• Federal tax withholding info missing
• State tax withholding info missing
• Invalid home address
• Invalid work location address

What happens when you switch one off:

• It no longer shows on the Payroll Dashboard, the Payroll Action Center or the Payroll Health Check.
• The change is recorded in the audit trail.
• All four stay on unless you switch them off.

Common problems

Why can't I turn off a check?

It is one of the seven Locked checks:

• the four fraud-pattern checks (shared or changed bank account, shared or changed home address)
• Detect catch-up enabled without prior-year Social Security wages
• Tipped employee missing an occupation code
• Garnishment amount set to $0

They are always on by design and cannot be disabled.

Why is a finding still listed after I fixed the data?

The Action Center refreshes on a daily scan. After a fix, click the refresh icon on the panel (or Re-run on the Health Check banner) to re-scan immediately instead of waiting for the daily cycle.

There is a Blocker in my Action Center. Can I acknowledge it?

No. Blockers are data-setup gaps and must be fixed, not acknowledged. Click the blocker to see the affected employees, fix the data, and re-scan. Full list: Troubleshooting: I Can't Start or Approve Payroll.

Can I undo an acknowledgement?

Acknowledgements cannot be undone from the panel. The finding simply reappears on a future scan if the condition is detected again. The acknowledgement (with your name, timestamp, and note) stays in the audit trail, so add a corrective note on the next occurrence if the original acknowledgement was wrong.

Expected outcome

• The Action Center keeps a daily-refreshed list of anomaly findings on the Payroll Dashboard, filterable by pay group and severity, with an acknowledge and an optional note for each finding.
• Every Regular and Special pay run gets a Payroll Health Check on the summary step. Acknowledged findings, and any you leave unreviewed, are recorded in the audit trail.
• The checks, thresholds and older notifications match your configuration in Anomaly Settings. The seven locked checks are always on.

Related articles

• Processing a Regular Payroll
• Setting Up Employee Payroll
• Understanding Automatic Deduction Arrears
• Troubleshooting: I Can't Start or Approve Payroll