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| Key Word | Topic | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly Rate Department | How do I edit the Hourly Pay Rate across all within a Specific Department? | For changing the Hourly rate for all employees within a Specific Department: Go to Settings. Go to Department Settings. Edit the "Day Rate". Click on "Submit". Note: Only if you change the Hourly rate (or other rates) in Department-Settings, will the change be applied to all within the department. |
| Variable Leave Days According to Workdays | How do I set leave days to calculate according to the number of days actually worked? | Harvester default is 2 days per employee per month irrespective of how many days they work. In reality many don't work a full month. With this setting, Harvester gives 0, 1 or 2 Days. Between 0 and 9 days gets 0 days leave accrued. Between 10 and 21 days gets 1 day leave accrued. 22 or more days gets 2 days leave accrued. Eg 5 days worked gets 0 leave days. Eg 15 days worked gets 1 leave day. Eg 23 days worked gets 2 leave day. To specify leave days according to days worked: Use Department Settings to set "Variable Leave Days" to those within a specific department. Go to Settings. Go to Department Settings. Tick the "Variable Leave Days" field and next to the red writing on the right of screen make sure "click to APPLY ALL" is ticked so that all already existing employees within the Department will be adjusted. Click on "Submit". NB This must be done BEFORE the current month Pay is processed in order for Variable Leave to be reflected immediately. Note that you may also use the Employee "Table-Edit" to do multiple batch edits of individual employees. Look for the checkbox for the column called "Variable Leave". |
| Leave Days or Pay Taken | How do I pay out leave days due to an employee? | For leave taken you should enter the days in the Leave-Days-Taken field on the Payment capture screen. The Leave-Days-Taken field is found just above 'Additions' on the payment capture screen. Note: This does not reduce the basic leave days worked. It does not affect the "housing allowance" either. The 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 worked 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 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 “leave days taken” field. “Leave days taken” is to record when a person goes on paid leave so the record is there and shown on the payslip. Eg. for a 26 day normal month and an employee takes 10 leave days. Enter 10 in the "leave days taken" field. (This will add 10 days multiplied by the daily rate to give a Kwacha payment) You should enter 16 in the normal "days" worked field. (total of 26 days worth of pay on payslip) When an employee does not go on leave and wants to cash his leave? If the employee did work the whole month and wants to cash his leave as extra, you should enter 26 in the normal "days" worked field AND 10 in the "leave days taken" field. (total of 36 days worth of pay on payslip) NB. 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. So if you do NOT want an employee to have his leave days cashed, then you need to make the PAY CLASS as "Fixed" and not "Daily" and then Harvester will not add the leave in Kwacha value to the gross."(In this case, make sure that the PAY CLASS is marked as FIXED under edit-employee) Should you wish to pay a Kwacha value for leave on top of a Fixed salary, 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) Use the leave reports (that can be exported to excel) to have a report of all outstanding leave so that it’s easy to process the leave days taken. Extra note: Please make sure that the Leave Days Per Month field on Edit-Employees is NOT set to 0 for an employee if you want to ensure that the employee cashes their leave when you enter days in the "leave days taken" field. It should normally be set to the default of 2. Note that from mid 2019, Leave-Pay-Taken has to be based on the daily equivalent of the Gross-Pay and NOT the Basic-Pay of the particular month that the leave is cashed. There is still an option on Company Settings where you can make leave pay use the basic pay rate. This option is only if you have a valid “collective wage agreement” that says it’s worked on basic. According to the in the new Employment Act (JULY-2019): The only extra that is NOT included for the Daily Rate equivalent for "cashing of Leave" is the Bonus or Gratuity or Terminal Benefit End-of-Contract payments. If you enter any value in the Bonus field then the leave Daily-Payout-Rate won't increase for leave pay out. All other extras are used to increase the basic daily pay rate when an employee cashes their leave. To work out how its calculated in a typical scenario after you have processed the payslip: Take the gross wage on the payslip and then subtract the Leave-Pay and then subtract the Bonus amount(if any) and divide the result by 26 to get the leave Daily-Payout-Rate. |
| Leave Days Edit Accumulated Days | How do I edit or view the Accumulated Leave Days for an employee? | On the "More Reports page" use the "Leave Accumulated" Report to see current Accumulated Totals which may easily be exported to Excel. (Note you do not normally need to do this if your Leave Settings chosen are correct) To edit the actual "Accumulated Leave Days" you need to edit a particular historic month "Leave Days" value or the "Accumulated Total" uploaded from Harvester offline if you converted from Harvester-Offline. (or if you simply have just started Harvester-Online as a new client). Note that if you have just started Harvester online, then pay your employees for the first month and then after an initial payment is generated then you will be able to edit the accumulated leave total. You will be able to manually edit the "Leave days" value which will affect the Accumulated, outstanding leave days total: 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. There are 2 values you can change: 1)Leave Days(what they earn in a month) and 2)Leave Days Taken(what they take in a month) After editing a historic month, then go back and redo the current month's payment (if you have processed it already) and you will notice on the payment capture screen (and payslip) the adjusted outstanding Leave Days. Note on the Edit Screen: "Current" means for the particular payment month you are editing. You have to change the actual value in a particular pay period. Then the Accumulated value changes accordingly. This is like an accounting system. Or you may edit the total accumulated leave days loaded from previous package by first selecting the search-option for viewing historic cumulative totals uploaded from previous package. Note: When you edit historic leave values for a particular historic month, Harvester will do nothing on the historic payslips unless you edit the "actual-payment" for that corresponding historic month. One is not really supposed to edit historic payslips as this can affect net pay, NAPSA, PAYE,NHIS etc. The reason for the ability to edit historic leave values is to make the current "Accumulated-Leave" correct. When you pay an employee in the current month and submit his or her payment as a normal payslip, then the program will take into account the historic values that you edited and the current payslip will show the correct "new" "Accumulated-Leave". If you want the actual historic payslip to change, then you can do this by selecting Edit-Payments and then go to the specific historic-month that you have just edited in terms of historic leave days and then resubmit the payment. However please note that if the Net Payslip changes as a result, then that would mean the PAYE, NHIS and NAPSA returns will also be different. Harvester is accepted and known by ZRA, NHIMA and NAPSA and so this is the reason the actual historic payslip is not changed when editing a value for accumulated leave. It will however be reflected in any subsequent month paid. If the net payslip will not be effected then your change will obviously be fine and you can go ahead and resubmit a historic payment. If you have been running harvester online and have not been checking the leave days properly and you want to fix it quickly do the following: Option 1 (Reset all Leave to Zero Accumulated Balances) Select settings on the Home page and then select Delete-Payroll Options. In the drop down select "Reset Leave for all employees to Zero" Option 2 (Edit Individual Employee Accumulated Balance) To avoid changing every months leave for each employee who is incorrect, try edit just one month's historic "leave-days" value and either add or subtract one amount so that the accumulated leave days will be correct. eg: If the current accumulated amount is 32 Leave-Days and the Accumulated-Leave-Days on the System (see payslip or accumulated leave report) is showing 12, then you will need to subtract 20 days from one of the historic months. (Don't worry if this makes the Leave-Days negative as it's a once off fix). Remember that if you have the correct Leave-Days settings applied you should NEVER have to manually change this leave as it works it all out automatically and correctly according to the days earned for leave each month (Typically 2 or 2.5 leave days per month). When you "pay out" the leave days or an employee goes on leave, you use the Leave-Days-Taken field on the normal payroll payment capture screen. The Accumulated leave days will reduce accordingly. If you converted from Harvester Offline and you want to edit the Accumulated Leave 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 Leave day Total that was converted from the Harvester Offline version which was the outstanding value at the time you converted to Harvester Online. |
| Loans Edit Outstanding Value | How do I Edit or View the Outstanding Loan Value for an employee? | On the "More Reports page" use the "Loan Balances" Report to see current Accumulated Totals which may easily be exported to Excel. To edit the actual "Outstanding Loan Value" you need to edit a particular historic month "Loan Repayment" value. This will adjust the calculated accumulated value eg Outstanding Loan Value. 1)Click on Settings 2)Click on employee Settings (Left hand side of screen) 3)Click on "Loans for Employees" 4)Click on a particular loan payment for a specific employee you would like to edit. Note: Positive "Initial Loan" vales are the initial loans given to an employee. The negative amounts are for the loan repayments that have been captures so far. You will be able to manually edit the "Loan Repayment Amount" value or the "Initial Amount" which will affect the Accumulated, Outstanding Loan value. You may want to manually remove or reset ALL loans or loan repayment amounts for a PARTICULAR employee. Simply look for any loan entries for that employee and Delete them one by one. You may also check what the current outstanding balance is on a current payslip that you would like to "reset" and then instead of deleting, simply edit any repayment amount that will make the outstanding balance come to Zero. |
| Union on Gross or Basic | How do I set up a Union Deduction that is a percentage of Basic or Gross? | First you need to specify under Company settings the Union Percentage of Basic-Pay or of Gross-Pay for your company. (NB use this standard option which appears on the main payment capture screen and not a Custom-Extra) If Union is to be set as a percent of gross and not basic then be sure to tick the check box for "Worked on Gross and not Basic". It is found next to the "union percent-amount" on the Company Settings page. Then you need to specify who is actually on the union so that the deduction will be made. Go to Edit-employees to edit employee's specific details. On the bottom right hand side is "Union Member?". Tick the checkbox if the employee is on a union. Note: To enter multiple employees at a time use the Table-Employee batch edit option and tick the Checkbox for all those employees who will need to have a Union. Remember that if a payment has already been made for the current month, you will need to re submit the payment for the union to take effect. Note: This is a standard option and so you do NOT need to add a custom Extra for Union deduction unless you would like to have two different unions in the Company. Union is paid by the employee and not by the employer. The deduction off the payslip will result in the Total Union amount for the month shown on the monthly summary report so that you know what to pay. If you choose the option for Union on Gross, then note that it is worked on Gross less any Gratuity or Terminal benefit payments etc. |
| Payroll Input Options | What payroll input options are there in order to generate payslips etc? | To get a payslip for any employee you still need to process the pay for each month, either by using 1) Payroll entry or 2) Payroll Entry Batch Pay or 3) Offline, excel, payroll input feature. For large amounts of employees use our customized offline payroll input which allows you to quickly enter pay data like days, hours etc in an offline excel spreadsheet that you can later upload and process all at once immediately. Another simple way to process pay is to use the "Pay Employee" icon on the middle-bottom of the main home page. Then on this "Process-Payments" page you can click on the "Pay-Me" link to process pay for any employee. The "Edit-Pay" link can be used be for any employee whom you have already processed within the current pay period. The link is used if you would like to correct or edit a payment already processed. |
| Dollar USD Rate Currecncy | How do I edit the Dollar Exchange Rate for Dollar Salaries? | For changing the Dollar Exchange Rate for all employees: Go to Settings. Go to Company Settings. Edit the "Dollar Exchange Rate". Click on "Submit". Note: This should be done BEFORE payment is captured. If you change the exchange rate (on company settings) after you have already processed the pay, it will only update the pay for dollar salaries the following month if you have already processed pay. To make sure the new exchange rage is reflected, use Edit-payments and redo the payment. For dollar based salaries use the Dollar Payroll input field for Fixed Salary on edit employee details. On standard payslips the Dollar amount is shown on the top section of the payslip. If you would like to see the NET pay in dollars as well as NET pay in Kwacha then use the large payslip format. Note: On the web payslip output, the Net amount is in both dollars and Kwacha. The Kwacha Net value will be the amount that was calculated at the rate you used for the month. It is important for dollar salaries each month you should set the "Dollar Exchange Rate" before you pay salaries. |
| Rounding Off Value | How do I set the Rounding Off value for Net payslips? | Go to Company settings and then in the "Rounding Value for Payslips" field you can specify the Rounding off value. Click "Submit". If you enter 0 then NO Rounding will happen. If you use 2 Kwacha rounding up then no 5 Kwacha notes are used. If you use 1 Kwacha rounding then 5 Kwacha notes are used. But the disadvantage of using 1 Kwacha rounding is that you will also have 1 Kwacha coins for some of the pay packets. Note: If you select 1 Kwacha rounding before exporting to excel, you will notice it also has 2 Kwacha breakdown in the cash breakdown. However, on the actual browser report it does not have any 2 Kwacha notes that are counted. (The browser report just does 5 Kwacha and 1 Kwacha notes if you select the 1K rounding option for the report). Rounding Example of a NET payslip of K16 to rounding set at K2: 1 by 10 Kwacha note, 1 by 5 Kwacha note and then 0 by 2 Kwacha note? But what about the 1 Kwacha left? Giving an extra K2 will make the net pay go up by K1 to K17. With the setting on the DEFAULT OF K2 ROUNDING this is how Harvester online deals with it: 1 by 10 Kwacha note, 0 by 5 Kwacha note and then 3 by 2 Kwacha notes. With the setting on the DEFAULT OF K1 ROUNDING: 1 by 10 Kwacha note, 1 by 5 Kwacha note and then 0 by 2 Kwacha notes and 1 by 1 Kwacha coin. Hence the scenario of missing K5 notes will only happen if the pay ends in the number 6 or 8 and your setting is on the DEFAULT of 2 Kwacha rounding. This is not too common but it avoids coins! |
| Extras Removing | How do I remove a custom extra addition or deduction I dont use? | To delete a customised extra addition or deduction, click on Edit-Company-Extras under Settings. Go to Settings. Go to Edit-Company-Extras. Click on the Edit-this-Extra link for the particular extra you would like to remove. Note: You should make changes to extras BEFORE processing pay for the current month. For changes to be reflected on already processed payroll entries for the current pay period, you would need to Either re calculate each employee affected by using Edit-Payments or Click the "delete" current-payroll-entries option under Settings and then re do your current month's payroll capture. |