Salary change
£42,000 → £46,000
Effective 15 SeptemberPayroll assurance, before sign-off
Payroll assurance before approval.
Preflight helps payroll teams identify gaps between source data, expected changes and the draft payroll before sign-off.
Core checks whether payroll is ready to calculate.
Verify checks whether the draft reflects what should have happened.
Preflight is currently in development and speaking with UK payroll teams to shape the first production release.
Illustrative run
3 findingsSeptember payroll
Overtime
8 hours approved
Rate 1.5×Unpaid leave
2 days
Approved + evidenced↓
- Salary prorated from 15 September
- 8 hours overtime present
- 2 days unpaid leave reduces pay
- New salary applied from 1 September
- Overtime not present
- No unpaid leave deduction
● Salary change applied from wrong effective date
● Expected overtime not found
● Unpaid leave not reflected
Assurance outcomeNot ready to approve
Review requiredThe problem
Payroll assurance is still too fragmented.
Payroll teams already perform extensive checks before approval. The problem is that those checks often live across spreadsheets, reports, source files, inboxes, payroll-provider outputs and individual knowledge.
Did we receive everything we expected?
Did payroll process it correctly?
Can we evidence why this payroll was approved?
How it works
One assurance layer around your payroll process.
Preflight does not replace your payroll software. It sits around the calculation process and helps teams understand what should happen, what actually happened and what needs attention before approval.
Source data
Inputs, documents, events and confirmations establish context.
Expected state
Preflight establishes what should happen for the payroll period.
Assurance controls
Structured controls evaluate relevant data and expectations.
Findings
Potential gaps and inconsistencies are surfaced clearly.
Assurance
Teams investigate, evidence and reach an approval position.
Core + Verify
Two points of assurance.
Before calculation
Core
Is this payroll ready to calculate?
Core checks expected payroll inputs, events and evidence before calculation begins, helping teams identify missing or unresolved items earlier.
Salary changesStarters + leaversAbsenceVariable payEvidence
After calculation
Initial product focusVerify
Did the draft payroll reflect what we expected?
Verify independently interrogates the calculated payroll and compares it against known expectations, source information and assurance controls before approval.
Expected vs actualExceptionsEvidence lineageResolution
Deeper assurance
More than simple field matching.
Preflight is designed to combine payroll data, source evidence and structured controls to surface issues that may not be obvious from a simple report comparison.
Illustrative control
ReviewSalary sacrifice and NMW risk
Inputs
Contracted salary
Contracted hours
Salary sacrifice election
Pay frequency
Relevant pay elements
Expected check
Assess whether post-sacrifice pay may create a National Minimum Wage risk.
Potential NMW risk after salary sacrifice. Review required before approval.
Illustrative example only. Preflight does not provide legal advice or guarantee compliance.Explainability
A finding should show its workings.
Preflight is being designed so teams can see what was expected, what was found, which evidence supported the control and how the issue was resolved.
Expected overtime not found
Why this finding exists
8 approved overtime hours were present in source information but no matching payment was identified in the draft payroll.
Evidence
Resolution status
Under review
Why Preflight
Built for assurance, not another payroll calculation.
Earlier visibility
Find issues while there is still time to investigate.
Explainable findings
Understand what was checked and why it triggered.
Evidence-led
Connect decisions back to supporting source information.
Repeatable controls
Reduce reliance on spreadsheets and individual memory.
Auditability
Create a clearer record of how payroll reached approval.
Payroll-system independent
Sit around the payroll engine rather than replace it.
Who it is for
For payroll teams that want more confidence around sign-off.
Preflight is initially being developed for UK in-house payroll teams where payroll has enough scale and complexity that manual assurance becomes difficult to manage consistently.
It is particularly relevant for teams dealing with regular payroll change, variable inputs, multiple source documents, external payroll providers, system transitions or growing assurance and governance requirements.
Discovery
Help shape the first version of Preflight.
We’re speaking with a small number of UK payroll teams to understand how payroll assurance and sign-off work today and to pressure-test the first Verify workflows.
Talk to PreflightNo production payroll data is required for an initial conversation.
- Which checks matter most before approval
- Where current assurance still relies on manual work
- How findings should be presented and investigated
- What evidence payroll teams need before sign-off
Built from payroll experience
Structured assurance for a process that is still too fragmented.
Preflight is being developed from hands-on experience across payroll implementation, transformation and assurance.
The idea came from a recurring problem: payroll teams perform huge amounts of assurance work, but much of it remains fragmented across systems, spreadsheets, reports, provider outputs and individual knowledge.
Preflight is being built to make that assurance more structured, explainable and repeatable.
A question worth answering
What would you want to know before approving payroll?
If you are responsible for payroll operations, assurance or transformation, we’d like to understand how your team approaches sign-off today.
Talk to PreflightPreflight is currently in development. Early conversations are focused on real payroll workflows and assurance challenges.