Pay check

　　An official form issued by a company which can be cashed at designated financial institutions.

　　Pay stub

　　Basically a receipt for record-keeping. Identifies all of the items and amounts used in calculating the final amount of the pay check.

　　Pay period

　　The time covered between pay checks. Can be daily (rare), weekly,monthly, bi-weekly (every 2 weeks), or bi-monthly (twice a month, usually in the middle and end of the month).

　　Pay rate

　　An agreed amount that the company pays per unit of time worked or unit of work done.

　　Gross

　　The base employee income for a specified period, based on pay rate. Can be:

　　Salary (a fixed amount, daily/weekly/monthly, which is adjusted

　　based on number of days worked/not worked)

　　Wage (an hourly rate adjusted for the number of hours worked)

　　Piece (a certain amount for each unit of work done)

　　The gross income can also be adjusted for items such as commissions and bonuses.

　　Commissions

　　Money earned on a regular basis based on previous sales made.

　　Bonuses

　　Money paid by the company for various reasons, such as meeting objectives, productivity incentives, special events (e.g. Xmas), etc.

　　Deductions

　　Deductions are amounts retained by the company from your gross amount.

　　They are also commonly referred to as deductions at source. Some of the more common deductions are:

　　Income tax (federal, state(U.S.) or provincial(Canada), municipal in some locations)

　　Pension (employee contributions for retirement. A common plan in the United States is the 401K plan).

　　Medical (to pay for medical insurance. This is more common in America. In Canada, every citizen is already covered by a global plan called Medicare, so the company plan most commonly found there is for dental care, which isn't covered by Medicare)

　　Charity (donations made to a charity of the employee's choice)