Answer
If you are beginning part way through a financial year and need to add existing year-to-date (YTD) figures for your employees, there are three options to do this:
1) The best and most accurate option is to enter all the previous pays for the financial year into Lightning Payroll. This can be done one-by-one in the Pays screen by navigating back with the 'Last Pay Run' button. This option is time consuming but it does provide the greatest amount of detail. Please ensure the processed date is correct (banked/payment date) for each of these past pays. You can do this quickly for the entire pay run by clicking the Set Processed/Paid Date For Pay Run button on the Pays screen after you've completed it.
2) The second best way is to create a single pay entry for each employee right before the first official pay in Lightning Payroll. This approach is faster than the first option, though it offers less detail. However, it still facilitates efficient entry of pay items, superannuation, tax, and their respective amounts.
3) (Last Resort: use only if the other methods are untenable.) The third option is to complete a YTD adjustment for each employee in the Employees section. If you have the year-to-date (YTD) figures for each employee, you can enter these under Year to Date >> Adjust YTD Totals. Lightning Payroll works forward from these amounts as you complete pays. This is considered a last resort as it offers the least versatility for entering YTD items. The figures entered into this section will not show correctly on most reports, or in most areas of the program, as they are mainly for STP submissions and YTD on payslips.