A pay stub template is not a design question. It is a list of claims, arranged so that a reader can check each one. Here is what belongs on the document, in the order a reader actually scans it.
Header: who, whom, when
- Employer name and, when the reader is not already familiar with the business, its address. This is the line that tells a third party who is making the claim.
- Employee name, and the job title when several people at the business earn similar amounts.
- Pay period — a start and end date, not just a month. This is the single most-asked-for detail when someone is assembling proof of income, because it is what lets you lay consecutive stubs side by side without gaps or overlaps.
- Pay date — the day the money was due, which is not the same date as the period end on any normal payroll cycle.
- Frequency and pay type — weekly / bi-weekly / semi-monthly / monthly, and hourly or salaried. It looks like decoration until someone tries to reconcile twelve monthly figures against twenty-six bi-weekly ones.
Earnings: item, basis, amount
Each earnings line wants three columns. The item names it (“Regular”, “Overtime”, “Bonus”). The basis states how it was formed — 38 hours × $27.50, or annual salary ÷ 26 periods. The amount is the money. Basis is the column that turns a figure into something a third party can verify, and it is the first thing templates drop.
Deductions: label and amount, each on its own line
One line per deduction, each with a name a reader can map to a real obligation, plus an amount. A single line reading “Deductions $628.50” is not a pay stub, it is a net-pay figure with an unexplained hole in it. If nothing was withheld, say so on the document rather than leaving the section blank — the generator prints an explicit “no deductions entered” line for exactly that case.
Totals: the three that must reconcile
| Total | What it proves |
|---|---|
| Gross pay | The sum of the earnings lines, before anything was taken out. |
| Total deductions | The sum of the deduction lines. |
| Net pay | Gross minus deductions — the amount that changed hands. |
Those three are the whole arithmetic of the document: add the deductions back to net and you must land exactly on gross. If you want the reasoning behind that check, the net pay guide walks it through with worked figures.
What this template does not print
Worth stating plainly, because the omission is the reason a document gets rejected: Paystubs’s pay stub has no year-to-date columns. Gross, deductions and net are for the single period you entered. It also carries no employer identification number, no per-tax breakdown (federal, state, Social Security and Medicare appear only as the lines you typed), no employer-side tax totals, and no per-week breakdown of hours inside a two-week period.
If your reader needs YTD totals or tax-jurisdiction lines, that is payroll software or an employer record, not a generated stub. The pay stub vs W-2 vs 1099 guide covers which document is supposed to answer which question.
Format details that quietly matter
- One page, A4 or US Letter. Multi-page stubs get photocopied into something that looks edited.
- Money to the cent, consistently. Mixed rounding across lines is the fastest way to invite a “does this add up?” question.
- PDF, not a screenshot. A document that reflows in a viewer is a document someone has to retype.
- No watermark on the copy you hand over. Previews with watermarks are fine for checking your own work; they are not a record. Every stub here previews with a watermark and exports without one after the $4.99 document fee.