Online Help Support and FAQs
Browse Common Help Topics and Support Answers using Keyword Search
Simply type a keyword and select from the drop-down and press the Search button.
Browse Help Topics Open the full list of Harvester help answers
| Key Word | Topic | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Tax Calculation | Tax is calculated in a Cumulative way | eg of Cumulative tax showing reason why PAYE is NOT calculated on a monthly basis, but on Cumulative Amounts: PAYE is calculated NOT on a monthly basis, but on Cumulative Amounts: This example is with a first tax bracket of K4500. (eg here is for year 2022 TAX BRACKET) If an employee earned K3500 in January he will pay NO tax, but if in February he earns K5000 he will still NOT pay tax because his cumulative-tax-bracket is only K8500.(K3500 + K5000) This is still not above the cumulative-tax-bracket after two months which is 9000. (2 Months BY K4500) If the employee earned K3500 gross taxable in January(month 1) and K6000 in February, then he will pay tax in February because his cumulative-tax-bracket is K9500.(K3500 + K6000). Note here that the tax will only be on the K500 amount over the 2 month tax threshold of K9000. So it is possible to pay NO tax even if an employee earns more than K4500 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 K9000 before I will pay tax. This means that even an amount of K9000 earned in the month of February will not attract tax if I did not earn anything in January and only joined the company in February. Please make use of the employee tax cards or the employee detailed paye report to see the history. Tax is accumulative! It is also possible for someone to pay tax even if they are below the monthly threshold if they were quite far above it in the previous month. |
| Tax No PAYE but above Bracket | Why does an employee NOT pay tax when he is ABOVE the tax bracket? | PAYE is calculated NOT on a monthly basis, but on Cumulative Amounts: This example is with a first tax bracket of K4500. (eg here is for year 2022 TAX BRACKET) If an employee earned K3500 in January he will pay NO tax, but if in February he earns K5000 he will still NOT pay tax because his cumulative-tax-bracket is only K8500.(K3500 + K5000) This is still not above the cumulative-tax-bracket after two months which is 9000. (2 Months BY K4500) If the employee earned K3500 gross taxable in January(month 1) and K6000 in February, then he will pay tax in February because his cumulative-tax-bracket is K9500.(K3500 + K6000). Note here that the tax will only be on the K500 amount over the 2 month tax threshold of K9000. So it is possible to pay NO tax even if an employee earns more than K4500 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 K9000 before I will pay tax. This means that even an amount of K9000 earned in the month of February will not attract tax if I did not earn anything in January and only joined the company in February. Please make use of the employee tax cards or the employee detailed paye report to see the history. Tax is accumulative! NB 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. |
| Tax new employee | Why does a new employee not pay tax but he is earning above the tax bracket? | 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: PAYE is calculated NOT on a monthly basis, but on Cumulative Amounts: This example is with a first tax bracket of K3000. If an employee earned K2500 (gross taxable after allowed napsa deduction) 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. |
| Tax new Employee Full Credit | How do I ensure that a new employee gets his full tax credit from previous months? | For permanent and seasonal workers, tax is is normal and it is cumulative. However if an employee starts mid way through the tax year then you need to enter the previous-tax-emoluments and deductions in order for harvester not to assume Month 1(January) for the start month. When Harvester assumes Month 1 for tax this means that no tax credit is given for the previous months prior to the employee joining your company. If the employee did not earn any salary in Zambia in the current tax year, before they joined the company, then just enter the nominal number 1 in the Previous-Employment Taxable Income on the Edit employee details screen. This will then signal Harvester to give the full cumulative tax credit for all the months prior to the employee starting. |
| Tax Brackets | Do I need to change tax brackets on the online system at the end of the tax year? | No, you do NOT need to change tax brackets or percentages on the online system at the end of the tax year. You do NOT need to change NAPSA ceiling amounts either. |
| NAPSA Ceiling | Do I need to change NAPSA brackets on the online system at the end of the tax year? | No, you do NOT need to change NAPSA ceiling amounts or percentages on the online system at the end of the tax year. You do NOT need to change tax brackets either. |
| Backup off cloud | How do I backup of the cloud? | 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. |
| Backup Compulsory History and Move Payroll | Compulsory Back needs to be made after every 12 months | 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". |
| Restore from Historic-Backup | Why am I restricted when I click on Restore-from-backup? | In most cases you will never need to restore from backup as you have instant access to all your data for up to 2 years back. Harvester online only keeps all your payroll history for up to 2 years back. If you want to view an exact payslip that you generated more than 13 months back you will need to restore from one of the compulsory offline backups you will have made at the end of your harvester yearly license period. On the default access level, you are not allowed to do a restore. However you may contact support@harvesteronline.net and request for support to restore your data for you. A small fee will be charged for this. Any restored Historic data from more than 13 months back will be removed once you complete the current payroll period and move to the next month. |
| Company Logo and 250 payslip limit | How do I upload my company Logo for use on payslips? | Go to Settings. Click on Company Settings. You will notice the default company Logo is the Harvester image. Click on the Delete check box(on the right hand side of the Logo) to REMOVE the existing default logo and then click on "Submit". Click on Company Settings to return to this page. Look for the Company Logo field and then click on "Browse" to upload your company Logo. Click on "Submit". Tip: Make sure you logo image is not too big in physical size(needs to be on payslips) and storage size(Bytes). To make it smaller in size please open your logo in a program like “paint” which comes with Microsoft Windows or even Microsoft Word (if the image is copied into a Word document) and then select the image border and make it smaller. You can note the size of the image on the edit-company-settings page where you upload the image. Note: If you export payslips with the company logo, then only the first 250 payslips will only be exported. The export to excel has many options for exporting individual payslips or just payslips within a department. It is good to use the export "by department" function when you have more than 250 employees to export. |