Set up employees for payroll

Each person you pay needs an employee record, with what they earn and where their pay and contributions go.

Before you start

• You need the Company Settings permission.
• Have each person's bank details, tax ID and pension or social security number to hand. In Nigeria, also their pension administrator (PFA) and NHF number.
• Your country's tax rules should be approved first (Payroll → Tax rules). They decide which optional schemes the form offers.

Steps

Many people at once: click Import from Excel on the Employees screen and drop your salary spreadsheet. Pay items such as housing and transport come in as each person's allowances and deductions; tax, pension, gross and net are worked out by payroll. See Import your data from Excel or CSV for the details.

One person:

1. Go to Payroll → Employees and click New employee.
2. Under Personal and job, enter the name, job title, department, start date and status. Leave Staff number empty to number them automatically.
3. Optionally choose their Login. This links their Business Sensor user, so they can see their own payslips under My payslips and are notified when one is ready.
4. Under Pay, enter the monthly Basic pay. Then click Add allowance or deduction for each regular item, such as housing, transport, or union dues. Each one is either a monthly amount or a percentage of basic.
5. Under Bank and statutory, enter the bank, account number and name, tax ID and pension number. Enter the Tax state / province where their income tax is paid (pick from the suggestions, or type the code used in your tax rules, such as ON or Lagos). In Nigeria, also enter the pension administrator and NHF number.
6. Tick or untick:
   • each optional scheme your country's rules offer, for example Deduct National Housing Fund and Deduct Health insurance in Nigeria
   • No pension (e.g. a casual worker)
   • Tax exempt
7. If your tax rules give rent relief, enter Annual rent declared when the employee claims it, and keep their tenancy evidence on file.
8. Click Save.

Tips

• Housing and transport count towards pension (as Nigeria's Pension Reform Act requires). Other allowances count only if their component is marked Counts for pension.
• When the employee's state or province has its own approved tax rules, their pay runs add that tax to the national rules.
• To stop paying someone, set Status to Left the company and enter the Last day. Their final month is paid for the days up to that date. Suspended staff are left out of runs until set back to Active.
• A mid-month starter is paid for the days from their start date.

Common problems

• The employee isn't on the pay run. Their basic pay is 0, their status is Suspended, they start after the month, or they left before it.
• The optional schemes aren't shown. Your country has no approved national tax rules in force today, or they have no optional schemes. See Payroll → Tax rules.
• "No bank account" on the run. They are left out of the bank file. Add their account number, then recalculate the run.
• "That login is already linked to another employee". Each login can belong to one employee only.