One-time payment vs recurring payments

One-time payroll (manual, flexible)

Best for:

• One-off contractor payments
  
  
• Bonus payments
  
  
• Any situation where recipients get paid different amounts each payroll cycle
  
  

How it works:

• You create the payroll once
  
  
• Add recipients and amounts for that specific run
  
  
• Fund it 
• Track it in Payroll → History
  
  

Why teams use it: maximum flexibility and control per run.

Recurring payroll (repeatable, automated)

Best for:

• Payroll cycles where recipients are paid the same amount each time
  
  
• Companies that want a predictable process that “auto-creates” payroll runs
  
  

How it works:

• You set up a recurring payroll schedule and fixed amounts
  
  
• Bitwage automatically creates the payroll each cycle
  
  
• You then fund it (automated or manual)
  
  

Funding best practices for recurring payroll

Recommended: automated funding

For recurring payrolls, the best practice is to set up an automated funding method in advance (when available), such as:

• Credit card
  
  
• ACH debit
  
  

This helps ensure payrolls are funded on time without manual steps.

If you don’t use automated funding

You can still run recurring payrolls, but you’ll need to manually fund each recurring payroll:

1. Go to Payroll
   
   
2. Open History
   
   
3. Find the payroll created for that cycle
   
   
4. Complete the funding step manually
   
   

Quick comparison

One-time payroll

• Best when amounts change
  
  
• Good for contractors / ad-hoc payments
  
  
• Created manually each time
  
  

Recurring payroll

• Best when amounts stay the same
  
  
• Auto-creates payroll runs each cycle
  
  
• Works best with automated funding (credit card / ACH debit), otherwise fund manually via History