Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I finalise my payslip?

There are various reasons why you may not be able to finalise a payslip. The most common reasons are:

• The nett pay amount is negative: You can click on Skip Items to remove some of the items from the payslip that may be causing it to go into a negative. Once the payslip no longer has a negative nett pay, you'll be able to finalise the payslip.
• The previous payslip is not finalised: You won't be able to finalise a payslip if the previous payslip hasn't been finalised.
• "All" was not checked when bulk finalising payslips: When finalising payslips in bulk, you have the option to exclude some payslips. To finalise all payslips, you have to either select each employee or select 'All' at the top when you see the list of employees whose payslips can be finalised. More information about bulk finalising payslips is available on our Pay Runs help page.

How does the pro-rata calculation work?

The explanations below refer to months but the same concepts apply to employees with other pay frequencies – simply substitute "month" with "week" / "fortnight".

Why is there a pro-rata percentage on my payslip?

A pro-rata percentage is calculated automatically for salaried employees whenever a payslip is not for a full month. This usually occurs in one of three situations:

• The employee started employment during the month.
• The employee's service ended during the month.
• The employee worked for a full calendar month but your pay frequency ends on a day other than the last day of the month.

How is the pro-rata percentage calculated?

SimplePay calculates the pro-rata percentage as days worked including rest days and holidays / total calendar days in a month × 100.

How do I change the pro-rata calculation used?

You may wish to pay an employee their full salary even though they did not work the full period. You can do this by overriding the pro-rata percentage to 100.

To override the pro-rata percentage, click on it and enter the percentage you would like the system to use.

Which items are pro-rated?

SimplePay currently only automatically applies the pro-rata percentage to an employee's Basic Salary.

You can enable the pro-rata calculation for custom items that are Income, Allowance or Deduction items if they have been set up with the Input Type as "Fixed Amount" or "Enter Amount Per Employee".

More information on custom items can be found on the Custom Items help page.

If any other system or custom items need to be pro-rated, you'll need to manually calculate these and enter the relevant amount.

How do I roll over to next pay period or tax year?

Moving to the next pay period

Unlike most other systems, there is no need to manually close off a period and / or generate a payslip for the next pay period. On SimplePay, once you finalise a payslip, the system will automatically generate and take you to the next period's one.

There is also an option to manually create payslips but this should not often be necessary. Please see the Add a Payslip help page for more on this.

Doing a year-end

There is also no need to do a manual year end as in other payroll systems – simply continue processing payslips into the new tax year.

When you need to do your filing, the correct period will automatically be used and the relevant documents will be generated.

Why can't I remove an Employer Loan from a payslip until the balance is settled?

This is to avoid human error, where an Employer Loan with a non-zero positive balance is mistakenly removed. Based on feedback received from our customers, we improved this functionality to confirm that it's not too simple to accidentally remove an Employer Loan. Also, it caused discrepancies in reporting because removing the Employer Loan item does not delete its history from the system or reports. Finally, the item cannot be restored once it has been removed. Therefore, we made a change to allow only zero balance items to be removed.

My employee repaid their loan outside of payroll. How do I record this so that I can remove the Employer Loan?

You can still record the repayment via the SimplePay Employer Loan item to show that the loan has been repaid outside of payroll, and then remove the Employer Loan from the payslip. Please see the steps below.

1. Go to Employees, and select the relevant employee.
2. Click on Employer Loan under Payslip Inputs.
3. Enter the amount in the Once-off Repayment field.
4. Tick the Cash/EFT repayment (no effect on payroll) box.
5. Click Save.
6. Finalise the payslip. The Employer Loan will now have a zero balance and can be removed from the next regular payslip, by going to Regular Inputs.

Accounting impact

You are indicating to the system that this repayment happened outside of payroll; as a result, it will not be reflected in SimplePay's Accounting Info (report) as it has no impact on Nett Pay. Therefore, even if you have set up your accounting integration with Xero or QuickBooks Online, you would need to manually account for the repayment in your accounting system.

Why can't I remove Savings from the payslip until the balance is paid out?

This is to avoid human error, where a Savings item with a non-zero positive balance is mistakenly removed. Based on feedback received from our customers, we improved this functionality to confirm that it's not too simple to accidentally remove a Savings item. Also, it caused discrepancies in reporting because removing the Savings item does not delete its history from the system or reports. Finally, the item cannot be restored once it has been removed. Therefore, we made a change to allow only zero balance items to be removed.

I paid out my employee's savings outside of payroll. How do I indicate this on SimplePay so that I can remove the Savings item?

Once you've added a Savings item under Regular Inputs, a Savings Deduction will continue to be made on the payslip until you change the Regular deduction to zero, or you remove the Savings item. However, before the Savings item can be removed, it has to have a zero balance. The steps below can be used to record a savings payout, to get a zero balance on the Savings item so that it can be removed.

1. Go to Employees and select the employee.
2. Click on Savings under Payslip Inputs.
3. Tick the Pay out on current payslip box, as well as the Paid out to third party box (which will appear after the first box is ticked). This tells the system that there was a payout of the employee's savings during the current period, but that it should not affect Nett Pay.
4. The Payout amount will default to the full savings amount. (Do not edit this unless you are recording only a partial payout that happened outside of payroll.)
5. Click Save.
6. Finalise the payslip. You can now remove the Savings item from the next regular payslip, by going to Regular Inputs. Confirm you change the Regular deduction to zero, or remove the Savings item – before another Savings Deduction is made. Otherwise, the item will have a non-zero balance again, in which case it cannot be removed.

Accounting impact

You are indicating to the system that this payout happened outside of payroll; as a result, it will not be reflected in SimplePay's Accounting Info (report) as it has no impact on Nett Pay. Therefore, even if you have set up accounting integration with Xero or QuickBooks Online, you would need to manually account for the payout in your accounting system.