--- title: "How do I cancel or delete a Payroll Entry?" space: "Frappe HR" url: "https://docs.frappe.io/hr/salary-payouts/help-articles/how-do-i-cancel-or-delete-a-payroll-entry" updated: "2026-10-25" --- You cancel a Payroll Entry from the Payroll Entry itself. Frappe HR then cancels its salary slips, its accrual and bank Journal Entries and their payment ledger entries for you. Do not cancel these documents one by one first. That causes errors such as `Cannot delete or cancel because Payroll Entry ... is linked with Payment Ledger Entry ...`. This page is for HR and payroll users who processed payroll with wrong data, such as a wrong date, a missing employee or a wrong salary amount, and want to remove it and run it again. ## How it works A submitted Payroll Entry creates other documents: - **Salary Slips**, one for each employee. - An **accrual Journal Entry**, posted when you submit the salary slips. It books the salary expense against the **Payroll Payable Account**. - A **bank Journal Entry**, if you clicked **Make Bank Entry**. It pays the payroll payable amount from the bank. - **Payment Ledger Entries**, which track the payable amount that is still open for this Payroll Entry. When you cancel the Payroll Entry, Frappe HR does all of this in one action: 1. It cancels each submitted salary slip and then deletes all the salary slips of the Payroll Entry. 2. It cancels every submitted Journal Entry that refers to the Payroll Entry. This includes the accrual entry and the bank entry. 3. It cancels the payment ledger entries of the Payroll Entry. 4. It sets the **Status** to **Cancelled**. If the Payroll Entry has more than 50 salary slips, the cancellation runs in the background. You see the message `Payroll Entry cancellation is queued. It may take a few minutes`. If the background job fails, the Payroll Entry goes back to **Submitted** and the error is added as a comment on it. A cancelled Payroll Entry does not stop you from running payroll again. Its salary slips are deleted, so you can make a new Payroll Entry for the same **Start Date** and **End Date**. ## Before you start - You need the **HR Manager** role. By default, only the HR Manager can cancel or delete a Payroll Entry. - Check the **Accounts Frozen Till Date** and any closed **Accounting Period**. If the posting date of the Journal Entries is in a frozen or closed period, the cancellation stops. Depending on your version, **Accounts Frozen Till Date** is in **Accounts Settings** or on the **Company**. - If the salaries were already paid from the bank, tell your accounts team first. Cancelling the bank entry removes the payment from the books, but not from the bank. - If you made a bank entry and did not submit it, delete that draft Journal Entry first. The Payroll Entry cancels only submitted Journal Entries. A draft bank entry stays with a link to the cancelled Payroll Entry, and you cannot submit it later. ## Cancel a Payroll Entry For example, Bluepeak Technologies processed the September 2026 payroll for Vikram Desai and Ayesha Khan, with the wrong salary for Ayesha. HR wants to cancel it and run it again. 1. Go to **Payroll → Payroll Entry** and open the Payroll Entry. 2. Click the **Connections** tab. Check the **Salary Slip** and **Journal Entry** counts. These are the documents that are cancelled with it. ![Connections tab of the Payroll Entry](/files/02-connections15723c.webp) 3. Click **Cancel** at the top of the page. ![Cancel button on a submitted Payroll Entry](/files/01-submitted-payroll-entry38c025.webp) 4. In the **Confirm** dialog, click **Yes**. ![Confirm dialog to cancel the Payroll Entry](/files/03-cancel-confirm9def25.webp) 5. Wait for the page to reload. The status is now **Cancelled**. ![Payroll Entry with the status Cancelled](/files/04-cancelled2c1d78.webp) 6. Open the **Connections** tab again. The **Salary Slip** and **Journal Entry** counts are gone. The salary slips are deleted and the Journal Entries are cancelled. To process the payroll again, make a new Payroll Entry for the same period. See [Payroll Entry](https://docs.frappe.io/hr/payroll-entry). ## Delete a Payroll Entry You can delete a Payroll Entry only if it has no accounting entries: - A **Draft** Payroll Entry. Open it, click **···** at the top right, then click **Delete**. - A cancelled Payroll Entry whose salary slips were never submitted. Then no Journal Entry was made. You cannot delete a Payroll Entry after its accrual or bank Journal Entry was submitted, even after you cancel it. The cancelled Journal Entries keep their ledger lines (GL Entries) for the audit trail, and these lines refer to the Payroll Entry. If you try, you see: ``` Cannot delete or cancel because Payroll Entry HR-PRUN-2026-00002 is linked with GL Entry 31e02aa4f5 ``` You do not need to delete it. A cancelled Payroll Entry has no effect on salaries, reports or the accounts, and it does not block a new Payroll Entry for the same dates. ## Errors you can see **You cancelled the salary slips or the Journal Entry yourself first** ``` Cannot delete or cancel because Payroll Entry HR-PRUN-2026-00002 is linked with Payment Ledger Entry 8d3o0mmdmo ``` This happens when the accrual or bank Journal Entry was cancelled before the Payroll Entry. The Journal Entry leaves a payment ledger entry that still refers to the Payroll Entry. - On Frappe HR v16, cancel the Payroll Entry again. Version 16 cancels these payment ledger entries for you. - On Frappe HR v15, raise a support ticket with the Payroll Entry ID. You cannot cancel a payment ledger entry from the screen. To avoid this, always cancel from the Payroll Entry, as in the steps above. **The user cannot access Payment Ledger Entry** ``` User hr.manager@example.com does not have doctype access via role permission for document Payment Ledger Entry ``` Older versions checked the permission of the user on each payment ledger entry and Journal Entry. Update your site to Frappe HR v15.60.3 or later, or v16.7.1 or later. You do not need to give HR users access to Payment Ledger Entry. **A draft bank entry does not submit after the cancellation** The draft Journal Entry still refers to the cancelled Payroll Entry. Delete the draft Journal Entry. Then make the bank entry again from the new Payroll Entry. ## Related - [Payroll Entry](https://docs.frappe.io/hr/payroll-entry) - [Make Bank Entry from Payroll Entry](https://docs.frappe.io/hr/payroll-articles/make-bank-entry-from-payroll-entry) - [Can I run more than one salary slip or payroll entry in a month?](https://docs.frappe.io/hr/salary-payouts/help-articles/can-i-run-more-than-one-salary-slip-or-payroll-entry-in-a-month) - [Payroll Correction](https://docs.frappe.io/hr/payroll-correction)