Write an angry email on work time about how insulting the penny jar is.

This answer was brought to you courtesy of the work time of Corp X

"Explain that the payroll system will make rounding mistakes of half a cent and that the dollar more than covers that" - As Gregory Currie pointed out in a comment on the question: underpaying by one cent per hour results in paying full-time employees short by more than $20 per year. In that case, a dollar a year would not "more than cover it" and it may even be insulting.

It is possible to cause harm by overpaying; around here the conditions for some government benefits (e.g. disability allowance, part-time pension) include not earning more than X / year. It's also possible for the extra pay to bump the employee to the next bracket for insurance payments etc. so people can have legitimate reasons to not want the salary to be rounded up.

@GuyIncognito That is true. However, I would assume that if someone gets paid hourly, there would stay clear of those limits way upwards of cents, since a year can have wildly different numbers of "workable" hours and you certainly don't want to step over the line there if one year had a public holiday on a weekday or was a leap year or something like that.

If either of solution 2 or 3 were offered to me, I'd walk away, and then have my lawyers litigate for wasting my time. (Indeed, in general, if any company *touched on humor, in any way, whatsoever, when dealing with my money, I would have my lawyers litigate.)

if solution 1 was offered to me, I would give them one day to fix the insane problems in their payroll software, and if they didn't I'd walk away, and invoice them for the time waste of a week or however long had passed before. Then I'd alert the tax authorities to this incredible irregularity, and the corporation would be audited. You cannot fuck around with money, this answer is totally bizarre - no offense

(ie the opening and closing paragraphs are of course golden - the stuff in the middle is just silly. The fact that this has 10 upvotes is terrifying.)

@Fattie you can "litigate" all you want. I don't live in "crazy clown town", I live in the country of common sense. Assuming you won, you would get awarded damages, which in all scenarios is zero. I also mentioned twice that the company's books should be in order, so any audit by the tax authorities are pointless. If you assume things into my answer and judge it based on those assumptions, that is your right, but it doesn't change the fact that I have seen all three options and they worked.

@marcelm That might be a good argument, but right now it is a guess. The OP said "penny", so I will assume it is a ridiculously low amount. Sure, if that adds up to real money (like $20) that is no longer a "penny" in my book and should be treated accordingly. But I won't base my answer on a commenters unverified guess, as good as it may be.

@marcelm Based on the post it looks like the two software round differently but end up with the same yearly sum.

@nvoigt OP explicitly said "penny difference in actual hourly pay". No guessing required.

@user3819867 Read the post again, it explicitly says "Thus both systems calculate a slightly different total yearly salary".

@marcelm The sentence you qouted continues as "when the successive hourly rates are used to calculate." The hourly rates are derived measures in both. Payroll has a gross amount that adds up to 45,000 p.a. and the agreement is also for 45,000 p.a. The differences in the year will be on the rounding of this derived measure, for example the quotation considers 250 working days by 8 = 2,000 hours (22.5 $/h), payroll actually knows that 2024 has 251 working days (22.41 $/h average). In June you could get $ 3,750 (1/12 of p.a.) for 19 days worked (24.67 $/h)and in July the same for 22 (21.31$/h).

@marcelm But where the rounding difference actually is that the hourly wage is $24.67(10526315789) with the last 11 digits not visible to the user. If the employee then counts up the totals based on "successive hourly rates" it ends up being $ 3,749.84 with 16 cents lost to rounding but not lost according to the agreement or in the payroll (3,750 paid).

We can all discuss hypothetical rounding errors in systems we don't know anything about, or we could just take the OP by their word, that this is about pennies. If the OP wants to correct that, I am happy to ammend my answer, until then I think it is not very productive to make up fictional accounting software mistakes and argue that strawman.

cheers @nvoigt you may have missed my subsequent comment, (ie the opening and closing paragraphs are of course golden - the stuff in the middle is just silly. The fact that this has 10 upvotes is terrifying.) this post is surprising consider your billion other ultra-sensible posts on this site !! you never, ever "fuck with" people's money, including all decimals of the paperwork, in any situation, ever. there is nothing funny about money - ever

@Fattie the upvotes and nvoigts anecdotal evidence (seen it work) suggest that a lot of people don't care about someone "fucking with" their money, as long as they come out on top. But your opinion also shows that some people will care a lot and may fight any of these solutions malignantly not about the actual money, but about principle. If one has employees like that, this solution will probably not work at all.

A senior where I worked once said that when people start quoting the Contract you have already failed big time. But, some people do whip out the contract at the slightest provocation and get riled over 'principles' way more easily than others. Game Theory says that the best approach is to treat people the way they treat you.

@Falco your comments are fair of course. I'm a big, huge, "union!" "worker's rights!" guy. (I"m over and over banned from this site for a few months for, basically, answering every question "FUCK the company, FUCK the boss, companies exist to SCREW you.." ! 🤪 ) Anyway .. no point going in to a repetitive chain, all points seem clear!

@HappyIdiot the thing is my friend .. "Game Theory says that the best approach is to treat people the way they treat you" the problem is this. It's not you and me, two people, dealing with each other. The other side is a company. Companies are not people, they are a social structure, historical institution, that has been created as part of the extended phenotype of homo sapiens. Religions, prisons, nunneries, schools, clubs, castes, and so on are such things. Companies by definition have absolutely no concern for humans, they are literally robotic processes. NEVER "be nice" to a

corporation. Never, ever.

@Fattie vote some younger people in and get it changed. Or, stop buying products from companies run by old people or that exploit people. Create a social structure which works.

@HappyIdiot - it's my life's work.