Harvester Payroll Help Centre

Error message on Offline upload - expected number of employees is wrong. To avoid this in future: Do not employ new employees or terminate employees after you have prepared the offline pay input file in excel. In this case you will get an error message telling you have the wrong number of expected employees when you try upload your pay template. The offline template has to be according to the exact number of employed employees. To solve this: Delete the current month's payroll entries by going to Settings and then select "Delete Payroll Options" and then select the option to "Delete current month pay". Then redo from Step 1 of the "Prepare for Offline Input". Note: You may copy and paste data from your old "wrong" template to the new template, making sure you copy and paste column data for the correct employees as your "new" offline template will have a different amount of rows to the old template. The second option is simply not to use the offline template upload for the current month and then process the pay directly online by using the edit-payments option.

On the home page look for: Offline Pay Input in Excel Click Step 1. Prepare for offline input. Click Step 2. Create Offline Template file. On this form at the top left, click the export image to create the template file. This is the actual excel file you simply download and use to enter all your variables. Once you download, open the file and click on the top button within excel that says "enable editing". This is the same procedure for all excel files that are downloaded off the internet. Once you have entered the days etc on the excel offline file, you need to upload it. Note: In the blank columns only, will you be able to edit the values. You will not be able to change the rates or any data in the locked, coloured cells. Leave zero values as 0. Click on step 3. Upload Offline Template file for processing. This will enable you to complete another few quick steps to actually import and calculate your entire payroll according to what you entered offline. Step 1: Add file for import. Step 2: Import. Step 3: Process. Notes: If you already have an existing file added(from a previous month or upload attempt), you must click the Delete button. This can easily be deleted without fear of losing work. If you are not happy with your import you can simply redo the upload or you may go to any employee online and and edit any individual, current-payroll entry. Re employing people and using offline Excel input: Best practice is to employ the "new" employees online BEFORE you make the download spreadsheet in Step 1. What you must NOT do is employ the NEW employees AFTER you have prepared for offline and BEFORE you do the upload. If you have already been working on the Offline spreadsheet and you want to re employ people, then work on the offline spreadsheet and wait until AFTER you have uploaded. Harvester will calculate and process pay for all those that you inputted on the excel sheet. After this then re employ the "new" employees and manually pay them directly online using the "pay-me" option. Note: To completely redo the offline input file if you want to start again from scratch, then you can go to "Settings" and then "Delete Payroll Options" and then choose option 1 for "Delete current payroll Period". then you can start Step 1 from the beginning.

Use Print or Export Reports to print reports. Click on the specific payslip report you want to export to excel. Click on the export-to-excel button on the top of the report. The export to excel has many options for exporting individual payslips or just payslips within a department. However, if 'Clear-Search' is not pressed BEFORE you press the export-to-excel button, then the export will remember your last selection. So if you want to make sure you export all of the payslips, remember to press 'Clear-Search' BEFORE you press the export-to-excel button. (or simply reload the payslip report from the print page and then export afresh if you have been making prior selections)

Use Print or Export Reports to print reports. Click on the specific payslip report you want to export to excel. Click on the export-to-excel button on the top of the report as they fit better than printing straight from the web browser. Note: other common reports like payroll summary reports can also be exported to excel.

Integration of Harvester with various accounting packages is very easily made possible with the use of of the export directly to excel/csv format option that appears on most of the Harvester reports. For most accounting packages it is not a direct integration but these days most packages will at least provide an import function from an excel or CSV format. All monthly summary reports can be used but the best is the "Full summary for Excel Export report" This (as well as the Summary basic report) will export all your employees with one employee per row and with the unique employee / company number and all of the additions and deductions and the net and basic and gross amounts. This is the report that can then be imported to various accounting packages or simply be used to get the summary totals for the various accounting inputs required. You also have the option of just using the Department Totals or the Company Totals for all employees paid in the current month.

If your pension is based on fixed salary earners who, for example, do not get the number of days-worked entered each month then you will need to use the Terminal-Benefit option and use this as a Pension field that accumulates. This will work in much the same way as Gratuity where you can specify a percentage of basic pay, eg 10 percent for Pension. Note however that the field will be called Terminal Benefit on all reports etc but it will work as a record of a private pension that accumulates. In this case then do not use the below example for a Pension as a custom-extra based on days worked and simply use the Terminal Benefit field for your pension. All accumulated values for Terminal Benefit will be the accurate accumulation of the Private Pension. The help below is for setting up pension based on days worked and is not to be used when employees are not paid on daily rate by the number of days worked each month. You can add a customised addition called, for example, "Pension" as an "Extra Based on Days" Type of extra. Go to the settings page. Choose Edit-Company-Extras. Click on "add an Extra"(at the bottom). Give it a name eg "Pension". Specify it as an "Addition" in the "Method" field. Specify "Based on Days" in the "Type" field. Click on the "Val times by Days" to edit the default Value. eg this is the Value that is multiplied by the number of Standard (normal) days. If the daily rate is for example K50, and your pension is 10 percent then the Pension-Daily Rate needs to be K5. Note for this to work, the pension needs to have normal days entered each month on the payment capture. It will be good to make this extra apply only on a Department level and NOT Company-Wide. So do NOT tick the checkbox "Apply-to-all" in the Company unless everyone gets the private pension. Note: This particular Customized extra will NOT appear on the the second input page for each employee payment capture as "no input" is required. Note: This value will be accumulated from month to month in the current calendar year and will NOT be included in the NET pay. At the end of the accumulated period you need to actually make an extra payment to the employee for the accumulated amount. Note the Accumulated Amount will still reflect on the payslip but will be automatically cleared each January so as to make room for the next year to start accumulating again. It is helpful to go to the "More-Reports" page and click on the "Extras-Accumulative" report to print out the summary of each employee's pension accumulation into excel. On this report, remember to click on the "Select Customised Extra" drop down search box on the top right and choose the "Pension" extra before you export to Excel so that you produce the Pension Report.

First add your customised Extra addition or deduction to the company. Use Settings and then click on Edit Company Extras. You have the option to apply the extra to all within the company. If you do NOT make the extra a Company-Wide extra then you can use Assign Extras to Department or Assign Extras to individual Employees. Click on edit Employees on the home screen and then on the right hand side of the table of employees click on "Extra Additions or Subtractions" to assign extras to the specific employee selected. NB NOTE: You may also use Individual Rates for Company-Wide Extras. If you want to specify INDIVIDUAL Itemised or the Fixed-Extra Custom-Extras per employee and would like Harvester to "remember" these values from month to month so that no re-input is required each month then type "Individual" in help.

First add your customised Extra addition or deduction to the company. Use Settings and then click on Edit Company Extras. You have the option to apply the extra to all within the company. If you do NOT make the extra a Company-Wide extra then you can use Assign Extras to Department or Assign Extras to individual Employees. To change an existing Extra from Department to Company-Wide level : On edit extras if you tick the check box for "Apply to all within Company" then it will become a Company-Wide extra. To change an existing Extra from Company-Wide to Department level you need to DELETE the extra. NB Please WAIT until you start a new payroll month BEFORE you delete a Company-Wide Extra to prevent changes to already processed payroll data. Any NON company wide extra can be applied to a department using the Department-Settings icon form the Settings page. Note that new employees added will only get assigned Company-Wide extras and if you are adding employees to a specific department then they will also be assigned department level extras for that specific Department. (If there are any Department-Level extras at the time of adding employees) You may also use the Department Settings icon to apply any department-level extras after employees are added. Extras are not assigned across all "permanents" or "casuals". They are only applied by "Company" or "Department". NB NOTE: You may also use Individual Rates for Company-Wide Extras. If you want to specify INDIVIDUAL Itemised or the Fixed-Extra Custom-Extras per employee and would like Harvester to "remember" these values from month to month so that no re-input is required each month then type "Individual" in help.

A customised Cane Bonus can be configured so that it is calculated using only the days on which an employee actually cuts cane. First, go to Settings, choose Edit Company Extras and add an extra called, for example, “Cane Bonus”. Set the extra up as follows: * Method: Addition * Type: Based on Days * Val times by Days: Enter the Cane Bonus value that must be multiplied by the employee’s cane-cutting days. The Cane Bonus should normally be applied only to the Cane Cutters department. Do not select “Apply to All” unless the bonus must apply to every employee. How to separate cane-cutting days from general labour days If a cane cutter works some days cutting cane and other days doing general labour or other non-cutting work: 1. Go to the Department Settings for the Cane Cutters department. 2. Enter the appropriate general-work daily rate in the Other Day Rate field. 3. During payment capture, enter only the days actually spent cutting cane in the Normal Days field. 4. Enter the non-cutting or general-labour days in the Other Days field. Because the Cane Bonus is configured as Based on Days, it will be calculated using the Normal Days entered for actual cane cutting. The Other Days will be calculated separately using the department’s Other Day Rate and will not increase the Cane Bonus. Example If an employee spends 18 days cutting cane and 4 days performing general labour: * Normal Days: 18 * Other Days: 4 Harvester will calculate the Cane Bonus using the 18 cane-cutting days only. The four general-labour days will be calculated using the department’s Other Day Rate. The different days and amounts will also be shown separately on the employee’s payslip. Accumulating and paying the Cane Bonus This customised extra accumulates during the current calendar year and is not automatically included in Net Pay. When the accumulated Cane Bonus must be paid, the total can be entered manually in the Bonus field on the employee payment-capture screen. You can view the accumulated amounts from More Reports by opening the Extras-Accumulative report. Select the Cane Bonus extra from the customised-extra list before exporting the report to Excel. Accumulated amounts are not cleared automatically in January. They continue to accumulate across months and years until the bonus or other accumulated amount has been paid. After payment, use the manual reset option under Settings to clear all previous accumulated amounts and begin a new accumulation period.

You can add a customized deduction (or addition) as a "Fixed" Type extra. Go to the settings page. Choose Edit-Company-Extras. Click on add an extra(at the bottom). Give it a name eg Personal Levy. Specify it as a Deduction in the "Method" field. Specify "Fixed" in the "Type" field. Click on Edit Value (on the right hand side) to edit the default value of the Fixed Deduction. eg 15 for a fixed deduction of 15K applied to all that you apply this deduction to. ONLY Click Apply-to-all in the Company if you want the option to give everyone in the Company this deduction example. Customized extras will only appear on the "second page" of the direct payments entry screen which is the second input page for each employee payment capture. However this type of extra does not require user-input as it will automatically be deducted from those employees to whom you have applied this extra.