Continuous Pay Access (formerly called Rolling Balance) allows a user to access earnings for a pay period that has already ended but has not yet been paid.
Consider the following definitions:
current pay period
- a pay period that has started but not yet endedunsettled pay period
- a pay period that has ended but has not yet had a paydaysettled pay period
- a pay period whose payday is today or priorWhile a pay period is unsettled, the employee has a percentage of their paycheck available for transfer ahead of payday. Once settled, any pay that was not transferred ahead of payday is deposited into an employee’s bank account and no longer available as Earned Wages.
Earned Wage Access (EWA) is designed to maximize the available balance for each employee. The employee must have access to earnings from both the current and the unsettled pay period as both represent wages the employee has already earned.
This is where the concept of continuous pay access comes into play. If continuous pay access is not enabled at a client, a user will not be able to access their earned wages between pay period end date and payday.
In this example, we have overlapping pay periods in July (7):
Pay Period 1
Ends and Pay Period 2
Begins.Pay Period 1
has settled, and only Pay Period 2
funds are now available for transfer.Transfers follow the "First In, First Out" logic. As such, transfers will be tied to Pay Period 1 until the earnings from Pay Period 1 have been exhausted.
If earnings from Pay Period 1 are exhausted, transfers will be tied to Pay Period 2. This is determined by taking each pay period’s payday and sorting them in an ascending order.
With continuous pay access enabled, it is possible within Pay Period 2 to make a transfer that exclusively draws upon earnings from the unsettled Pay Period 1.
Continuous pay access also enables transfers spanning two pay periods. If a requested transfer amount exceeds what is available from Pay Period 1, the earnings to satisfy the transfer will span both pay periods. In effect, the user will be accessing earnings from both pay periods simultaneously with one transfer.
The image below is an example transfer accessing earnings from both pay periods simultaneously with one transfer.
Paycheck 1
and Paycheck 2
throughout two pay periods.