Set up salary components

A salary component is a named earning or deduction: a housing allowance, a transport allowance, a union fee. You define it once on this screen and then attach it to the employees who receive it. A component on its own pays nobody. An amount reaches a payslip only through an employee's pay line on the allowances and deductions screen.

Before you start

• Decide for each item whether it is a fixed sum or a percentage of basic salary.

• Social insurance and income tax are not salary components. They apply to the whole company and are set in HR settings.

Create a component

1. Open People › Payroll › Salary Components and select New Component.

2. Enter the Name and the Name (Arabic). Arabic payslips print the Arabic name.

3. Under Type, choose Earning for an amount added to pay, or Deduction for an amount taken off.

4. Under Calculation Type, choose Fixed and enter the Amount, or choose Percentage and enter the Percentage (%), from 0 to 100.

5. Turn on Allow a different value per employee if employees can receive different values. Leave it off when every employee gets exactly the value above.

6. Set Taxable and Counts toward gross (see below), keep Active on, and select Save.

How each setting affects pay

• Fixed: the employee's pay line pays this amount. With Allow a different value per employee off, the system refuses a different amount on an employee's line and shows the value the component sets.

• Percentage: the payroll run multiplies the percentage by the employee's basic salary for the period. When salary proration is on and the employee joined or left during the period, the base is the prorated basic salary.

• Taxable: on by default. When you turn it off, the allowance still adds to gross and to net pay, but the payroll run removes it from taxable income before it calculates income tax.

• Counts toward gross: on by default and stored with the component. The payroll run currently adds every active allowance line to gross pay whatever this switch says, so do not rely on it to keep an amount out of gross.

• Active: only active components appear when you add a new pay line. Pay lines that already use the component keep paying until you end them.

Edit or delete a component

Open the row's Actions menu and choose Edit or Delete. A change applies to the next payroll run you process. Payslips that already exist keep their figures.

You cannot delete a component that is assigned to employees. The system tells you how many allowances and deductions use it and asks you to deactivate it instead.

Common questions

I created a component but nobody received it. That is expected. Add a pay line for each employee in allowances and deductions.

Can I change a component from fixed to percentage? Yes, but the employees' existing pay lines keep the amount or percentage they were saved with, so the figures can stop matching the component. After the change, open each employee's line, enter the value in the new form and save it.