How payroll works

Payroll covers everything that decides what employees are paid: salary setup, the periodic run, payslips, and the statutory figures reported to tax and pension authorities. Every action here is financially sensitive, so each stage of a run has its own permission.

The Payroll menu

Menu item	What it covers
Run Payroll	Creating a run, capturing each employee’s inputs, and taking it through review, approval, and payment (Run payroll)
Manage Salaries	Contracts, salary steps, contract plans, and assigned pay elements (Salaries, contracts & pay elements)
Configure	The employer’s registration numbers, how tax and statutory amounts are calculated, pay groups, and pay elements (Tax & statutory setup)
Payroll Reports	Summary, bank instructions, payroll types, statutory remittances, agency bills, and custom reports (Payroll reports)

Payslips are reached per employee and from the summary report: see Payslips.

Key concepts

• Pay group: a group of employees paid together, by frequency and tax type. Every run belongs to exactly one.
• Contract: the per-employee record of salary, pay group, contract type, salary type, pay elements, and statutory enrollment. The primary contract drives payroll and job title.
• Salary type: how someone is paid, from Fixed Salary, Salary Structure, Attendance, or Run Input.
• Pay elements: the individual earnings (a housing allowance) and deductions (a loan repayment) that make up a pay.
• Statutory: the mandated deductions and contributions, such as income tax, social security, and pension tiers.

Set the salary details and the statutory rules up before the first run: Salaries, contracts & pay elements and Tax & statutory setup.

The run lifecycle

Every payroll run follows the same path:

Draft → Review → Pending Approval → Approved → Paid
   └──────── Rejected (with a reason) ───────┘

Stage	What happens
Draft	Create the run and capture each employee’s inputs: base salary, hours, days worked, bonus, overtime, and pay elements
Review	A reviewer checks the figures against the previous run and submits the run for approval
Pending Approval	An approver approves, or rejects with a reason
Approved	Someone holding the pay permission marks the run as paid
Paid	Final. Payslips become available
Rejected	The run returns to an editable, draft-like state with the reason shown

Access and permissions

Note

Each stage of a run has its own permission, and a run’s current stage decides who can open it. Setting up salaries, pay groups, and the tax and statutory details requires Configure Payroll, and batch salary actions also require Configure Salary Structure. Someone who has already signed a run off keeps read access to it. If a button or a run is missing, check Roles & permissions; your data scope limits what you can see and edit too.

After the run

• Payslips once a run is paid.
• Payroll reports to analyze completed periods, including bank instructions and statutory remittances.
• Approved overtime feeds into runs. See Where overtime appears in reports.