AUSTRAPAY DOCUMENTATION ----------------------- AUSTRAPAY V2.3 Copyright (c) 1990-1994 by J & S Gill All Rights Reserved ------------------------------------- CONTENTS * FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM * SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS * INSTALLATION * TO RUN THE PROGRAMS * SETUP EMPLOYEE RECORDS * MTD, YTD ACCUMULATIONS * PROCESSING A PAYROLL * UPDATE OF MASTER RECORDS * COPYRIGHT NOTICE ------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION AUSTRAPAY is a general purpose payroll system which can be as easy or as complex as is required by your business. This Shareware version caters for five active employee records with capacity for 100% turnover in staff ie. a total of ten records. The registered version will handle any number of employees according to your requirements and the capacity of your computer system. Additional maintenance may also be included which gives full telephone support and all program updates for one year. The programs occupy about 1.1 megabytes of disk space and initially the data files will occupy a further 75 kbytes. A couple of history files (pay and leave) are the only areas where you will see expansion after your initial set up. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS The minimum requirements to run this system are: - IBM compatible computer - DOS 3.1 or later - 640kb of RAM - Hard disk - need about 1.5MB - Printer 80 characters/line REGISTRATION On payment of the Registration fee you will receive * The latest version of software with any new legislated pay rules * Facility to enter any number of employees * The full Operators Manual * EFT facility for bank transfers * Notification of updates to tax, super, leave etc. Print out the Order Form and fill in order details. For enquiries about registration phone PC ANSWERS on (02) 361-3763. PRODUCT FEATURES The main features of this software which has been specifically designed for Australian businesses are: * Processes from 2 to more than 300 employees. * Ability to handle multiple companies. * No limit to departments, cost centres, super plans, allowances and deductions depending on computer configuration. * Salary, allowances, deductions quoted by hour, day, week, month, quarter or year . * Employees can have up to 5 payrates, each with up to 9 overtime rates. * Each employee may have contributions credited to 3 Super plans chosen from an unlimited set. * Each employee may have up to 10 allowances and 10 deductions chosen from an unlimited set. * Automatic calculation of pay for hours worked, normal and overtime, ten allowances, ten deductions and three superannuation payments. * Tax calculated by formula or as a percentage gross pay with facility for adjustment of formula rate by a set amount. * Automatic distribution of net pay to 4 bank accounts with balance being paid in cash, cheque or fifth bank account. * Bank transfer details are written to diskette for processing by your bank. Alternatively details may be transmitted via modem to the bank. * Entitlements are automatically calculated for annual leave, with or without loading, sick leave, long service leave and RDO. * Comprehensive reports provide full details of departments, cost centres, allowances, deductions, superannuation and employees. * Complete pay and leave history available for each employee. * Group certificates are produced automatically for all employees or for individuals. * Help screens available for all major processes. INSTALLING THE PROGRAM AUSTRAPAY must be installed onto a hard disk using the supplied installation program: 1. Put the Installation Disk in drive A: or B:. 2. From the DOS command line and enter "x:INSTALL" where "x" is A or B indicating the drive with the Installation Disk. 3. Press to begin installation. When requested, enter the drive and/or directory to install the program to, or just press again to accept the default. 4. You need to ensure that your system allows for at least fifteen files and buffers. Your CONFIG.SYS file should contain the lines FILES = 15 (or more) BUFFERS = 15 (or more) You can let the installation program update these for you, or you can check and update them either before or after installation. 5. Press to exit from the Install utility, and then enter "AUSTRPAY" to run the program. The program can also be run from within the Install utility by pressing . INITIALISING THE PROGRAM Once installation of the files to your hard disk is completed, go to the directory in which AUSTRPAY was installed, and enter at the DOS prompt AUSTRPAY The FIRST TIME the program run the user is presented with a blank screen and asked for details of the User Company. At the end of the routine the system will revert to the DOS prompt. Multiple Funds Transfers ------------------------ If you wish to take advantage of the Multiple Funds Transfer feature, whereby the net pay can be distributed to up to 4 bank accounts as well as the "take home pay" being paid by cash, cheque or to another account, you must enter the command EXTRA1 from the DOS prompt. This will create an extra file with a record for each employee. RUNNING THE PROGRAM Throughout the program the user will be prompted, at the FOOT OF THE SCREEN, as to what the program will accept as input. HELP is available by pressing the F1 key. Before you can run a payroll a few basics are required. These are all done through the FILE MAINTENANCE. Whenever a date is required it must be entered in the form 01-01-93, with zero filling and hyphens. Company Record -------------- Your initialisation procedure will have set up a basic Company record but you may wish to make a few alterations. You may change any of the fields displayed on the screens or zeroise unwanted overtime rates. If you intend to take advantage of the bank transfer feature of the system you must fill in the transfer details. The "User Number" is supplied by the bank when you make arrangements to have the transactions submitted on a diskette. The Account Name is not necessarily the same as the Company name - the bank allows a maximum of 32 characters in this field. Fill this field with spaces up to 32 characters or until the BEEP. Department Record ----------------- Every employee must belong to a department so you should set up at least one department record. The minimum required is a name. Cost Centre Record ------------------ Every employee must work for at least one cost centre so you should set up at least one cost centre record. The minimum requirement is a name. Super Fund Record ----------------- Set up one Superannuation fund record for each fund being used. You will notice that you can include overtime payments into the amount used for calculating super payments. Allowances & Deductions ----------------------- Allowances and Deductions should be set up as required. The amounts paid or deducted may also be included for super calculation. There are three types of superannuation - Govt guarantee, private employee subscription and private employer subscription. You may include the Allowances/Deductions for any or all of these types. The amount of the allowance/deduction may be left at zero or any real figure. The figure will be transferred to the employee record if applicable. SETUP EMPLOYEE RECORDS When the required records for all the above files have been set up you should now set up your employees. A few points to bear in mind... FILES MAINTENANCE - EMPLOYEES This module consists of 13 different screens containing the data necessary for processing of each employee Screen 1. Personal details -------------------------- At any stage it is possible to skip the rest of the record by pressing F8, and either putting the record away [Y], reverting to Screen 1 [N] or aborting the entry [ESC]. If you inadvertently put away a record with no surname this will show on the displayed list as a blank (because it is blank you will see no highlight). To enable re-use of this record you must call it up by the cursor key and the ENTER key then, in place of the surname (or blank) you should type in "**"(i.e.two asterisks only). Make sure Company Number and Department Number are zero. "F8" to skip the rest and "Y" to record the data and the record is again available. When you add a new employee to the system the list is automatically sorted by Employee Surname within Department within Company. It is important to get the start date correct as this is used as a basis for the defaults for leave accrual. The hours/day field must contain a positive number even if the employee is casual. Put in at least "1". Screen 2. Income Tax and Payment Method --------------------------------------- If the tax file number is missing the employee will be taxed at the highest rate. Any number will do to overcome this problem for a new employee who is applying for a number. As the note on the screen explains you may tax an employee at a set rate but it is not possible to do this and take extra tax from the same employee. The system defaults to a final payment in cash ($). You may change this to C for cheque or T for bank transfer. In the latter case further details must be supplied for the bank transfer to be complete. Screens 3 to 7. Cost Centre Pay Rates ------------------------------------- Each of these five screens allows the user to specify which cost centre the employee works in and the basic rate of pay for this cost centre. The Cost Centre Number must be a valid record number in the Cost Centre File. The rate of pay may be quoted as hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. After input of the rate the pressing of the ENTER key will shift the cursor to the "h" in hour - to change this to one of the above type "d", "w","f","m","q" or "y". The cost rate may be entered or not. If not then, when a cost rate is required the payrate will be taken as default. Normal hours may be entered for normal time and any of the overtime rates listed. Normal hours should reflect the hours worked each week regardless of pay interval or rate quoted. Normal hours at the basic rate, across all cost centres, must not be zero, i.e. at least one of these fields must contain a normal number of hours. Screen 8. Leave details ----------------------- All leave amounts are quoted in hours correct to two decimal places. You will see that some of the fields are already complete. These have been calculated from data keyed in earlier but may be changed if you do not agree with the calculation. The Annual Sick Entitlement is calculated as eight days converted to hours. The Accrued Sick Hours should be exactly what the employee is entitled to as at the date of keying in the information. The Accrual Date should be the next anniversary of the date of employment. The Annual Long Service Entitlement is calculated as the no of hours that will make up 13 weeks leave over 15 years. The Accrued Long Service Leave should be the number of hours accrued by multiplying the entitlement by the number of completed years. The Accrual Date should be the next anniversary of the date of employment. The Entitlement Date is calculated as five years from the date of employment. The Annual Leave Entitlement is calculated as four normal weeks in hours. The Accrued Annual Leave should be Annual Leave as it was at the last Accrual Date less any leave taken since. The Accrual Date should be the next anniversary of the date of employment. The Leave Loading defaults to 17.5%. RDO Entitlement is quoted as a percentage of normal hours worked. Screen 9. Superannuation details -------------------------------- Superannuation of the three types shown are activated by the entry of a Fund Number (an existing superannuation file record number). The default is 3% but this now depends on the size of the company so you may have to change this. You may alternatively choose to have the superannuation calculated by giving an annual amount to be divided according to the pay interval. CASUAL EMPLOYEES need to be treated a little differently whereby the Govt Guarantee Superannuation is only payable if earnings exceed $450. To accomplish this it is necessary to have the percentage figure in the record and to enter the 450 as a negative amount in the "amount per annum" field, i.e. -450 Screens 10 & 11. Allowances and Deductions ------------------------------------------ Enter the Allowance/Deduction Number ( must be a valid record number in the file) and the description with value will be automatically copied from the master record. If the entry is completed with the down arrow the system will be ready to accept the next number. The value may be overridden, and the system acts as follows:- If there is no value here then the value is taken from the master record. If there is a value here then the value is taken from here. In either case the amount can be overridden when modifying the payslips. NB. If you are picking up any figures month-to-date or year-to-date deductions should be preceded by a minus sign. Screen 12. Month and Year-to-Date figures. ----------------------------------------- These may be picked up according to the following rules:- Pre-Tax Deductions, Post-Tax Deductions and Tax Deductions should be entered preceded by a minus sign. All other entries, including employee paid superannuation, must be positive. Screen 13. EFT Facility ----------------------- If you are taking advantage of the extended EFT feature then this screen will be displayed with default account name already in place. NB. The set up for payment on screen 2 of the employee record only defines the method of payment for the "take home pay". This screen defines only the accounts for "other" regular payments. MTD & YTD ACCUMULATIONS If you have picked up Month-Date and Year-to-Date in your employee records then you will want the totals accumulated and posted to your company/department/allowance/deduction and superannuation records. To do this you should exit the payroll system, then enter MAKECO at the DOS prompt and the job will be done. If, for any reason you want to run MAKECO at a later date, you should first go into Superannuation File Maintenance to clear the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date totals to zero. This is not done automatically by MAKECO as the super records can be shared between companies. RUNNING A PAYROLL 1. PAYROLL - Auto Preparation On choosing PAYROLL from the Main Menu a PAYROLL PRODUCTION Sub-Menu will be displayed and the first choice, AUTO PREPARATION, will be highlighted. Striking the ENTER key will display your next choice, whether to process Weekly/Fortnightly/ Monthly/ Individual employees. The system will default to any type which it finds active or if there are none active then to the type of the first record in the file. The INDIVIDUAL choice allows any or all of the records to be activated (or de-activated) for the payroll run. The employee list is now displayed - individuals will be displayed inactive ( IW denotes Inactive Weekly ), other types will be displayed active ( AF = Active Fortnightly ) and the user should activate/de-activate any employees who are (not) to be paid in this run. This is accomplished by using the cursor to move the highlight up, down or across the list and pressing the ENTER key on the target name. The STATUS of the record may be "I"-inactive, "A"-active, "X"-active as an individual. "G" is the status of a terminated employee and these records would be excluded from the payroll run. When all the correct employees are active the user should press the ESC Key to complete the Auto-Preparation. The Menu will be displayed with the highlight on MODIFY PAY AMOUNTS. If there are no modifications move cursor to PRINT PAYSLIPS. Otherwise if you wish to modify any of the records press the ENTER key to display choice of type, highlight should be on the type activated, then press the ENTER Key. The EMPLOYEE LIST will now be displayed showing only the active names. Use the cursor to highlight the required name and press ENTER. Each COST CENTRE is displayed (starting from the last one used in the employee record) with the normal hours shown and copied to the hours for this pay. The hours for this pay may be changed if there is any time off or abnormal overtime to record. Included with the first cost centre display are the LEAVE details. If an employee has taken time off then this must first be deducted from the normal hours and then recorded in the appropriate place for the type of leave. The CALCULATED ENTITLEMENT is displayed alongside each entry field and there are two date fields to the right. These dates default to the last paydate and the current date, they may be changed to reflect the exact date of the leave. RDO is handled differently, the leave is calculated from the normal hours worked and the percentage in the employee record. This is displayed as normal and can be accepted or changed by the user then added to the accrued which is in turn displayed as "this pay". The field at the lower left of the screen defaults to "1" and is used to determine the number of periods to be taken into consideration when calculating income tax, allowances and deductions. A PERIOD is taken to be a pay period whether it is a week, a fortnight or a month. If this is changed to anything more than "1" then it is taken to denote weeks. On exit from a record with any holiday pay the operator is alerted to the value of the figure. If there is no holiday and the figure is greater than "1" then the user is also alerted. On EXITING from the last cost centre screen the operator will be asked to press F9 To terminate the employee. Termination pays are calculated up to the date entered. Standard allowances and deductions may accepted or changed. The Menu will be displayed with the highlight on PRINT PAYSLIPS. The user should press the ENTER key to accept the choice. On the next screen, the highlight should be on the type being processed, press the ENTER Key. The operator will be asked if the slips are to displayed on the screen, from which they can be printed individually if required, or all sent directly to the printer. In either case, if the PRINTER is required the operator may modify the length of the payslip. The default is 33 x 1/6" lines or 2 slips to a normal page of continuous stationery. The operator can also incorporate a message in the heading of the payslip and, in the case of printing a hard copy from the screen, an additional message to the individual. The status of annual leave credits can also be printed on the slips if required. When viewing the slips on the screen it is possible to ESC out of the sequence. If this route is taken then the slips cannot be taken to be printed. If the payrun is to be completed then the slips must be either viewed or printed in total after the last modification. It is possible to go back to any preceding step in the sequence but once that is done then the following steps must be repeated. On completion the Menu will be displayed with PAYROLL RUN SUMMARY highlighted. This is a necessary step in the sequence and if the operator wishes to go on the ENTER key should be pressed to accept the choice. The highlight should be on the type being processed and the user should press the ENTER key. The SUMMARY is produced in FIVE REPORTS each one of which may be printed if required. Please take the time to check the output before proceeding. On completion of the summary the operator is guided through the rest of the sequence of steps to complete the payrun. UPDATE OF MASTER RECORDS ------------------------ When it comes to the update of the master records you must be quite certain that you have produced a correct payroll. You can reverse a payslip but it really is a waste of time - it is a lot quicker to check and put right the original than to have to go through another two runs, one to reverse and another to do it right. MTD, YTD & UTILITY MENUS ------------------------ The Month-to-Date, Year-to-Date and Utility menus comprise various reports which can be displayed and/or printed together with some archive and export programs.