---
title: "The pool (unassigned adjustments)"
description: "Every earning or deduction not yet attached to a pay period waits here for a CLAIMS stream's run to collect it."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://peoplematter.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The pool (unassigned adjustments)

The **Pool** tab of Payroll answers one question: **before the next run, what
still needs approving and will be collected?** Its own intro says it straight:
"Adjustments not yet assigned to a pay period."

## Where rows come from

- **Added by hand** — **New adjustment**: pick the user, enter an amount (integer
  cents, never zero; negative means a deduction), a reason, one of the fifteen categories
  (overtime, bonus, reimbursement, correction…), whether it's taxable, and an optional
  effective date. A row added by hand always starts as **Pending approval**.
- **Approved claims arrive on their own** — once a claim clears approval with its last
  approver, it lands here as an adjustment, already **Approved**, with no second approval
  needed. See [From claim to payment](/en/docs/payroll/claims/).
- **Cancelled periods give rows back** — everything a cancelled period had collected
  returns to the pool for a later period.

## Approval is the gate to payment

Every row is either **Approved** or **Pending approval**. A SALARY stream's periods never
collect from the pool; a period of a CLAIMS stream does, taking the rows dated by the end of
the period in the categories that stream includes (all of them, unless it is restricted):

- **Approved** rows are collected into the period and appear on the employee's payslip.
- **Pending approval** rows stay in the pool, **unpaid** — the run leaves them there, and
  only once someone approves them does a CLAIMS run meeting the conditions above collect them.
  They never slip through unapproved.

> **Approval lives here, not in Approvals**
>
> An adjustment's approval is the **Approve** button in this tab: whoever holds the approve
> permission sees it on every row still **Pending approval**. It is a payroll-admin action, not part
> of the leave/claims approval rules — and nobody can approve their own row.

## The employee's view of the same rows

Employees see their own pool rows as the
["Waiting for the next run"](/en/docs/payroll/payslip/) strip on the **Pay** screen — only their own, only
while still pooled. The moment a row is collected, it moves to that period's payslip.

Source: https://peoplematter.app/en/docs/payroll/pool/index.mdx