Question

Examples of Salaries and Wages

Answer 1

1) Salaries - Salaries are usually associated with workers such as office employees, managers, professionals, and executives. Salaried employees are often paid semi-monthly (e.g., on the 15th and last day of the month) or bi-weekly (e.g., every other Friday) and their salaries are often stated as a gross annual amount, such as "$48,000 per year." The "gross" amount refers to the pay an employee would receive before withholdings are made for such things as taxes, contributions to superannuation plans.

Since salaried employees earn a specified annual amount, it is likely that their gross pay for each pay period is the same recurring amount. For example, if a manager's salary is $48,000 per year and salaries are paid semi-monthly, the manager's gross pay will be $2,000 for each of the 24 pay periods. (If the manager is paid bi-weekly, the gross pay would be $1,846.15 for each of the 26 pay periods.) A salaried employee's work period usually ends on payday; for example, a paycheck on January 31 usually covers the work period of January 16-31. This is convenient for accounting purposes if the company prepares financial statements on a calendar month basis.

Bonuses paid to employees and sales commissions paid to employees will be considered to be part of salaries.

2) Wages - Wages are often associated with production employees, non-managers, and other employees whose pay is dependent on hours worked. The pay for these employees is generally stated as a gross, hourly rate, such as "$13.52 per hour." Again, the "gross" amount refers to the pay an employee would receive before withholdings are made for such things as taxes, contributions, and savings plans.

Employees receiving wages are often paid weekly or biweekly. To determine the gross wages earned during a work period, the employer multiplies each employee's hourly rate times the number of work hours recorded for the employee during the work period. Due to the extra time needed to make calculations for each employee, hourly-paid employees typically receive their paychecks approximately five days after the work period has ended.

When the hourly-paid employees have work periods that are weekly or biweekly, but the company's financial statements cover calendar months, the company will likely have to prepare an accrual-type adjusting entry at the end of the month. If hourly wages are a significant portion of a company's expenses, it is critical that the company report the correct amount of wages expense that pertains to the 30 or 31 days in the month, not the 28 days in a four-week work period.