Steps to determine amounts of missing pay verification

Occasionally you’ll have to determine what a pay amount was because the pay stub or other documentation is missing. It’s always preferable to obtain the missing document when possible; however you can usually arrive at the income you need to obtain by applying a simple mathematical procedure. Using the information provided below, let’s look at an example:

1. Start with the most recent pay stub and list the others below it.
   • The oldest pay stub should be last on this list.
   • Include the missing pay stub in the list.

   April 2023

   Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
   			1	2	3	4
   5	6	7	8	9	10missing pay	11
   12	13	14	15	16	17	18
   19	20	21	22	23	24	25
   26	27	28	29	30

   Pay Date	Gross Earnings	Year to Date
   4/24/2023	$235.06	$2029.63
   4/17/2023	$210.67	$1794.57
   4/10/2023	missing	missing
   4/3/2023	$240.75	$1337.29

2. Take the Year-to-Date figure following the missing pay stub and subtract the gross pay amount for that date to obtain the missing Year-to-Date figure.
   $ 1794.57 (Year-To-Date for 04/17/2023 check)
   minus 210.67 (Gross Pay for 04/17/2023 check)
   equals $ 1583.90 (Year-To-Date for 4/10/2023 missing check)
3. Subtract the next (older) Year-to-Date figure from this missing check Year-to-Date figure to obtain the missing pay amount.
   $ 1583.90 (Year-To-Date for 4/10/2023 missing check)
   minus 1337.29 (Year-To-Date for 4/03/2023 check before the missing one)
   equals $ 246.61 (Gross pay amount for 4/10/2023 missing check)
4. Always verify that missing pay is representative before using it in income calculation. (For example: the calculated missing payment of $246.61 seems reasonable based on the known payments.)

Note: This method is not ideal if you have more than one missing pay period between dates as it may not give you an accurate indication of representative pay for each pay period.

Access the Missing Pay Stub Calculator