Setting Employee Opening Balances (Initial Values)

If you are migrating your payroll, you will most likely want to set the opening balances for the leave entitlements and the year to date payment figures for your employees. 

To set up the opening balances for an employee, open the employee record that you wish to set the opening balances for and then select “Opening Balances” from the left navigation menu.

Within the Opening Balances screen, there are six tabs:

• Leave Balances
• Earnings
• Deductions
• Employer Liabilities
• KiwiSaver & PAYE
• Historic Gross Earnings 

Leave Balances

When entering leave balances, enter balance as at last anniversary date to this payroll system (that is, as at the later pay run processed in your previous payroll system). Annual Leave and Parental Leave are entered as weeks.

Earnings

Earnings are the year-to-date gross values for the financial year specified. If you need to change the Initial Financial Year, click the 'Opening Balances Settings' button at the top of the page. Earnings will be allocated to the employee's primary location (set via the employee's Pay Run defaults page) at the time the data has been entered.

Deductions

Enter the year-to-date deduction amounts for the financial year specified.

Employer Liabilities

If you were previously recording employer liabilities in your previous payroll system, you will be able to enter those YTD figures here. If you have not yet set up any employer liability categories, the following articles will help:

Creating and Managing Employer Liability Categories

Setting up Recurring Employer Liabilities 

KiwiSaver & PAYE

Enter the year-to-date PAYE and ACC Levy withheld amounts, student loan and KiwiSaver employee, employer and ESCT amounts for the financial year specified. 

Historical Gross Earnings 

The purpose of importing historic gross earnings is to assist in determining the AWE and ADP when an employee takes leave, especially where the business has moved to a new payroll system. Refer to this article for the instructions. 

Lastly, you will notice an option to clear the opening balances / historic gross earnings you have entered for the employee:

This works on a 'per tab' basis. If you choose to clear the data within that particular tab keep in mind the relevant reports will be updated. This feature is especially helpful if you have a high level of data entered. 

Importing Opening Balances

If you have a large number of employees, you can bulk import their opening balances. To access the template spreadsheet, click on 'Opening Balances Settings' at the top of the page, then click 'Export'. Refer to this article for more information.

 If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know via support@nzpayroll.co.nz.