Payroll does not calculate from an assumption that every period is identical; it calculates from how a period was genuinely worked. Work entries and payroll inputs are how that reality is captured. This piece is about them in Odoo.
The edition note
As with all of payroll, the Payroll application is part of Odoo Enterprise, and payroll is intensely country-specific, depending on a sufficient localization. This piece describes work entries and payroll inputs within that capability.
Why payroll needs the reality of the period
An employee's pay for a period is not, usually, simply a fixed sum that is the same every period regardless. The period as genuinely worked matters: there is normal working time, but there is also time off, there may be overtime, there are variations. Payroll, to calculate an employee's genuine pay for the period, needs to know how the period was genuinely worked, not just assume every period is identical. Work entries and payroll inputs are how the reality of the period is captured for payroll.
What work entries are
A work entry, in Odoo Payroll, captures how time in the period was genuinely used: a piece of the period, with a type that says what kind of time it represents, normal working time, time off, overtime, another kind. The work entries for a period together describe how the period was genuinely worked. Before payroll for the period can be calculated, the period's work entries provide the picture of the genuine working of the period, which the payroll calculation uses.
Work entries and the connected people applications
An important point about work entries is that they connect to the other people applications. The reality of how a period was worked is partly held in those applications: time off is recorded in Time Off; attendance is recorded in Attendances. Work entries can draw on what those applications already hold, so that the time off an employee took, recorded in Time Off, flows into the work entries, and so on. This is the connected-system logic again: payroll's picture of how the period was worked is fed by the other people applications, rather than the reality of the period having to be re-captured separately for payroll. The connection means payroll calculates from the reality the other applications already recorded.
Payroll inputs
Beyond the work entries that capture the working of the period, there can be other inputs to a period's payroll: particular things specific to the period that affect an employee's pay. Payroll inputs are how those are captured, so that the payroll calculation for the period accounts for them. Together, work entries and payroll inputs are how the genuine, specific reality of a period, for each employee, is brought into the payroll calculation.
Why this matters
Work entries and payroll inputs matter because they are what make payroll calculate genuine pay. Payroll's calculation, governed by the salary structures and rules, is applied to the genuine reality of the period, captured by the work entries and inputs, to produce the genuine pay. If the work entries and inputs genuinely and accurately capture how the period was worked, payroll calculates the right pay. If they do not, payroll calculates from a wrong picture and produces wrong pay. So the genuine, accurate capture of the period's reality, through work entries and inputs, fed by the connected people applications, is part of what makes payroll genuinely correct.
The takeaway
Work entries and payroll inputs in Odoo capture how a period was genuinely worked, so payroll calculates from reality rather than an assumption. A work entry captures a piece of the period with a type, normal time, time off, overtime, and the period's work entries describe how it was genuinely worked. Work entries connect to the other people applications, Time Off, Attendances, so payroll calculates from the reality they already recorded. Payroll inputs capture other period-specific things. Together they make payroll calculate genuine pay, which is part of payroll being correct. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.