Prior business day rule
The convention of moving a pay date earlier when the scheduled date falls on a weekend or federal holiday.
The prior business day rule is the small-business convention of moving a scheduled pay date earlier when the original date falls on a weekend or one of the eleven observed federal holidays. The rule keeps payroll funded ahead of bank closures, never violates a state wage payment statute (which generally require pay by a date, not on a date), and is the convention used in every schedule on this site.
The opposite shift — moving the date later — is occasionally used by large employers with a fixed-payday-of-the-week policy ("we always pay on Friday, full stop"), but it can run into state-statute conflicts in California, Texas, and a few other strict-window jurisdictions. For small businesses, the prior business day rule is the safer default.
The mechanics: identify the scheduled pay date, check whether it falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or observed federal holiday, and walk backward day-by-day until you reach a non-weekend, non-holiday business day. The schedules on this site implement exactly this loop — see the methodology page for the computation.