Harvester Payroll Help Centre

A compulsory Backup needs to be made after every 12 months. Harvester online will remind you and so you don't need to remember to do it. Click on the "Backup off the Cloud" icon. Click on Backup-Employees(Blue highlighted text). You will see your data in a table format. Above this is the actual "Backup-to-Excel icon". Click this to ensure your data is downloaded and hence backed up. It will be in an excel format that you can store locally on your machine or in another Internet drive location of your choice. Note: There is NO NEED to change the MONTH or the YEAR from the default current month and year for the employee backup data. If you do NOT choose to purchase the "Keep History module", then make sure you have a downloaded excel copy for any months more than 13 months back from the present month of February. For these historic months (more than 13 months back), please check you have a NORMAL offline copy each month of your monthly Summary Report or Payslips in excel. (Only needed for pay-months more than 13 months back). If you do not have excel copies of these months then use the NORMAL reports menu to choose the historic month you have missing and then you will be able to do the export to excel. Note: These "backups" are your normal payslip and or summary excel monthly reports and are not generated using the "Backup off the Cloud" icon. Harvester online only keeps all your payroll history for 13 months back. When you want to move from January to February just remember to click "yes to confirm backup is done" and then press submit. Then you can easily move your payroll forward. Until you select "yes" in the drop down box on the compulsory backup page you will not be able to move to the next month. EXAMPLE: End of Jan 2022 Harvester will clear historic data from Jan 2020 through to Dec 2020. These are the months you should have backups for as they will be removed after you finish Jan 2022 payroll. (Unless you have bought the module to Keep Old historic Data online in which case no backups will be needed). Only in the end of Jan 2022(in this example) will Harvester clear historic data from Jan 2020 through to Dec 2020. This means(in this example) that for the whole of 2021 you will still have direct access to any month in the year 2021 EVEN IF you do not purchase the Keep-History module. Note: You ONLY have to pay for the purchase module for Harvester to keep data older than 13 months. For the "Free version" you can't purchase the "Keep-History Module". Harvester will keep data up to 13 months back on the "Free version". If you really want this module and you are on the "Free version", then you need to upgrade to the "10 employee package" first and then purchase the "Keep-History Module". However, whether you purchase the module or not, you need to go through the compulsory backup check at the end of January each year in order to move to the next month. Do this as follows: To move from January, move pay period as normal on the Home page by clicking on the "Move to next period" icon. You will be taken to the page "This month Harvester requires you to do a Compulsory Offline Backup from the Cloud" Select "I agree to backup" and click "Submit". On the next "Payroll Backup" page, simply click on the Icon where it says in bold "Click here". (Do not press the Cancel option) On the next "Backup Page" at the bottom select 'Yes' to Confirm you have Backed up and then press the "Submit" button. Lastly on the "Compulsory Backup Completed" page click on the "Move to next period" icon. Select "I agree to Move" and click "Submit".

For peace of mind it is good to make a backup of your data off the cloud. Go to Settings. Click on the Backup off the Cloud icon. There are 2 backups you can do. 1) Backup Company Settings and employees. 2) Backup Payroll Data. With both options you will see your data in a table format. Above this is the actual Backup-to-Excel icon. Click this to ensure your data is downloaded and hence backed up. It will be in an excel format that you can store locally on your machine or in another Internet drive location of your choice. How do I know that the backup is successful or not? 1) Click on the Backup off the Cloud icon to take you to the backup page. 2) Click on Backup-employees link. 3) It will take you to the page that is similar to most of the report pages. Here you can then use the icon to export to Excel. After clicking on the export to excel icon, your backup will download and then you will see your download in your downloads folder.

Go to the main Print page. Look for the bank account report. On the bank account report, select your options in the top 'Search' area. Bank: This pulls the various 'bank' options from your employee listing. NB. For those who have bank payments, on "Edit Employees", make sure that they are marked as "Bank" and NOT "cash" and for FNB, for example, make sure all the bank "name" fields are "FNB" for each employee. Type: The specific type you of excel export report the bank uses. example of Type: FNB Excel (similar for FNB CSV or FNB Ewallet) First make sure you have selected FNB bank in the top left drop down to find all employees with FNB accounts. Before you export you must select the bank-type as FNB CSV and then press Search. Click on the 'export to Excel' button to generate the excel FNB CSV bank account return. Make sure all bank-name fields you have entered on each 'FNB' employee is 'FNB' using Edit-Employee. Note: For FNB EWALLET enter the Bank-Name as 'FNB EWALLET' and for the Bank-Sort-Code, enter '260006' which is the sort code for 'FNB EWALLET'. For FNB EWALLET (not normal FNB), enter the 12 digit cell number of the employee in the Bank-Account field beginning with 260. eg For an MTN number it will be 260969078881 When you export the file, choose the FNB-Excel option. It will automatically save as an Excel type file. You can then use Save-As in Excel to save your file as CSV before you upload. If you choose the export option as CSV then it will obviously be exported directly to a CSV file. After exporting, simply upload or send it directly to FNB. Do NOT open your exported csv file and re-save before uploading as your upload file might not work. example of Type: Zanaco CSV or FlexiPay 1) for only Zanaco CSV: If you would like to only use Zanaco Accounts or Mobile Money accounts, then first make sure you have selected Zanaco bank in the top left drop down to find all employees with Zanaco accounts. Before you export you must select the bank-type as Zanaco CSV and then press Search. Make sure all bank names you have entered on each 'Zanaco' employee is Zanaco. (Using Edit Employee) 2) for FlexiPay: If you would like to use Zanaco Accounts as well as other bank accounts or Mobile Money accounts, then first make sure you have NOT selected Zanaco bank in the top left drop down. Leave this as blank to find all employees with bank accounts. (Not just for Zanaco) Before you export you must select the bank-type as FlexiPay and then press Search. Make sure all the bank Sort Codes are correct for Non Zanaco banks you have entered on each employee. (Using Edit Employee) When you export the file, it will automatically save as a csv type file. After exporting, simply upload or send it directly to Zanaco. Do NOT open your exported csv file and re-save before uploading as your upload file might not work. Note: The Zanaco csv file as well as the FlexiPay file can also be used by Zanaco bank to pay people on MTN or Airtel from your employer Zanaco account. This can be done using the same export file that is used to pay employees with normal Zanaco accounts. For those employees WITHOUT bank accounts, but do have cellular phones, go to "Edit-Employees": 1) Check that the "Bank Account Number" is "0" or empty if the employee does NOT have a bank account. 2) In the bank Account Name field enter "Zanaco" or another Zambian Bank-Name if you want the employee NOT to receive their pay on the cellphone. For Non-Zanaco accounts, make sure the Bank Sort code is correct for the respective banks. 3) Enter the 12 digit cell number of the employee in the Mobile-phone field beginning with 260. eg For an Airtel number it will be 260979079911 example of Type: Stanbic Excel Before you export you must select the bank type as Stanbic and then press Search. Make sure all bank names you have entered on each 'Stanbic' employee is Stanbic. (Using Edit Employee) When you export the file, it will automatically save as an Excel type file. After exporting, please remember to just delete the first Title Row with the column headings. Then save it and then you can upload or send it directly to Stanbic. Note: in the reference column Stanbic has the word "supplier" but Harvester gives the actual employee number and NRC in this field. This normally does not present any issues with the upload file. Most bank reports sort in alphabetical order on surname, but some banks like the name and surname in the same column. NB For bank account numbers longer than 11 digits e.g. 9130000412043 in the bank column, AFTER you have exported to excel you might see something like "9.1E+12". This is Scientific Notation for large numbers and is quite normal. Leave it as is. The banks will read the numbers correctly when you send them the excel or csv file. If you select the exact cell where you see a Scientific Notation number and look at the top of your spreadsheet in the actual cell reference you will see the proper number of 9130000412043(for our example). Do not change this. This is correct. The bank will read the numbers properly.

For bank account numbers longer than 11 digits e.g. 9130000412043 in the bank column, AFTER you have exported to excel you might see something like "9.1E+12". This is Scientific Notation for large numbers and is quite normal. Leave it as is. The banks will read the numbers correctly when you send them the excel or csv file. If you select the exact cell where you see a Scientific Notation number and look at the top of your spreadsheet in the actual cell reference you will see the proper number of 9130000412043(for our example). Do not change this. This is correct. The bank will read the numbers properly.

If you are using the Batch entry option, Harvester will first let you input the normal standard entries on the Batch payment input table. Then after you press Submit, you will be taken to a second Batch payment input table which handles the Custom Extras. When you press Submit on this second screen then all the employees and their extras will be paid. NB Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate easily around the table to make it easy to quickly capture inputs like you would do on a spreadsheet. The Tab key also works to move quickly to the next input field. Remember the payments are only actually paid once you click Submit on the Second Batch payment screen for the Custom Extras. If you do not have any custom extras, still press Submit to process the employee batch payments. To make corrections for any payments already processed: Go to Payroll-Entry-by-Individual on the home screen and then find the employee and edit the payment.

You may import NEW employees using the Import from excel option found on the settings page. This is normally used to import a batch of employees where you already have an excel copy of the names, surnames, SOC and NRC Numbers. There is also the option to upload other data like Bank Account Numbers or MTN Cellular Numbers or NHIS Health Numbers along with the Names and NRC Numbers. If you are not an existing offline Harvester user, then the NAPSA csv file of all your employee data can easily be used to populate the Harvesteronline upload template file as follows: From the Home page, go to the Settings page. Go to the Import from Excel link on the left hand side of the settings page. You will be taken to the Choose-your-Template page. Click the MIDDLE image (of the THREE options) to Proceed with Make-Import-Template. Save the excel template file that is created and then copy your names, surnames, SOC and NRC Numbers into this generated template file. Make sure that you use the same format for employee data in each column of the template file by observing the first 3 "Test" employees. You should over write these "Test" employee names. (Note the source of these names does not have to be from the NAPSA csv file but this can be useful here). Check your date format is correct on your computer. It should be set to English(UK) or English(Zambia). To know how to change this, type "Date" in help and look for help on "Date format needs to be dd/mm/yyy". Make sure that you use the same format for employee data in each column of the Import-Template file by observing the way your existing data is saved. eg Column O and P : For the phone numbers(MTNMobile) or Bank-Account-Numbers or NHIMA employee numbers to update your online employees properly, keep the existing format. Then click on "Go-to-Step 1" at the bottom of the Choose-your-Template page. Then Click on "Step 1" at the top to add the upload file. Once you have added the file you can then proceed to "Step 2". NB Note1: If you want new employees to be added to an existing department, then you have to make sure the Department Name(NOT DEPARTMENT CODE) in column F on the excel import template file is exactly the same as the department on the online. Please also ensure the department name is 7 or less characters and has NO spaces. If you have two department names(NOT DEPARTMENT CODE) that are the same on your existing departments then its possible that none of your new employees may be imported. Note2: Any existing Company-Wide extras will be added automatically, but not the department specific extras if you are importing to a pre existing department. After upload you can then use the Assign Extras to Department option to assign non-company wide extras to that department. Note3: VERY IMPORTANT Please use the example in the original downloaded excel TEMPLATE file to see THE EXACT data examples that are accepted. Eg if there is no value in a data Columns you need to enter a 0 and not a blank or empty space. (Like excel data) For data Columns like pay-rate and fixed wage where for example the daily rate is 0 and the fixed wage is a positive value: make sure a 0 is entered if there is no positive value. Follow the True or False values for the respective Column Data and leave no blanks or 0's in these columns. For the Employee-numbers please use the example. Eg start with 1001 or at least have the same amount of digits as the sample ie not just the number 1. For the Date Columns you may leave these values blank if there is for example, no birth date. For Columns G : For the phone numbers(MTNMobile) or Bank-Account-Numbers to import your online employees properly. For Columns F : For the NHIMA employee numbers to import your online employees properly, keep the existing format for the NHIMA number. If you get a message that there is a wrong amount of columns then Harvester thinks you are trying to import from an old Harvester offline package and not your own list of employees in the excel template file. In which case check your "Import Template Choice" is correct. The Import-Template file is for Importing NEW employees. (It has 20 columns of data up to Column S) The last column is the "email" column. The Update-Template file is NOT FOR IMPORTING. It is for Updating EXISTING employees and NOT adding new employees. (It has 20 columns of data up to Column S) The last column is the "StartDate" column. Click on Step 3 and the employees will be imported and updated and you will be ready for entry. If you need to import more than 7 different batches of employees after you have already used this feature seven times, then you need to contact support@harvesteronline.net You are allowed 7 different batch uploads on the standard version. This can easily be updated to allow further batch uploads of new employees after paying a small upgrade cost. See help on Multiple Batch uploads by typing "Multiple" in help.

You may import EXISTING employee data using the Import from excel option found on the settings page. This is normally used to import and do a batch UPDATE of EXISTING employees where you may want to edit existing Harvester online-data from an Offline-excel listing OF data. For example, you would like to redo all the employee numbers in consecutive order, or you have a bulk list of MTN phone numbers or NHIS employee Health numbers and you want to batch update all your online Employees at one time. This is also useful for changing data like Employee Daily-Pay-Rates across ALL your employees. All you do is get Harvester to produce the existing "Update_Template" Excel(CSV) file which you can then use to edit your employee data. From the Home page, go to the Settings page. Go to the Import from Excel link on the left hand side of the settings page. You will be taken to the Choose-your-Template page. Click the bottom image (of the THREE options) to Proceed with Make-Update-Template. The link is called "create Excel Template of existing employees in order to Update online Data". Save the excel template file that is created. It will be in CSV type but you can open it in Excel. Your existing names, surnames etc are all generated in this Update_Template file. Make sure that you use the same format for employee data in each column of the template file by observing the way your existing data is saved. For the phone numbers(MTNMobile) or Bank-Account-Numbers or NHIMA employee numbers to update your online employees properly, keep the existing format. Check your date format is correct on your computer. It should be set to English(UK) or English(Zambia). To know how to change this, type "Date" in help and look for help on "Date format needs to be dd/mm/yyy" Then click on "Go-to-Step 1" at the bottom of the Choose-your-Template page. Then Click on "Step 1" at the top to add the upload file. Once you have added the file you can then proceed to "Step 2". If you get a message that there is a wrong amount of columns then Harvester thinks you are trying to import a list of NEW employees in the excel template file. In which case check your "Template Choice" is correct. Note: the Update Template file is for Updating EXISTING employees and NOT adding new employees. (It has 20 columns of data up to Column S). Last Column is StartDate. Note: the Import Template file is for Importing NEW employees. (It has 20 columns of data up to Column S) Click on Step 3 and the existing employees will be imported and updated and you will be ready for entry. NB You can change any data on the employee rows, EXCEPT the empID which is in Column C. Please note that if you change for example the daily pay rate for employees and you have already processed pay for them in the current month then the update WILL update the employees with the new pay rate but WILL NOT update the pay already processed. To sort this you may simply edit the payments already processed and the update will happen for the current payments. There is a Percentage increase option (Best option for percentage increase) for all employees in the company: Go to settings and towards the bottom right there is a link called "Pay Rates". Use this to apply a percentage increase across all your employees. Note that the batch upload or Import of existing employees allows for a maximum of 200 employees to update at one time. If you have more then 200 employees to update, then once you have updated the first 200, then simply update by department by using department in the filter before you make the Update Template. If you need to import more than 7 different batches of employees after you have already used this feature seven times, then you need to contact support@harvesteronline.net You are allowed 7 different batch uploads on the standard version. This can easily be updated to allow further batch uploads of new employees after paying a small upgrade cost. See help on Multiple Batch uploads by typing "Multiple" in help.

Time and Attendance Systems with Harvester Payroll Harvester Payroll can work with time and attendance systems by using the Offline Input Excel Template. Watch the Harvester training video on biometric and time attendance systems here: https://youtu.be/tBmfFDweAOk?si=Anto8qFwsl2oPDMx The Offline Input Excel Template is generated from Harvester and allows payroll users to quickly import monthly payroll input such as Hours, Overtime Hours, Double-time Hours, Days, Overtime Days and Double-time Days. Many time and attendance systems can export this same type of data to Excel. The exported columns can then be copied into the Harvester Offline Input Template and imported back into Harvester for payroll processing. Important setup requirement The key is to make sure the time and attendance system uses the same employee order as the Harvester Offline Input Template. Harvester normally sorts employees by Department and then Surname, or by Department and then Employee Number. The time and attendance export should be sorted in the same way. This makes it easy to copy columns such as hours or days directly into the correct Harvester columns. Employee details for setup To help set up the time and attendance system, you can export employee details from Harvester. Go to Reports > General Reports and look for the Personal Details report. This report can be exported to Excel and can help match key employee data such as Employee Name, Employee Number and Department. Offline Input Template columns In the Harvester Offline Input Template, the main time and attendance columns are: Column G: Hours Column H: Overtime Hours Column I: Double-time Hours Column J: Days Column K: Overtime Days These are the key columns often copied from the time and attendance system into Harvester. Need a time and attendance system? Biosyn provides time and attendance systems and already has Zambian clients linked with Harvester Payroll. Website: https://biosyn.online/ Contact Philip: [philip@biosyn.online](mailto:philip@biosyn.online) WhatsApp: +27 83 298 6998 For help with Harvester imports, search Harvester Help for Offline Input.

There is a difference between the simple Browser Cash breakdown report and the detailed Cash breakdown report that you can export to Excel. The detailed Excel Cash breakdown report actually gives each and every cash employee's breakdown as to how many notes are required individually. The report that is generated directly from the web will only give the summary total for each department. This is usually used to send to the bank so that you know how many notes are required to order from the bank. It also saves on paper usage by only giving department totals and grand totals.

To switch an employee from getting a cash payslip to a bank transfer and vice versa: Go to Edit-Employees and under the section "Other", make sure the drop down box next to Pay Method is "Cash" or "Bank Account" accordingly. On the Excel export you will notice the word Bank or Cash is shown on the payslip.