Adding an Employee

Once you have set up your business, the first step is to add an employee. There are 3 methods to adding employees:

1. Employee Self Setup. Click here to read instructions on this process; or
2. Importing an employee file. Click here to read instructions on this process; or
3. Utilising the Employee Wizard.

This article will provide assistance in setting up an employee using the wizard. 

Setting up an employee using the Employee Wizard is a simple 4-step process.

Step 1. Personal Details

The following fields in Personal Details must be completed in order to progress to the next screen:

1. First Name
2. Surname
3. Legal name: (Optional) Legal name will be used to populate the Statutory reports/forms. If Legal name field is blank then the employee's First name and Surname will be used;
4. Date of Birth (required)
5. Gender (required)
6. Residential Address (required)
7. Email Address, if "Employee Notifications" = Email
8. Mobile Phone, if "Employee Notifications" = SMS                                                                        

• When entering an address, auto-complete suggestions may be presented for local and local C/O address types. To pre-fill an address, start typing in the 'Look up address'  field and click on a suggestion. This will also auto complete the other address fields if there are matches. If the suggestions are not adequate or the employee lives overseas you will need to select the 'foreign address' type. Also note that, outside of Country, all other fields are free text in a foreign address so there will be no validation done to ensure the address is correct.       
• If the employee's postal address is different to their residential address, untick the Postal Address is the same as Residential Address checkbox. Additional fields will appear where you can enter the postal address details.                                                                                                       
• The Employee Notifications setting controls if/how the employee will be notified when new pay slips are available, when leave requests and/or expense requests have been actioned by their manager, rostering notifications and so forth. If you do not want an employee receiving any notifications, select "None". If the option "Manual" is selected, employees will not receive any notifications however payroll will be able to easily view/download pay slips just for 'manual notification' employees so they can then print these pay slips only and issue to the employees.   
  
                                    
  
  
• The Self-Service setting controls whether the employee will have access to their employee portal (where they can view their pay slips, apply for leave, action shift requests, etc). If you select "Yes", the employee will be sent an email or sms (depending on their notification setting) with instructions on how to set up their password and log into their portal. 

Step 2. Bank details

Entering the employee's bank details is mandatory.

• Employees may either be paid electronically into a bank account (using an Payment file), manually into a bank account, or manually via cash/cheque.
• When adding bank details, select the bank and enter the account number before selecting 'Lookup branch code' to populate the list of matching branch codes.
• Additional bank accounts may be added once the employee setup is complete.
  
  
  
  

Step 3. Employment details

This section allows the user to configure the pay details for the employee such as rate of pay, pay schedule and primary location. The first employment detail settings displayed on this screen are as follows: 

• The Employing Entity field will only appear if the business has more than one employing entity set up. The default value here will be the employing entity entered in the Business Details screen. You can change this by clicking on the drop down and selecting the correct entity.
• Both the Start Date and Employment Type fields are compulsory to complete.
• Both the Primary Location and Pay Schedule fields will be populated with suggested values however to change these, click on the pencil icon and select the correct value. Please note that the primary location value is the location that will be assigned as the employee's default location. If the employee will be working in more than one location you can select multiple locations once you have completed the employee wizard. You can attach more than one location to an employee via the "Locations" screen within their employee file.
• You can create a new location from the Primary Location field by clicking on 'Add New' in the drop down.                 

• If you are paying an employee an annual salary, ensure you enter the annual salary in the Pay Rate field and then change 'per Month' to 'per Annum'. Once you enter the monthly hours the system will calculate the employee's equivalent hourly rate. 
  
  

• By default, the employee's hours per day setting will reflect the value set up as the business' hours per day (in Payroll Settings > Details). The value entered here is important as it is used to convert day or week based leave into hours within the pay run. Additionally, attempting to enter the value 0 in this field will revert the value back to the business' hours per day value.  
• You are able to set a tiered leave allowance template for the employee. Tiered leave allowance templates enable leave entitlements to automatically adjust at a point in time during the employees period of employment. E.g. if an employee is entitled to extra leave entitlements each year, tiered leave allowance templates will cater for this. More information can be found here. If you set a tiered leave allowance template, this will then pre-populate the below 'Leave allowance template' field. 
• If you do not set a tiered leave allowance template, you can choose to select a standalone leave allowance template if you wish. Setting this separate to a tiered template means that a set of pre-defined leave accrual values are applied to an employee, but the leave allowance template will not move on or change even when the employee reaches certain anniversary milestones. Further reading on leave allowance templates can be found here. 
• You can select whether or not the employee will use timesheets, or if they will use timesheets for exceptions only. If they are not set up to use timesheets, they will not be able to submit timesheets via WorkZone or the employee portal, however, managers can still create timesheets on their behalf. 

National Registration Identity

This section is for entering the NRIC information for the employee. 

• The NRIC/FIN field is a compulsory field. Any NRIC/FIN number entered here will go through a validation check. The following identification numbers will be accepted: National Registration Identity Card (NRIC), Foreign Identification Number (FIN), Immigration File Reference Number, Work Permit Number, Malaysian Identification Card or Passport Number.
• The expiry date field is only applicable if there is a FIN number
• The nationality data is used for reporting to the IRAS
• The legal status is used to determine whether the employee is eligible for CPF contributions
• If the employee is a permanent resident, the date obtained residency and CPF contribution rate will need to be completed. This is used to determine which CPF rates apply during the first 2 years of residency.
• Covered by Employment Act is used to determine whether the employee is eligible for pay for work on a rest day. In Singapore, local and foreign employees who are working under a contract of service, are covered by the Employment Act. The Employment Act does not cover employees who are managers/executives, seamen, domestic workers or government employees. Part 4 of the Employment Act (which covers rest days, hours of work and overtime) is only relevant to employees earning less than $2,600 or workmen who earn less than $4,500 per month.
• The employee group field is used to determine what CPF rate will be applied to the employee

Setup Complete

At this stage, the basic payroll setup for the employee is complete. The employee is now able to be included in pay runs.

There are additional customisation options available once the employee has been added into the system. Click on the blue 'Details' button if additional configuration of the employee is required, for example:

• Configuring additional pay rates
• Adding additional locations
• Setting up work types
• Adding additional bank accounts
• Setting up deductions or adjustments

If you have any questions or feedback please let us know via support@yourpayroll.io.