TABLE OF CONTENTS
Employee
Biodata and Pay Setup
How do I
generate a new payroll?
How do I
modify/cancel/commit a new payroll?
New
payroll details/calculations
Introduction
RCS Simple Payroll’s design philosophy
is to keep things as simple and intuitive as possible! Feedback from end-users is always welcome,
especially suggestions on simplifying the interface etc.
RCS Simple Payroll is completely
designed from the bottom up for the Singaporean market. It is not a product designed for other
markets and then ‘customised’ for Singapore.
It is purely for Singapore.
RCS Simple Payroll is an off-the-shelf
product. You install it and run it – it
does not require customisation (although see the point below about multi-user).
RCS Simple Payroll can run as
single-user and multi-user. However, it
is only optimised for single-user usage.
The database is secured by a single password. If you wish to run it as multi-user with a set up of different
users with their own passwords and levels of access then customisation is
required. A future version will
incorporate such multi-user access.
RCS Simple Payroll is single-currency.
RCS Simple Payroll can run up to two
payroll a month (that is, mid-month and end-month). [Top]
How do I get started?
1. Main Menu/Setup “Employer
Details” command button
Need to enter employer details such
as Tax Ref and Address. Note that you
cannot change your Employer Name. This
has been entered already by Rushton Computer Services when you purchased the
payroll programme and can only be changed by RCS.
For further details, see Employer Details. [Top]
2. Main Menu/Setup “Payroll Status” command button
The first time you click this command button and enter the Payroll Status form you will be prompted for the first month of payroll, eg your first payroll may be in May. The actual payroll calendar runs from January to December consistent with the IR8A.
Here you can:
Change the Year. This would normally be used only at
year-end. Note that the logic of the
software relies upon the payroll year (current payroll date) rather than the
system clock of your computer. For
example, if you run a YTD analysis the software will look at the payroll date
rather than the date on your computer if these two dates are different.
Set the default for the
Weekly Ordinary Hours. By default,
this is 44. When you generate a new
payroll, any Daily-Rated employees will have their ordinary hours automatically
computed according to this default. You
may manually edit the ordinary hours of individual employees (and are, in fact,
likely to do so). Therefore, if the
payroll frequency of the employee is fortnightly then the automatically
computed ordinary hours will be 88. If
the payroll frequency of the employee is monthly then the figure will be
176. Ordinary hours are not applicable
to monthly salaried employees.
Choose the First Payroll
Month. Very important! You may be starting this computerised
payroll mid-year. Once chosen, it
cannot be changed.
Choose Payroll Frequency. Very important! Can have fortnightly or monthly payrolls. This setting is a default for the
system. You may edit individual
employees to distinguish between those fortnightly and those monthly paid, for
example daily-rated employees, such as foreign workers, may be fortnightly
paid. These settings, at the system and
employee levels, may be changed at any time.
Set the Default Day(s) for
Payrolls. If you select payroll
frequency of fortnightly then the default Days values are 15 (the 15th
of the month) for mid-month payrolls and 31 (the 31st of the month)
for month-end payrolls. You may change
these at any time and newly generated payrolls will adopt your change. When you generate new payrolls, the system
will take into account the calendar last day of the month, for example some
months only have 30 days so the month-end day will be adjusted. Note too that when you generate new payrolls
you are given the option of manually adjusting the payroll date.
Live Payroll. Based upon the above default settings, the
live payroll section displays the details of the current payroll. You may manually advance these to future
payrolls but that is not recommended (allow the system to determine what is the
next payroll subject to your default settings). [Top]
3. Main Menu/Setup “Employee Biodata and Pay Setup” command button
This is where you enter employee biodata such as name, date of birth, address
etc and the pay setup details such as salaried or daily-rated, frequency of
payment etc.
For further details, see Employee Biodata and Pay Setup. [Top]
4 Main Menu/Setup “Public Holidays” and “Foreign Workers Levy” command buttons
These facilities are provided in case the Singapore Government announces revisions to public holidays and FWL during the year and you wish to manually edit them.
The public holidays dates are very important when determining the leave taken by employees between two dates.
Having gone through the above various steps, you are ready to generate your first payroll! [Top]
Employer Details
Main Menu/Setup “Employer Details” command button
Need to enter employer details such as Tax Ref and Address. Note that you cannot change your Employer Name. This has been entered already by Rushton Computer Services when you purchased the payroll programme and can only be changed by RCS.
The employer details will be reproduced in various reports, eg IR8A. [Top]
Employee Biodata and Pay Setup
Main Menu/Setup “Employee Biodata and Pay Setup” command button
This form is contains six tabbed pages:
1. Biodata Tabbed Page
This page contains the following :
ID field – RCS Simple
Payroll relies upon this value as the unique identifier for the employee. You are strongly recommended to enter the
employee’s NRIC, or Passport No., or WP No. etc as appropriate. Note that this identifier will be reproduced
in the IR8A. This field is compulsory
and must be unique. The system will not
allow you to save a duplicate number.
Last Name and First
Name(s) fields - Last Name field is compulsory, whilst First Name(s) field
is optional (although strongly recommended).
Address field -
Optional, but recommended you fill it in – especially if you want it to produce
mailing labels.
Nationality - Extremely
important field. It is used to
determine whether employee comes within the CPF or FWL scheme. Choices are ‘Singaporean’, ‘PR’ and
‘Foreigner’. ‘Singaporean’ and ‘PR’
will subsequently activate CPF fields in the payroll programme, whilst
‘Foreigner’ will activate FWL. Default
is ‘Singaporean’.
Note that if you select ‘PR’ then the ‘When PR’ field becomes activated. You must complete this as a PR’s CPF contribution rate is determined by when they became PR. After completing ‘When PR’ field the software will automatically calculate ‘PR Year’.
Date of Birth field - Important
field. It is used to determine which
age-related CPF contribution rates the employee falls into. Enter dates in the format
’09-Aug-1962’. Note that after
completing the DOB field, the payroll programme automatically calculates the
employee’s age.
Sex field - Default is M(ale). Some allowances such as Maternity Allowance are only available
for female employees.
Race field - Important for determining which self-help group eg
CDAC an employee should contribute to.
Choices are ‘Chinese’, ‘Malay’, ‘Indian’, ‘Eurasian’ and ‘Other’. Default is ‘Chinese’.
Marital field - Used to
help complete IR8A. Choices are
‘Single’ and ‘Married’. Default is
‘Single’. [Top]
2. Pay Setup Tabbed Page
The logic of this page, and the Allowances and Deductions pages, is that you enter default amounts for your individual employees. Then, when new payrolls are generated these default amounts are reproduced in the new pending payrolls. You can accept or modify the amounts in the new pending payrolls.
For most monetary fields,
you should enter MONTHLY
figures.
If the employee is fortnightly paid, then the new payroll generation
process will taken HALF of these figures automatically.
Note that you cannot later generate a payroll transaction for an employee until he/she has pay setup details.
This page contains the following :
Position field - Reproduced
on IR8A.
Commenced/Left fields -
New payrolls consist of employees who have pay setup details and
either who have not left or left during the current month.
When you enter a leaving date, the command button ‘Calc Payment for Outstanding Leave’ becomes available. Clicking this button will determine length of service of employee, pro-rated entitlement to leave for current payroll year, actual leave taken and any outstanding leave. It will prompt you if you then wish to calculate any actual payment due to the employee and whether you want to transfer that payment to the pending payroll.
Full-/Part-time fields
– Optional. Used in present version of
RCS Simple Payroll for informational purposes only.
Pay Type field –
Essential. Allows RCS Simple Payroll to
distinguish between Daily-Rated and Monthly Salaried employees. Default is Salaried.
Working Week –
Important. Allows RCS Simple Payroll to
correctly compute number of working days when an employee takes leave. Default is 5 day week.
Payment Frequency field
– Essential if you have fortnightly payrolls.
RCS Simple Payroll relies upon this field to determine which employees
should be included in a mid-month payroll.
Gross Monthly Salary field
– Essential if Pay Type field is Salaried.
In fact, this field is only enabled if the Pay Type field is Salaried
(which is the default). If Pay Type is Daily-Rated
then this field is dimmed.
Daily Rate/ Hourly Rate
fields – These fields are computed automatically after a figure in entered in
the Gross Monthly Salary field. Daily
Rate is computed as Gross Monthly Salary / 22 days whilst Hourly Rate is computed
as Gross Monthly Salary / 176 hours.
For Daily-Rated employees, you have to manually enter a figure in the Daily Rate field. Hourly Rate will then be computed as Daily Rate / 8 hours.
These automatic calculations may be manually overwritten.
Foreign Workers Levy Code
field – This field is only enabled for employees whose Nationality field is set
to ‘Foreigner’. A combo box appears
from which you can choose the appropriate code and corresponding monthly and
daily rates. For employees whose
Nationality field is set to ‘Singaporean’ or ‘PR’ then instead of the combo box
a label appears saying ‘Foreign Workers Levy not applicable’.
Bonus Months field -
Enter the number of bonus months you wish to give the employee. Do not include AWS in this. When you generate the payroll, you have to
manually indicate at that stage whether you wish to compute Bonus and AWS
payments. In other words, entering
bonus months here does not mean that a bonus will be generated in the next
payroll; it will only be generated when
you explicitly say so.
Directors Fee field -
This would normally be a regular (that is, monthly) payment to directors. When you generate a new payroll, you can
manually edit the amount for that particular month. If you pay Directors Fee say just once a year then leave this
field blank, and manually edit the amount in the new payroll as appropriate.
Annual- / Medical - Leave
Entitlement fields – There is a separate data-entry form for you to enter
the leave taken by employees. For that
form to do its calculations of leave taken YTD, outstanding leave etc, it is
necessary that these entitlements fields are completed. The leave data-entry form can be accessed
via the command button ‘View/Edit Leave Taken’ which
is next to these fields, via the command button ‘View/Edit Leave Taken’ on the
‘Main Menu/Pay Transactions’ tabbed page and / or via the command button
‘View/Edit Leave Taken’ on the ‘New Payroll’ form. That is, the same form is available from different places to
facilitate data-entry. [Top]
3. Allowances (CPF) and Allowances (Non-CPF) Tabbed Pages
The logic of these pages, and the Pay Setup and Deductions pages, is that you enter default amounts for your individual employees. Then, when new payrolls are generated these default amounts are reproduced in the new pending payrolls. You can accept or modify the amounts in the new pending payrolls.
The amounts you enter here are MONTHLY amounts. If you have fortnightly payrolls, then those employees who are fortnightly paid will have these amounts halved automatically by the system for the respective payrolls.
Notice that the allowances are divided into CPF-payable and CPF-not-payable. This distinction is only valid for employees who are liable for CPF.
Choose the relevant allowances and enter amounts. [Top]
4. Deductions Tabbed Page
Contribution
to SHARE field - For those employees
who will to make voluntary contributions to the Social Help and Assistance
Raised by Employees Donations scheme.
Opt-Out
of Self-Help Group field - This field
is only activated for employees whose ‘Nationality’ is ‘Singaporean’ or ‘PR’.
However, in the case of those Singaporeans or PRs whose ‘Race’ is
‘Malay’ then it is deactivated, that is Malays cannot opt out of contributing
to MBMF. [Top]
5. Notes Tabbed Page
Free-flow text entry for you to entry whatever you
want about the employees. Top]
How do I generate a new payroll?
Main Menu/Pay Transactions “Generate New Payroll” command button
Having set up what will be the first month of payroll, you will notice that the left-hand side of the ‘Main Menu/Pay Transactions’ tab maintains details of what the current payroll is, whether it is generated yet etc. If the display status is ‘Next Payroll – Not Generated Yet’ then the ‘Generate New Payroll’ command button will be available. Click this command button. It will generate a new payroll – called a ‘Pending Payroll’ because you can modify it or cancel it. The new payroll will consist of those employees whose biodata and pay setup details have been previously entered and who are current (that is, have not left or have left but in this month). [Top]
How do I modify/cancel/commit a new payroll?
Main Menu/Pay Transactions “Display/Modify Pending Payroll”, “Cancel Pending Payroll” and “Commit Pending Payroll” command buttons
The ‘Display/Modify Pending Payroll’, ‘Cancel Pending Payroll’ and ‘Commit Pending Payroll’ command buttons only become available once you have generated a new payroll. (Also the ‘Pending Payroll Summary’, ‘Pending Payroll By Employee’ and ‘Print Pay Slips’).
The ‘Display/Modify Pending Payroll’ command button will take you to the editing form for the individual employees’ pay details (see ‘New payroll details/calculations’ section). Here you can modify the details. If you are unhappy with the new pending payroll, for example because several employees were missed out because you forgot to enter their pay setup details, then you can completely abandon the pending payroll by cancelling it using the ‘Cancel Pending Payroll’ command button. Once cancelled, you cannot ‘undo’. The display status for the current payroll will return to ‘Next Payroll – Not Generated Yet’ and the ‘Generate New Payroll’ command button will become available again.
To see the generated payroll in summary form, you can click the command button ‘Pending Payroll Summary’. This report is quite useful for quick ‘eyeballing’ the payroll. It is complemented by the command button ‘Pending Payroll by Employee’ which shows individual details.
If you are happy with the pending payroll, you may print pay slips using the command button ‘Print Pay Slips’. Please note that you must print the pay slips before committing the payroll. You can print pay slips as many as you like.
Once you are happy with a pending payroll (and have printed the pay slips), you may commit it using the ‘Commit Pending Payroll’ command button. This changes the pending payroll into permanent (and read-only) status and so that payroll is over. The display status for the current payroll is advanced to the next payroll, the message displayed becomes ‘Next Payroll – Not Generated Yet’ and the ‘Generate New Payroll’ command button becomes available again. [Top]
New Payroll Details/Calculations
Main Menu/Pay Transactions “Display/Modify Pending Payroll”
This is where you see the full details by individual employee of the new payroll.
Details have been lifted from the ‘Employee Biodata and Pay Setup’ form. You may modify a lot of the details, such as Gross Salary, here. However, such modifications are only for the current payroll. To permanently revise such details, you have to go back to the ‘Employee Biodata and Pay Setup’ form.
Fields coloured blue cannot be edited. These are often automatically calculated fields.
Fields coloured white can be edited. Often these are were you are required to enter figures.
This forms consists of the following tabbed pages:
1. Biodata Tabbed Page
The fields displayed here are read-only and are for informational
purposes only.
[Top]
2. Basic Pay/OT Tabbed Page
Gross Monthly Salary field - In
the above example of a monthly salaried employee, the Daily Rate, Hourly Rate and
Gross Monthly Salary have been lifted from the ‘Biodata and Pay Setup’
form. Note that you may manually edit
the Gross Monthly Salary field.
For Daily-Rated employees, the form will look will display Ordinary Hours Worked and Ordinary Hours Amount fields rather than Gross Monthly Salary field.
Ordinary Hours Worked field -
Here you will see that the Gross Monthly Salary field has been replaced by
Ordinary Hours Worked and Ordinary Hours Amount fields. In this particular example, the employee is
fortnightly paid so the default Ordinary Hours Worked are 88 (44 hrs per wk x 2
wks).
Medical Leave Pay field – This
field is integrated with the medical leave records in the ‘Leave’ form (see
command button ‘View/Edit Leave Taken’). When you enter medical leave in the ‘Leave’
form, you are presented with an option to have the pay amount automatically
entered into this field and deducted from the Gross Monthly Salary or Ordinary
Hours Worked fields. You may also
manually adjust these respective fields.
For example, you could manually edit the Gross Monthly Salary field to
deduct one day’s pay and put the corresponding amount in the Medical Leave Pay
field. The Daily Rate is shown at the
top of the tabbed page.
Overtime Hours Worked fields –
For you to enter as appropriate. Note
these are available for both salaried and daily-rated employees. [Top]
3. Additional Wages/Other Tabbed Page
Bonus Months / Bonus Amount
fields – Although the bonus months are lifted from ‘Employee Biodata and Pay Setup’
form, the actual calculation and payment is only made when you click the Pay
command button. Usually, you would do
this at year-end or perhaps Chinese New Year.
The calculations would be:
Salaried employees = Monthly Salary x Number of Bonus Months
Daily-Rated employees =
If Payroll Frequency is Monthly:
Latest Ordinary Hours Worked Amount x Number of Bonus Months
If Payroll Frequency is Fortnightly:
Latest Ordinary Hrs Worked Amount x 2 x No. of Bonus Months
For fortnightly, the Ordinary Hours Worked Amount is multiplied by 2 so that a true monthly quantum is obtained.
The resulting figure can be manually edited.
AWS Amount field –
Similar notes to the Bonus fields.
Here, however, the assumption is 1 month so the calculations would be:
Salaried employees = Monthly Salary x 1 month
Daily-Rated employees =
If Payroll Frequency is Monthly:
Latest Ordinary Hours Worked Amount x 1 month
If Payroll Frequency is Fortnightly:
(Latest Ordinary Hours Worked Amount x 2) x 1 month
[Top]
4. Allowances (CPF and Non-CPF Payable) Tabbed Pages
The figures are lifted from the respective tabbed pages of the ‘Employee Biodata and Pay Setup’ form. Notice that in the case of employees who are fortnightly paid, these figures will be half of the figures on the ‘Employee Biodata and Pay Setup’ form (because monthly figures should have been entered on that form). [Top]
5. Deductions Tabbed Page
Self-Help fields - Once
the ‘Calc Totals’ command button has been clicked (see below ‘Calc Totals’
command button) then for those employees who are CPF-eligible the system will
examine their ‘Race’ and ‘Gross Pay’
fields respectively and compute their self-help group and amount of deduction.
SHARE field – This
figure is lifted from ‘Employee Biodata and Pay Setup’ form. It may be manually edited.
Misc Deduction and Description
fields – For you to manually edit to cover any other deductions (for example,
repayment of a staff loan).
Unpaid Leave field –
This can be filled in automatically when the ‘Outstanding Leave Employee
Ceasing’ command button is clicked. See
‘Outstanding Leave Employee Ceasing’
below. [Top]
6. CPF Calc Tabbed Page
Employee and Employer
CPF - These calculations are computed when the ‘Calc Totals’ command button
is clicked. See ‘Calc Totals command button’
below for further details.
Ordinary Wages Items
and Additional Wages Items - This tabbed page distinguishes between
Ordinary Wages items and Additional Wages items. These figures should be contrasted with the totals on the final
tabbed page ‘Total’. This
distinguishing and contrasting is to facilitate completion of the CPF Returns and
IR8As.
Show CPF YTD command button
– This summarises to produce YTD figures for Ordinary Wages, Additional Wages,
CPF for Employee and CPF for Employer.
Then if Total Wages are greater than $100k it calculates the Additional
Wage Ceiling and determines whether there has been an over- / under- payment of
CPF. If there has then it is necessary
to do manual adjustments to CPF computations in the current or future payrolls.
[Top]
7. Total Tabbed Page
This tabbed page gives you the final totals (after you have clicked on the command button ‘Calc Totals’ – see below). The figures for Basic Pay, Gross Pay and Net Pay are what ultimately will be reflected on the pay slips and the IR8As. [Top]
8. Miscellaneous Command Buttons
At the bottom of the New Payroll form are various command buttons:
List All Summary –
Clicking this gives you a quick listing of all the employees and their
respective Gross Pay, Employee CPF and
Net Pay. This listing enables you to
make sure that figures are filled in for all employees and gives you valuable
totals of the payroll. Figures for individual
employees are filled in when you click the ‘Calc Totals’ command button.
Payroll History – This
gives you a quick summary of the previous payroll figures of Gross Pay, CPF
Employee, Net Pay, Ordinary Wages and Additional Wages for the employee
currently displayed on the New Payroll form.
View/Edit
Leave Taken – This data-entry form is available from several places
within RCS Simple Payroll. It enables
you to enter Annual Leave, Medical Leave and Other Leave. When you are entering Other Leave you can
define it as being unpaid.
The system will compute the number of days leave taking into account public holidays and the length of the working week for the employee as illustrated in the message box. Furthermore, the system will total the number of days taken YTD and the days remaining from the entitlement.
For medical leave, if the employee exceeds his medical leave entitlement but still has annual leave available then the system will request whether you want to transfer annual leave entitlement to medical leave entitlement. If annual leave entitlement is not available, then you can manually edit the ‘Other Leave’ column and classify the leave as unpaid.
If you enter leave under ‘Other Leave’ and click ‘Unpaid Leave?’ then the system will compute the deduction to be made and request whether you want to deduct from the current payroll. [Top]
Outstanding Leave Employee Ceasing –
clicking this command button will temporarily open the Employee Biodata and Pay
Setup form for you to enter the cessation date and click the ‘Calc Payment for
Outstanding Leave’ command button there.
The command button ‘Calc Payment for Oustanding Leave’ will then compute
whether the employee is entitled to outstanding leave payment by analysing
length of service (if employee has worked less than one year do you want to
pay?), leave taken so far, pro-rated leave entitlement based on which month the
payroll date is currently in etc. Any
computed figure can be transferred back to the New Payroll form and entered
under ‘In Lieu of Leave Pay’ on the ‘Additonal Wages/Other’ tabbed page. [Top]
CALC TOTALS – This is a critically
important command button. When
you generate a new payroll and first examine the resulting figures for
individual employees, this command button will be coloured red signifying that
you must click it to compute various totals such as CPF. After clicking it and having the resulting
computations made, the button becomes normal blue. However, if you ‘dirty’ the record again, that is change various
fields such as Ordinary Hours, Overtime, Allowances etc then the ‘CALC TOTALS’
becomes red again and you must click it once more. This clicking of the command button must be performed for each
and every employee.
It is vitally important that the ‘CALC
TOTALS’ command button is coloured blue for every employee before you generate
reports, pay slips and the like; otherwise, these may be erroneous.
When you click the ‘CALC TOTALS’ command button various message boxes are displayed to inform you of the parameters the system is using to make its calculations, such as whether the employee is eligible for CPF based on ‘Nationality’ field, which year of PR if applicable, which CPF age category etc. These message boxes are useful but if you tire of them as you click the command button for each individual employee you can turn off their display using the ‘Info Msgs On’ command button. [Top]
Info Msgs On/Off – This
toggles informational messages on or off.
See ‘CALC TOTALS’ command button. [Top]
Demo Version
The demo version is a fully-functional version except for the restrictions that the maximum number of employees you can create is five, you cannot print print slips and IR8As. [Top]
Security Features
The payroll programme is protected by a password. The password is case-sensitive. The default password is ‘demo’. You can change this password by going to Main Menu/Misc and pressing the command button ‘Set/Unset Password’.
The payroll programme is also protected by encryption. This means that your data cannot be read by viewer programmes etc. [Top]
Revisions of CPF Tables etc And Upgrades
Registered users in their first year of purchase and other registered users whose annual subscriptions are up-to-date receive revisions as and when they become available. Upgrades in terms of payroll programme enhancements are offered at a special discounted price. [Top]