Hello g:

You're lucky.. We have a guy here who wrote a BOOK on Microsoft Access. He should be along shortly.

excon

Frankly, I wouldn't try. There are many payroll services out there that would make it more cost effective than doing your own. Or you can purchase QuickBooks payroll module. There are two many regulatory issues to deal with.

But, if you want to try, I'll give you a few pointers. But this site is more suited to asking and getting answers to specific questions, your question is really too broad to deal with effectively.

The easier answer is you first design a table structure to hold your data. Next you design forms to input your data and review your data. Finally you design reports to analyze your data. That's how you design any database!

The table structure should look something like this:
Employees: This table would hold info about each employee; names, address and other personal info.
Employment History: This table would show a history of the employment. Hire Date, position, salary, etc. Each time any of this changes (i.e. raises, promotions etc.) you create a new record
Pay Check: This table hold basic info about each paycheck; Employee, pay period, pay date
Pay Details: This table holds the details about each paycheck. This table would have a structure like:
PayDetailID (Primary Key Autonumber)
PayCheckID (Foreign Key)
PayItemID (FK)
PayItemAmount
PayItemFactor
PrePostTax

Finally, you would have a lookup table for each Pay Item. Pay Items are things like Salary, tax deductions, benefits deductions etc. So you would have a record for each item on the paycheck for each paycheck.

If you have any specific questions, please use the Answer options below to ask.