Harvester Payroll Help Centre

To order order a Summary report or Payslip report by Employee Number instead of the usual "Surname" order please do the following: On the report page e.g Summary Report click on the drop down box called "Options" and then look for the option "Order by Employee No". Then export your report to Excel and in the Excel version the sorting Order will be adjusted. Note: Sort Order is always done first by Department and then by either Surname or Employee Number.

On the login page just below where you normally type your password is a link called, "Forgot-Password?". Use this link to reset your password if you have forgotten it or need to change it. Note that all you will need to have is: 1)Your "Company TPIN" and 2)Your usual email-login "user-name" to do this.

Type 'Tax' in the search box on the Online help and you will have many options to choose from.

Simply select the "PAYE Upload Return" option on the print page and then export the report to excel. To export to excel: On the Paye return page on the top left you simply click on the "export to excel" icon and this will generate the upload file. This file will then be downloaded to your standard download location on your computer. On some browsers you may open the export file directly (before downloading). In such cases, when you click "save" in excel or Google docs you can then specify where you want to save the download file. Harvester produces the actual upload file in Excel. The excel file for upload is simply generated when you click the Export to Excel icon (with the ZRA sign on it) on the top left of the ZRA return report. (the ZRA return report is found using the link called "PAYE Upload Return") You need to use the SAME upload file for ZRA whether you pay Skills Levy or not. The Skills levy is done server side (by ZRA) and is NOT supposed to be on the upload. For your own data or records, Skills Levy amounts can be seen on the "PAYE Data Totals" report. The new PAYE upload is in an open Excel (.xlsx) format and will have no Skills levy amounts in it and no totals. This is correct and is what is needed for your upload. However Harvester has already prepared it so that you do not need to use the normal manual process of using their(ZRA) monthly template to copy and paste all your employee data before uploading to the ZRA portal. It is ready for direct-upload to ZRA as soon as you export it from Harvester using the ZRA Online Return. If you would like to have an excel report of the Skills Levies that are due by you as an employer, then please use the Skills Development Levy report which will itemise each employee and give the total that is paid by your company upon submission of your normal PAYE upload. It is calculated on gross.

For detailed access to tax cards and history, there are detailed Paye reports that can be printed out. Go to print reports. Select the Paye-Detail Report. In the options drop down box, select the option ALL-Months and then click Search. Note: You may also export this report to Excel. Each December year end we advise to use the All-Months option and export the full year to excel the yearly summary at end of each year, especially if the Keep-History Module is not purchased. You are given the option for purchasing the Keep-History Module at the end of January each year. There is another option where the specific year can also be selected and that is to use the 'Tax-Reports' report which is found towards the bottom of the More-Reports page. In the options drop down box for 'Specific-Year', select the option for the year you would like to see all paye records for and then click Search.

To edit the actual "Accumulated Gross Taxable" or "Accumulated Paye Paid" for the current tax year: Be Careful as this should not normally be done as Harvester Calculates correctly according to Government Tax rules. NB This is only for changing a tax amount for HISTORIC months. For any current month entries then use normal payroll processing and NOT this advice below. 1)Click on Settings 2)Click on employee Settings (Left hand side of screen) 3)Click on Historic Accumulated values(Right hand side, with blue button that says Edit) 4)Click on the particular historic payment of a specific employee you would like to edit eg for pay period March 2016 5) Look for "Gross Taxable(Current)" and or "PAYE Paid(Current)" You may edit these values. If you edit the PAYE paid amount, then when harvester calculates the next tax payment due for this employee it will self adjust accordingly. i.e. Harvester will use this new HISTORIC entry change when it recalculates the current month's tax values. Note: Concerning the Edit Screen, "Current" means for the particular payment month you are editing. i.e. You have to change the actual value in a particular pay period. Then the Accumulated value changes accordingly. This is like an accounting system. If you converted from Harvester Offline and you want to edit the Accumulated Paye and Gross Totals, then at the top of the page, select "Historic Accumulated Totals uploaded from previous package" next to the Select-View option and press Search. You will then be able to edit the Accumulated Paye and Gross Totals that were converted from the Harvester Offline version which were the Accumulated Paye values at the time you converted to Harvester Online.

PAYE is calculated NOT on a monthly basis, but on Cumulative Amounts: See the Paye Detailed report on the main Reports page. This report can be exported to excel and it will give a yearly summary showing the accumulated figures that the tax is worked out on. You can always be sure Harvester is correct with tax. One can not simply put the gross for the current month into the ZRA tax calculator on their web site and see what the ZRA calculates unless you give them the whole year history since January. (If it's the first tax month ie January gross wages then the ZRA web site calculator is good to use) Hence it is called PAYE. Pay-As-You-Earn through the tax year. Harvester always works tax out correctly by the law and calculates it as PAYE should work. Harvester does not just look at the current month's gross. This benefits the employee and allows for legitimate tax credits etc to be applied. This following example is with a first tax bracket of K3000. (eg here is for year 2016 TAX BRACKET) Let's suggest an employee earns K2500 (gross taxable) Note that NO Napsa portion is allowed any more to reduce the Gross Taxable. In January he will pay NO tax, but if in February he earns K3500 he will still NOT pay tax because his cumulative-tax-bracket is only K6000.(K2500 + K3500) This is still not above the cumulative-tax-bracket. (2 Months BY K3000) If the employee earned K3500 gross taxable in January(month 1) and K3500 in February, then he will pay tax in both months because his cumulative-tax-bracket is K7000.(K3500 + K3500) So it is possible to pay NO tax even if an employee earns more than K3000 in the current month if the current month is not the first month in the tax year, which is January. eg: If I earn nothing in January, then in February I will need a gross income of above K6000 before I will pay tax. This means that even an amount of K5000 earned in the month of February will not attract tax. NB When an employee who is normally paying tax, starts on the online system, go to edit-employee and on the bottom of the screen look for: Taxable Income: Previous Employment - enter the gross cumulative taxable amount so far in the current tax year. Tax Deducted: Previous Employment - enter the gross cumulative actual tax paid so far in the current tax year. After saving then go and re submit to recalculate the employees payslip and then PAYE TAX will then reflect correctly.

If you have just started Harvester and you are not starting in month one(ie January) and you would like the Accumulative Tax history to reflect correctly at year-end, then please do the following for each employee on the Edit Employee page. (note these days with the required, monthly paye submission to ZRA and no Annual paye submission requirements to ZRA, it is not as essential for the Annual return) On this page look towards the bottom left for two fields called: 1) Taxable Income: Previous Employment and 2) Tax Deducted: Previous Employment Enter the Accumulated Totals for both the Gross tax and the tax paid(if any) in the respective fields above. This is also good practice if a new employee joins your company somewhere during the tax year but not in January(month One). Note: This "history" is only really needed for those employees who pay tax. In summary: When an employee starts on the online system, go to edit-employee and on the bottom of the screen look for: Taxable Income: Previous Employment - enter the gross cumulative taxable amount so far in the current tax year. Tax Deducted: Previous Employment - enter the gross cumulative actual tax paid so far in the current tax year. After saving then go and re submit to recalculate the employees payslip and then PAYE TAX will then reflect correctly.

To change harvester from the default pay period from monthly to Bi-Monthly or even weekly: Go to settings and then Company Settings and change the pay period from monthly to Bi-Monthly. Then change the payment interval on every employee who gets paid twice in a month to Bi-Monthly. Look for "Payment Interval" on Employee Settings to do this for each employee. (It can also be set to all employees within a department by using Department Settings). However, if you are going to import from offline excel, it is recommended you keep harvesteronline as set to the default monthly period. PAYE and NAPSA returns are all set up as monthly returns and as yet no Government provision is made for weekly or Bi-monthly returns. However if you really want to do this, please contact support@harvesteronline.net and more instructions can be given on how to prepare the Monthly ZRA and NAPSA returns for employees paid more than once within the month. A common way around this is to simply put a payment through for a two week period and print the payslips as if they were month-end payslips and then when it comes to the real month end, the full period of pay is processed and a cash deduction, called for example, "First-Period-Pay" is put through for the net-pay received by the employee in the first two week period. This way, all month-end reports are accurate and true for NAPSA and ZRA and an employee can actually receive 2 payslips within the month. Furthermore the offline payroll entry can also be used at month end as well.

It is advisable to use the "Gratuity Paid" or the "Terminal Benefit Paid" field on the main Payment-Capture-Screen. Note that these amounts will be included automatically in extra Napsa deductions. However you will notice that there will be no extra PAYE charged as a Termination or "End of Contract" payment is tax-free. If you are using the offline upload file then please make use of the column called "Terminal Ben Paid" or "Gratuity Paid" to enter ALL the values of what you need to pay each employee. If you want to know what the accumulated values are then please go to the "More Reports page" and use the report called "Gratuity or Terminal Benefit Totals" to see current Accumulated Totals which may easily be exported to Excel and then pasted in the offline upload file to save time. The gratuity or terminal benefit or leave values for the current month and the accumulated values will be included as long as you have entered a wage or an amount of days for the current month. Once an employee is paid for the current month you will then be able to see the accumulated values that include the current month. This means that if you would like to pay out the accumulated gratuity or leave (inclusive of the current month) and not in the following month, then simply edit the current months payment and enter the accumulated value in the "gratuity taken" field. You may also print out the Leaver's Certificate and the Tax Leavers certificate for your records. However it seems of late these do not seem to be requested by Labour Officers or the ZRA. However Harvester does prepare these documents for you. Note: if you have not set up gratuities or terminal benefits yet for your employees(ie there are no accumulated totals yet) and you want to pay any accumulated values due to date, then you need to manually enter one, grand-total, "Gratuity" or "Terminal Benefit", Kwacha amount for the whole period for each employee in the "gratuity paid" field or the "terminal benefit paid" field on the payment capture screen, towards the bottom of the screen under the section "End of Contracts". Be sure to enter the employee gratuity percentage once so that for each month, gratuity will be auto calculated so that for the next gratuity payment time, all you have to do is to pay what is due according to the Accumulated Gratuity amount.(no manual totaling of what is due will then be needed) This "gratuity paid" or "terminal benefit paid" entry will NOT be taxed and will be added to the payslip so there is a record of the payment. The accumulated amount will be automatically reduced by the amount you submit as a payment. Note: Once you have paid gratuities or terminal benefits, you may actually just clear or reset every employee's gratuity amount to 0 with just one click. Please type "clear" in help and look for help on "Reset or Clear all Terminal Benefits or Gratuities". Gratuities will start accumulating again after you have cleared all gratuities. If you want to include the "current pay-month" for accumulated gratuities, then finish processing the current pay so that the value of the accumulated gratuities includes the "current pay-month". Then you will see the amount that you can enter into the gratuity-taken-field for each employee while you are still in the "current pay-month". Then clear all accumulated gratuities after you move the payroll to the next month, but before you start capturing the "next pay-month". If you are using the offline upload from excel and you also want to include the "current pay-month" for accumulated gratuities, then you can redo the upload with the new accumulated gratuity amounts copied into the gratuity taken field. Note: When selecting a specific year for annual reports for gratuities, it will only show the gratuities accumulated for the specific year selected. If you choose all years then this will be total accumulated gratuities for all years to-date.