Is this pay stub usable?
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Send via DokuTrakWhat the check reads on a pay stub
A pay stub goes by many names: earnings statement, payslip, pay statement, payment advice. The check accepts all of them as the same document, so a stub titled by the payroll provider is not flagged as the wrong type.
It then looks for the four details a usable stub must show: the employee name, the net pay, and both the first and the last day of the pay period. Any one of them missing or unreadable makes the answer "incomplete", and the check names which one.
A pay stub is also the only document here whose figures can be compared with each other. The check reads the employer name, the gross pay, the total deductions and the year-to-date totals as printed, never computed, and points out the ones that do not add up.
What it points out on a pay stub
- Net pay that is not gross pay minus total deductions, by more than a dollar.
- A year-to-date total lower than the amount for the pay period printed next to it.
- A pay period with only one date, a date that does not exist, or an end date before the start date.
- No employer name, or no employee name, on the stub.
- A SPECIMEN, SAMPLE or VOID marking on a stub handed over as proof of income.
- A phone photo that cuts off the year-to-date column or the period dates.
What should be on a pay stub
A complete pay stub shows who was paid, by whom, for which dates, how much was earned, what was taken out, and what was paid. The main federal wage law doesn’t even require one: the U.S. Department of Labor says the FLSA “does not require an employer to provide employees pay stubs”. States set the rules.
What federal law does require is the record behind the stub. The Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #21 lists what an employer must keep for each non-exempt worker, including total wages paid each pay period, all additions to or deductions from wages, and the date of payment and the pay period it covers. Those records are kept for at least three years. A stub often reproduces part of that record for the employee.
Most payroll providers print the same blocks, whatever the state:
| Block | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Employer | The legal name of the business, often its address |
| Employee | Name, and often the last four digits of the Social Security number or an employee ID |
| Pay period and pay date | The first and last day this check covers, and the day it was paid |
| Earnings | Hours and rate for hourly pay, or the salary for the period; overtime, bonus, commission on their own lines |
| Gross pay | Everything earned in the period, before anything is taken out |
| Taxes withheld | Federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and state or local income tax where they apply |
| Other deductions | Pre-tax items such as a 401(k) or health premiums, and after-tax items such as garnishments |
| Net pay | What actually reached the employee: gross pay minus every deduction, plus any after-tax reimbursement |
| Year to date (YTD) | Running totals since January 1 for gross, each tax, each deduction, and net |
California as an example of a state list
California is one of the states that spells the list out. Labor Code section 226(a), as summarized by the state’s Labor Commissioner, requires an itemized statement each payday with gross wages, total hours worked (not for salaried exempt employees), piece-rate units where they apply, all deductions, net wages, the inclusive dates of the pay period, the employee’s name with the last four digits of the Social Security number or an employee ID, the employer’s legal name and address, and every hourly rate in effect during the period with the hours worked at each, among other items. Many states have shorter lists, and some have none. Check the rule for the state where the person works.
Common pay stub problems to look for
Beyond the arithmetic and the names the check above flags, the problems worth a look are the ones that need context: totals that don’t fit the calendar, earnings lines that don’t multiply out, taxes that are missing, and a document that isn’t a pay stub at all. None of them proves anything on its own. Each one is a reason to look closer or ask for a clean copy.
- Hours times rate that doesn’t give the earnings line. On an hourly stub, each rate multiplied by its hours should give the amount printed next to it. Overtime has its own rate and its own line.
- YTD that doesn’t fit the calendar. A biweekly employee in mid-year has about a dozen paychecks behind them. A YTD gross equal to one or two periods, with no mention of a start date, is worth a question.
- Tax lines missing entirely. A regular paycheck with no Social Security or Medicare line is unusual. Ask why before you rely on the net.
- A pay date before the end of the period. Some employers pay in advance, but it is worth checking against the employer’s usual schedule.
- An after-tax addition read as an error. An expense reimbursement added after tax makes net pay larger than gross minus deductions. Look for its line before assuming a mistake.
- The wrong document. An offer letter, a W-2, a direct-deposit notice or a bank statement sent in place of the stub. For the other two, the W-2 checker and the bank statement checker read what you actually received.
How to verify a pay stub by hand
Pay stub verification by hand takes a calculator and a few minutes. Confirm it’s a stub for the right person and period, redo the arithmetic, test the year-to-date totals against the calendar, sanity-check the payroll taxes, and match the net pay against where the money landed.
- Read the header. Employee name, employer name, pay period start and end, pay date. All four should be present and plausible.
- Redo the net. Gross pay minus the sum of every tax and deduction, plus any after-tax additions such as an expense reimbursement, should equal net pay, to the cent or within rounding. For example: gross of 2,000 dollars, taxes and deductions of 412.50 dollars, so net should be 1,587.50 dollars.
- Test the YTD. YTD gross should never be smaller than this period’s gross, and YTD net never smaller than this period’s net; on the first stub of the year they can be equal. Divide YTD gross by the number of pay dates so far this year. The result should sit near the period’s gross, unless there were raises, bonuses or unpaid leave.
- Sanity-check payroll taxes. Per the IRS’s Topic 751, the employee’s share is 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. Multiply the period’s gross pay by those rates and compare with the Social Security and Medicare lines. Health premiums taken pre-tax under a cafeteria plan are usually exempt from both taxes, so the lines can come in lower. 401(k) deferrals are not exempt, so they don’t explain a gap. Social Security stops once YTD wages reach the wage base, 184,500 dollars for 2026 per IRS Publication 15. The employer also withholds a 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages above 200,000 dollars in a calendar year.
- Match the deposit. Net pay should match a deposit on the bank statement on or near the pay date, unless part of it was split to another account. The bank statement checker reads whether that statement is usable and flags what’s missing, and the bank statement converter turns it into a table where the deposit is easy to find.
- Match the W-2 at year end. The last stub of the year should agree with the W-2, with one known difference. The IRS’s W-2 instructions keep 401(k) elective deferrals out of box 1 but report them in boxes 3 and 5. So box 1 can be lower than the December YTD gross, while box 5 (Medicare wages) usually sits closer to it. Box 3 matches too, unless wages passed the Social Security wage base. Use the W-2 checker to confirm the form is for the right tax year.
- Look at the copy itself. Every page present, nothing cropped, no SAMPLE or VOID marking, text readable at normal zoom.
The pay stub checker above covers part of steps 1, 2, 3 and 7 on the figures it reads: it flags a net pay that misses gross minus deductions by more than one dollar (a stub with an after-tax reimbursement will show this flag, so check that line before reading anything into it), a YTD total lower than the period amount, broken period dates, missing names and a specimen marking. It does not divide YTD by pay dates, and it does not run steps 4 to 6. Those need other documents, and your own judgment of what is normal for this employer. The flags are a suggestion; what you accept is your call. The same idea, applied to every file a client uploads, is described in first-pass review of client files.
For a full income file, the same review applies to each document. A mortgage application checklist lists what usually travels with the stubs.
What happens to the file
DokuTrak doesn’t store your file. It travels straight from your browser to the check, is held in memory while it is read, and is dropped when the answer comes back. It is scanned for malware on the way in, and nothing — not the file, not a detail read off it — is written to our storage or our logs. The page is sent to Cloudflare Workers AI to be read; what Cloudflare keeps is covered by its own terms, which our security page links.
Cloudflare Workers AI does the reading. It is the same review that runs inside DokuTrak, and it is the only AI vendor in the chain. Our privacy page names it too.
This is not a forgery detector. It reads what the page says — the document type, the legibility, the details present — never whether the page is genuine. A verdict here is a first pass to save you a look, not a judgement on the document or on the person who sent it.
What the answers mean
- Usable
- It reads as a pay stub and carries what one carries. You still look before you rely on it.
- Wrong type
- It is a document of another kind — an offer letter, a tax form, a bank statement. Ask again, naming the pay stub.
- Unreadable
- Blurred, cropped or too dark to read. A flat scan or a straight-on daylight photo usually fixes it.
- Incomplete
- A pay stub, but a detail one carries could not be read. The check names which.
- Not sure
- The review was not confident enough to say either way. Low confidence is reported as uncertainty rather than rounded to the nearest answer.
Questions
What does this pay stub checker actually check?
Three things a human would check first: that the file really is a pay stub rather than an offer letter or a bank statement, that the page is legible, and that the details a pay stub carries — employee name, net pay, the pay period — are readable on it. It is not a forgery detector: it reads what the page says, never whether the page is genuine.
Do you keep the pay stub I upload?
No. DokuTrak doesn't store your file: we hold it in memory for the length of the check and write it nowhere — not to our storage, not to our logs, and no detail read off the page either. The page itself is sent to Cloudflare Workers AI, our AI subprocessor, to be read; what Cloudflare retains is governed by its own Workers AI terms rather than by a promise we make on its behalf. Our security page names the subprocessor and links the terms. The same holds for a pay stub as for anything else you drop here.
Which AI reads the file?
Cloudflare Workers AI, the same review DokuTrak runs inside the product. There is no other AI vendor in the chain, which is what lets us name the one that is.
Why did it answer "not sure"?
Because the review was not confident enough to say either way, and a low-confidence read is reported as uncertain rather than dressed up as an answer. AI flags; the reading is still yours.
What file types and sizes work?
PDF, JPEG, PNG and HEIC, up to 10 MB and 5 pages. On a phone, a photo of the pay stub taken straight on in daylight works as well as a scan.
Are employers required to give pay stubs?
Not under the main federal wage law. The U.S. Department of Labor says the Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep accurate records of hours worked and wages paid, but does not require them to provide pay stubs. Many states do require a pay statement, and some list what it must contain. California Labor Code section 226(a) is one detailed example. Check the rule where the employee works.
What information should a pay stub have?
A complete stub names the employer and the employee, gives the pay period and the pay date, and shows gross pay, each tax withheld, each other deduction, net pay, and year-to-date totals. Hourly stubs add hours and rates. The exact list depends on the state. This checker requires four of these to call a stub complete: employee name, net pay, and the first and last day of the pay period.
How do I verify a pay stub by hand?
Confirm the names and the pay period are printed. Subtract every deduction from gross, add any after-tax reimbursement, and compare with net. Check that year-to-date totals are at least the period amounts and fit the number of paychecks so far. Compare the Social Security and Medicare lines with 6.2% and 1.45% of gross. Then match net pay to a bank deposit, and the last stub of the year to the W-2.
Why doesn't my year-to-date gross match my W-2?
Usually because of pre-tax deductions. According to the IRS's instructions for Form W-2, 401(k) elective deferrals are not included in box 1 wages but are reported in boxes 3 and 5. So box 1 can be lower than the December YTD gross on the last pay stub, and health premiums paid pre-tax can lower it further. Box 5 is often the closest match, and box 3 as well unless wages passed the Social Security wage base.
Can this tool tell me whether a pay stub is authentic or the job is real?
No. It reads what is printed on the page: the kind of document, whether it is legible, whether the required details are there, and whether its own figures agree. It does not contact the employer or the payroll provider, and it is not a forgery detector. For employment or income confirmation, ask the employer or use the verification process your lender or program requires.
Can I check pay stubs a client has to send me?
Yes — that is the product rather than the tool. A DokuTrak request lists the document, the client uploads it through one link with no account, and the same review runs on what arrives. 14-day free trial, no card. Add one only to keep going.