Employee Details

From Polygon Back Office,

Access the Employees File by selecting Payroll from the main menu, then select Employees File.  

Click the New button to create a new Employee, or,

Highlight an existing Employee and click Change to edit the selected Employee's details.

This tab displays general information about an employee.  When adding a new employee fill in the following information.  

Note: The Code field is read only.  An Employee Code is generated by the system and displayed at the top left of the tab.  

Enter the employee's personal details, including:

•First Name;

•Last Name;

•Title;

•Active: If an employee is no longer employed, un-tick this tickbox instead of deleting the employee.  This will preserve any historical records for the employee but prevent new shifts and payments from being recorded. If the employee is reemployed they can easily be re-activated by re-ticking this tick box;  

•DOB: Enter the employee's date of birth in dd/mm/yy format;  

•Commencement: The date the employee commenced employment in dd/mm/yy format;  

•Termination: The date the employee terminated employment in dd/mm/yy format (leave blank if the employee is currently employed);

Enter the employee's Contact Details, including:

•Street;

•Suburb;

•State;

•Post Code;

•Country;

•Phone;

•Mobile;

•Fax;

•Email;

•Contact Name.

Note: The Suburb, State and Postcode for a locality can be automatically entered.  To do this, press the browse button to the right of the Suburb/Locality field. Highlight the correct suburb/locality and press the Select button.

General Ledger Settings

•For Multi-Department Users – For salaried employees ensure that they are assigned to the correct department from the Default Department pull down box ;

•Select the Department Section the employee belongs to using the drop down menu.  Department sections can be used to group your employees for payroll reporting purposes.  See Section Polygon Payroll > Payroll Department Sections File for more information about managing Department Sections;

•Choose the Default Ledger Account that the value of the payroll entries will be posted to.  Payroll will only be posted to this account when the Post Timesheets Using GL Accounts from setting is set to its default value Employee Default Payroll Account.  This setting is accessed from the Polygon Back Office System Settings.  See section Polygon Back Office > Polygon Payroll System Settings > General  for more information about enabling this setting;

•Select the bank account you will normally use to pay this wage or salary using the Pay with Bank Account pull down menu.  If the desired bank account isn't available, new bank accounts can be added from the Polygon Back Office > Bank Accounts File.

Classification

•Select the Employee Classification using the pull down menu.  Options are Full Time, Part Time or Casual;

•If the employee is paid a fixed salary each week, set the Base Rate to Salary and enter the weekly salary in the Salary text box;

•If the employee is paid an hourly rate, click on the browse button to the right of the Base Rate field to select the appropriate base rate.  New Base Rates can be entered into the system from the from the Payroll Rates File;

For Multi-Department Users – When you select the Base Rate for an employee, ensure that you also choose the Department to which the employee is attached. If the employee works in more than one Department choose the Department in which they carry out the most work. You will be able to re-assign specific shifts to another Department when the employee timesheet is entered.

•Enter the standard number of Normal Hours per Week worked. (Leave will not accrue each week on hours worked over this ceiling.)

Superannuation

•Choose the Superannuation Fund to which to contribute for this employee. New Funds can be entered from the Polygon Payroll > Super Funds File.

•Enter the Plan Number of the employees Superannuation Plan.

•Enter the percentage of wages to be paid as a Superannuation contribution by the employer.

•Tax Settings

•Enter the employee’s tax file number in the Tax File Number (TFN) field.  Note:  The Tax File Number entered is validated against the algorithm supplied by the ATO.  Should the number entered not conform you will receive a message: This is not a valid TFN.
These numbers will also be accepted in the TFN field as documented by the ATO.

•Check the following boxes as appropriate:

oApply Tax Free Threshold;

oEmployee is a Resident (of Australia);

oNot Eligible for Leave Loading;

oHas Accumulated HELP Debt;

oHas Accumulated SFSS Debt.

oWorking Holiday Maker - See the next section (Configuring Working Holiday Maker Employee Records) on this page for important information about configuring working holiday maker employee records.

Employee Direct Debit Account Settings

If you provide a direct pay facility for your employee, check the Direct Pay box and enter the employee bank account and BSB details.  

Direct Pay ABA files can be generated from the Polygon Payroll > Direct Entry File report.  See section Paying Employees Electronically > Direct Entry File for more information on this topic;  

For more information regarding how to use a direct entry service, contact your bank and ask whether or not they provide ‘direct entry data processing using ABA files’.

Annual Leave & Sick Leave Settings

•Enter the employees leave entitlement in the Annual Leave Days per Annum field;

•Enter the employees sick leave entitlement in the Sick Leave Days per Annum field.

See Also:

New Bank Accounts can be added from the Polygon Back Office > Bank Accounts File.

New Base Rates can be entered into the system from the from the Payroll Rates File;

Annual Leave and Sick Leave setting can be configured from the Polygon Payroll Application Settings.  See section Polygon Payroll System Settings > Annual & Sick Leave for more information on this topic.

Employees who are classed as Working Holiday Makers can be configured by ticking the “Working Holiday Maker” tick-box from the Employee Details form on the Payroll Details Tab.  Ticking this setting indicates payroll tax will be calculated for this employee using the working holiday tax rate rules.  

Important Note:

Working Holiday Maker tax rules should not be combined with other tax rates.  This setting should not be assigned to an employee record which has previously received payslips using a standard tax schedule.  This means, when assigning the Working Holiday Maker setting to an employee record, it is important that the employee record is a newly created record.  

It is also important that once an employee record has received a payment which uses the “Working Holiday Maker” tax rate, that they are not assigned payslips which use a different tax schedule.  This is the only way that you will be able to meet the requirement to issue separate payment summaries for each tax type at the end of the financial year.

Note: Unless a tax file number is also recorded for a Working Holiday Maker employee, tax withheld will be calculated at a higher rate.

Fixed allowances and deductions are those the employee receives with each pay. For example there may be a regular uniform cleaning allowance provided or a regular deduction for meals provided at work. These fixed allowances and deductions will be automatically appended to the timesheet on each new pay.

To select which fixed allowances or deductions will be regularly appended to this employees pay slips, click the Line Item button at the left of the allowances & deductions list.  This will display an Allowances & Deductions pick list from which you can select an allowance or deduction.  The account code, account name, amount, type (allowance or deduction), taxable status and affects super status will automatically be filled in for this entry.  Each of these items can be edited if desired.  Repeat this process on the next line to add more allowances or deductions to the list.  

To apply allowances or deductions which haven't been added to the Allowances & Deductions file, the allowance/deduction description can be typed directly into the Description field.  Then click the Line Item button next to the code column to select the relevant ledger account, then enter the amount, type (allowance or deduction), taxable status and affects super status.  

To remove an allowance or deduction, select the item to be deleted and click the Delete button.  This will remove the allowance/deduction from this employee but the allowance/deduction will remain in the Allowances & Deductions File.  

Please note: If you enter a new allowance here and it needs to be shown separately in the allowances section of the employee payment summary, the description must match an allowance already set up in the global allowances file which is correct tagged to print on the payment summary. Users should check requirements with ATO “PAYG Bulletin No 1 – Taxing of Allowances for the 2000/01 and future income years” to determine if the allowance needs to be tagged.  Allowances that are not tagged will be added to the gross payment on the employee payment summary in accordance with the ATO requirement unless it is tagged not to be shown on the payment summary at all in which case it is not shown in the allowances section and neither is it added to the gross salary amount.

More information about entering Allowances and Deductions is contained earlier in this chapter.

•If a superannuation contribution is to be paid on the allowance, check the Affect Super box.

•If tax is to be deducted from the allowance, or if tax will be calculated from the taxable income after the the deduction is applied, tick the Before Tax box.

See Also:

Fixed allowances & deductions can be created & managed from the Allowances & Deductions File.  See section Polygon Payroll > Allowances & Deductions File for more information on this topic.

Allowances can be added, adjusted or removed from a particular employee payment from the Payslip Details form.  See section Polygon Payroll > Employee Payments > Allowances & Deductions Tab for more information on this topic.

The Notes tab is a free form field which allows you to enter additional information relevant to this Employee.

Note: To easily see if notes have been entered, look for a magnifying glass icon shown on the notes tab.  If the magnifying glass icon isn't shown there are no notes for this item.