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| Key Word | Topic | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Amend previous month's submission eg PAYE | How do I ammend an already submitted PAYE return? | The PAYE amendment is done directly, online with the ZRA through their web site and not Harvester. However you should also amend your Harvester historic payroll data. To fix harvester values you need to go to edit payments for the respective employees and choose the exact month you want to edit. Click on the edit option and then you may edit any month for up to a year back. Once you press submit on the edit payment screen for the specific month that needs adjusting, then all the reports, like NAPSA, NHI and PAYE will be automatically adjusted. Then you can simply go to the reports link, but on the month(payroll-period) selection page, choose the "historic" month for which you would like to print or generate new returns. Then all reports will be ready for use with the adjusted values for you updated records. |
| National Health NHIS Employee Upload NHIMA Return | How do I update Harvester for the new NHIMA platform? | For NHIMA, most of your existing employees have been given new 14 digit employee membership numbers and some of the old 10 digit numbers are no longer valid. For some of these old 10 digit numbers you need to enter the letters NHA preceding the number on the Edit Employee page on Harvester. This "employee" number can be entered on the Edit-Employee page. To obtain a listing of each of your (new) unique employee membership numbers, please login to the NHIMA website and click on "returns" and then click on "Upload Return" and finally click on the "Download Sample From Employees" in order to get your NEW, unique employee-membership numbers. NB Remember to enter your NHIS "Employer" Account Number by going to settings and then company settings. Please do not enter the preceding letters 'NHIS' for your Company Health Number on Company-Settings page. Some employers have been issued a numeric-only NHIS employer number (no “NHIS” prefix). In Harvester, go to Settings → Company Settings and uncheck “Does NHIS precede Health No?” so the export matches the required format." The Monthly Contribution CSV Upload: NB. You must choose the report called "National Health Upload CSV" and not the "National Health Data" report. Click the report link called National-Health-Upload-Csv and then simply click on the "export" EXCEL button to create a CSV file-type for direct upload to NHIMA. Once you have DOWNLOADED the CSV(Comma delimited.csv), do not re-save the CSV file before uploading. ie Do NOT open your exported csv file and re-save before uploading as your upload file won't work". You can open the file in EXCEL BUT because it is a CSV file, DO NOT SAVE IT, just view it. This is due to the fact that re saving a CSV file in excel sometimes causes the format to change. For example the long NHI numbers in "Column D" might revert to Scientific notation and all look the same! If you do open your CSV file in excel and you see the numbers for NHI for each employee are showing in Scientific notation, do not be concerned. If you put your cursor on one of the numbers (by selecting any cell in "Column D" in excel) and then you look at the formula bar above, you will notice that it actually is storing the number correctly because the formula bar will show the actual 14 digit Number. (The display is just in Scientific notation) Note: Sometimes you may find that you still get certain columns of data, like the Employee number on the NHIS upload report, reverting to a scientific notation format where it does not show the actual number. If you literally upload the exported CSV file(without first opening the CSV file) then the upload file should work as it is. If this does not seem to work, then open the exported CSV file in Excel and then use the Excel program to save as a CSV file type. This process will often fix such "format errors" with CSV files. If you want to verify or do a manual edit of the CSV file, then right click the file and open with Notepad and then you can see the true CSV format that the NHI system wants. After you have entered the employee numeric Membership Numbers (the 14 digit number) supplied by the NHIS to you for each employee on Harvester, then you can simply generate the new export CSV report and use this to upload to their system. To make it easier to enter all the employee numeric Membership Numbers, you may use the Quick Table Employee Edit to do batch saves of 15 employees at a time. Tick the tick box for Health and fill in the health number on the employee grid and save up to 15 employees' Health data info at a time. NB please make use of the Bulk employee update feature by using a Harvester-generated, excel import template. Type Update or Import in Help and look for the help on "Batch Upload or Update Import of Existing Employees from 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 in your downloaded template file. For the NHIMA employee numbers to update your online employees properly, keep the existing format (in CSV) so numbers look like this 14 digit number example: 55,555,555,555,555.00 (once updated online the NHIMA Numbers will look normal) For the few employees who have kept the older 10 digit numbers that NHIS for some reason have kept the same, please enter the letters NHA preceding the number example: NHA5555555555 Note: The health number must not start with ' before the number. If you have a ' before the number, please remove the '. So in harvester put the letters NHA instead of the ' or simply remove it so that you just have a numerical number. Make sure when you Submit to save, its just a number with no blanks saved after it and there is no '. Then prepare the upload and you will see it will save it correctly. Any employee who is over 65 is not accepted for NHIMA. In this case please remove the employee using the National Health check box on "Edit-Employee". |
| Date format needs to be dd/mmm/yyy | How do I set my region date format to English UK or Zambia | For any import or update process that involves dates, please make sure that your computer system settings on windows are correct before you even open excel and do the download or the upload for Harvester online files. Note with this setting, you can also easily enter the date directly into the date field on Harvester without having to use the drop down calendar. How do I set my region date format to English UK or Zambia? Go into Control Panel then Clock then Language then and Region. In the Formats tab, check that the: Format is set to English (United Kingdom). Short date format in Date and time formats is set to dd/MM/yyyy. The Zambia default also works on dd/MMM/yyyy. You can check your Excel Standard-Date-Format by clicking on format cells and then checking the Date is for example English(UK). It should not be a Date Format that has the Month before the Day. (like the American version) |
| NHIS or NHIMA duplicate error record | What do I do if I see the 'duplicate record' error when i upload to NHIMA? | What do I do if I see the 'duplicate record' error when I upload to NHIMA? Check first that you have upload the exported CSV file directly. ie you have not been editing the csv file before uploading to NHIMA. Use the EXCEL export button to create an .XLSX fle and then 'Save As' filetype .CSV for direct upload to NHIMA. Once you have saved the excel file as CSV(Comma delimited.csv), do not re-save the CSV file before uploading. ie Do NOT open your exported csv file and re-save before uploading as your upload file won't work". This is due to the fact that re saving a CSV file in excel sometimes causes the format to change. For example the long NHI numbers in "Column D" might revert to Scientific notation and all look the same! If you do open your CSV file in excel and you see the numbers for NHI for each employee are showing in Scientific notation, do not be concerned. If you put your cursor on one of the numbers (by selecting any cell in "Column D" in excel) and then you look at the formula bar above, you will notice that it actually is storing the number correctly because the formula bar will show the actual 14 digit Number. (The display is just in Scientific notation) If you want to verify then right-click the file and open with Notepad and then you can see the true CSV format that the NHI system wants. When you open the text file you can easily see if they are all unique NHI numbers and not duplicates. Note: You may also check your CSV file by opening the actual CSV file and putting your cursor on the NHA member ID field (eg cell D1). Then press the "down-arrow key" and move through all your data rows and you will be able to check in the display area of excel (the formula bar above) for the actual numbers and they should be 14 digits. This is how Excel actually stores those numbers. |
| Fixed Salary and Cashed Leave Together | What do i do for a Fixed Salaried employee who wants to Cash part of thier Leave? | For Fixed-Monthly-Salary earners who have the PAY CLASS set as FIXED, NO KWACHA VALUE will appear as actual leave pay taken in the GROSS wage. In this case just the accumulated leave days will reduce by the amount of DAYS taken. Only if an employee is on a daily pay rate, then a KWACHA LEAVE value will appear as an extra in the GROSS pay. This is because Fixed-Monthly-Salary employees do not usually cash their leave. Should you wish to pay a Kwacha value for leave on top of a Fixed salary and you do not have employees who want to both cash leave and at the same time also take some of their leave, then please make sure that the PAY CLASS is NOT marked as FIXED on edit-employee. (In this case, make sure that the PAY CLASS is marked as DAILY under edit-employee). However if you want to keep the employee Class as a Fixed-Salary type and would like to have an employee being able to take part of their leave as Cash or "Commuted" and the other part of their leave to be actual leave days, then you may do the following. Go to Settings and then "Edit Company Extras". Click on the Add extra icon to add a new custom-extra and call it "LeaveCash" for example. Make your custom-extra of the type "Straight from user input" and make sure the extra is an "Addition". Then for the actual "Cashed" or "Commuted" portion of the leave taken you may use this "LeaveCash" field to enter the Kwacha value for the leave (normally Fixed Salary divide by 26 and then times by the Days the employee wants to cash ) Note: Please still enter the Total leave days taken (for both the amount of days the employee goes on physical leave as well as the amount of days the employee wants to cash) in the Leave-Days-Taken field so that the leave record is properly kept. |
| Move payroll to February | How do I move payroll after a compulsory month end backup. | Note: You do not have to pay for the purchase module for Harvester to keep data older than 13 month. 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 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". |
| Annual Paye or Tax Summary Report and Gross | How to extract an Annual Paye summary report for an employee? | The best practice is to export to excel the Paye-Detail Report or make use of the Gross Annual - Details Report (see below). The actual Excel Export of the Full Summary report will include a Full Detailed-Report with more info than the visible browser report. For detailed access to tax cards and history, there are detailed Paye reports that can be printed out. Select the normal "Print Reports" option. 1) Choose the year you would like to see the Annual Report (normally the current year is the default). 2) Choose the month "December" to reflect the entire year. history as December is the last month. 3) Select the "Paye-Detail" Report. 4) In the "Current or Summary" options drop down box on the top left of the report page, select the option "Summary" and then click Search. Note: You may also export this report to Excel. Gross Annual - Details Report This Report is very useful as its an accumulated, ongoing, annual-summary of important totals you may need. On the normal Reports page look under "General-Reports" Section and then select the link for the Gross Annual - Details Report. This report is found just below the link for the Workers Compensation Report. It will export to excel the same information needed for Workers Compensation, but will also include accumulated totals for other helpful values like Basic Wage, Housing, Pay-rates, Gratuity, Terminal Benefits. If you select the Status drop-down search box and select only Terminated or Employed employees, then the export to Excel report will show accumulated totals according to your selection. Eg If you want to see only the totals for Terminated employees during the year. |
| Mobile Money Tilt Payment Platform | How do I setup mobile money for payments to cellphones? | On the main Reports page look for the Cellphone Transfers(Tilt) Report. If you have not registered for Tilt which enables you to pay employees who have any valid cellular number(whether MTN, Airtel or Zamtel), then please contact Emma from Tilt Payment +260966242441 When you click the "export-to-excel" button on this mobile Money Report, Harvester will save the Net-Payments of all those employees who have a valid cellphone number in a report in the usual excel format. 1) Once you have downloaded (saved the export file), open the excel file. 2) Save the document in CSV (MS-DOS) by using the SAVE-AS menu function in excel. (In Excel when you click on SAVE-AS, you will notice the drop down "Save-As-Type" box where you can select the option type : CSV (MS-DOS) from the list of available "File Types") 3) Log in to your Tilt payment platform and Upload the file directly to their site. Note: Only employees with valid cellular numbers entered on the “Mobile No or Paycode” field AND the numbers begin with 260 AND who have a positive Net payment for the month will be entered into the Tilt mobile Money Report. If you have already processed pay for the current month (or for a single employee) and you make the changes described above to enable Mobile money, then you must resubmit the payment. After you resubmit a payment Harvester will remember your new settings and the employees on Mobile Money Tilt platform will reflect on the upload report. |
| Non Company-Wide Extras for individual employees | Why can't I add Custom Extras Company Wide | Adding Custom Extras for Individual Employees when extra is NOT a "Company Wide Extra". If you try to add a custom Extra to an individual employee you may notice the message "Extras that are NOT company wide extras can be assigned to individual employees". The option to Add or Assign extras to employees is only available for Extras that have NOT been defined as "Company-Wide". The "Company Wide Extras" must be added under "Settings" and then "Extras". These extras are only for those custom extras that you would like to apply for EVERYONE within the company and therefore you can not add them to individual employees. If you have already added a "Company Wide Extra" then you do not need to go to the individual employee to add the same extra as as they would already be applied to everyone. If you would like to only specify certain extras for certain Individual Employees, then you need to add an extra that is NOT specified as the Type "Company-Wide". This can also be done under "Settings" and then "Extras". Then these extras may be added individually to the employee. |
| Mobile Money Kazang Payment Platform | How do I setup Kazang mobile money to any cellphone? | On the main Reports page look for the Cellphone Transfers(Kazang) Report. If you have not registered for Kazang which enables you to pay employees who have any valid cellular number(whether MTN, Airtel or Zamtel), then please contact Leon from Kazang Payment +260 96 6727879 When you click the "export-to-excel" button on this mobile Money Report, Harvester will save the Net-Payments of all those employees who have a valid cellphone number in a report in the usual excel format. Harvester will prepare the excel report with the correct Kazang codes according to the mobile number entered for each employee on Harvester. Be sure to also change the Pay-Method Type from CASH to Bank-Account if the Pay-Method is still CASH for the employee. 1) Once you have downloaded (saved the export file), open the excel file. 2) Save the document in CSV (MS-DOS) by using the SAVE-AS menu function in excel. (In Excel when you click on SAVE-AS, you will notice the drop down "Save-As-Type" box where you can select the option type : CSV (MS-DOS) from the list of available "File Types") 3) Log in to your Kazang payment platform and Upload the file directly to their site. Note: Only employees with valid cellular numbers entered on the “Mobile No or Paycode” field AND the numbers begin with 260 AND who have a positive Net payment for the month will be entered into the Kazang mobile Money Report. If you have already processed pay for the current month (or for a single employee) and you make the changes described above to enable Mobile money, then you must resubmit the payment. After you resubmit a payment Harvester will remember your new settings and the employees on Mobile Money Kazang platform will reflect on the upload report. |