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| Key Word | Topic | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Users Add new User Logins | How do I add new user login accounts to my payroll? | You need to send a mail to: support@harvesteronline.net requesting any extra users per company. We need to know the new user login email. You will be sent a password which may be changed later by the user after first successful login. Typically one should use the user's email for their logins. A login email must be a unique and valid email address. This means it can not be an existing harvester online user account login. NB This means that one email address can only be valid for one company and so the same email address can not be used to access another company. We also need to know which company the user must be linked to and which level of access: Level 1(Basic), Level 3(Accounts) or Level 5(Admin). Please see below for info on Access Levels: You are also able to change the user access-level yourself by clicking on users, under settings. Note1: For security, one unique email address is assigned to one company. Note2: There is a once off fee for an extra user per company of USD50 in Kwacha. The charge is because more users require more Audit Trails and Security Logs and therefore more cloud storage space. Note3: You may request for an additional login that is not a real email address. This is specially helpful if you are an agent and want to login into many payrolls. eg companyname1@gmail.com, companyname2@gmail.com, companyname3@gmail.com etc. Then you can know which email login is for which company. You can also keep the same password. You will still be required to pay the once-off user access fee for registering a second company. Harvester has Three different User Access Levels : Level 5 is "Admin": The user can do all payroll functions. Level 3 is "Accounts": The user can NOT do the following: 1) Level 3 can not access and change the employee details of employees who are marked as 'Management' pay-class. 2) Level 3 can not access most of the Settings features on the settings-Page. 3) The user is also blocked from printing and exporting payslips and other reports of any salaries related to those employees who are marked with the employee pay-class called 'Management'. However the Level 3 user is still able to view and export reports of any employees NOT marked as 'Management'. Level 1 is "Basic": The user has the same restrictions as a Level 3 "Accounts" user BUT in addition the Level 1 "Basic" user can NOT do the following: 1) Access and change the employee details of ANY employee (even those who are NOT marked as 'Management' pay-class). 2) Move the payroll to the next pay-month period. 3) View or export upload Reports like NAPSA or PAYE. You may specify the type of employee payment class on "Edit employees" so that employees can be sorted for payroll input capture according to their class as opposed to their department. This management class is important if you would like to ensure that Level 1 or Level 3 users of your payroll do not have access to these salaries. In the standard Harvester online package, there is a basic Audit Trail User Activities. Please Type "user" in help and search for help on "Audit Trail User Activities". |
| Gratuity OR Terminal Benefit | How do I enter a Gratuity or Terminal Benefit payment? | On the main payroll capture screen for each employee there are two fields towards the bottom: Gratuity Paid and Terminal Benefit Paid. Enter the respective payments here. From year 2017, there is no tax on Gratuity. Do I use Gratuity or Terminal Benefit? It’s just terminology. It works the same. I advise to use terminal benefit but only because it is a closer match in name to the “compulsory" payment people get at end of their contract or when they retire. NB The accumulating Terminal Benefit will appear on the payslips each month and NOT Gratuity. Use Terminal Benefit if you are wanting to pay the "compulsory end of contract service amounts". On the "More Reports page" use the "Gratuity or Terminal Benefit Totals" Report to see current Accumulated Totals which may easily be exported to Excel. Two months worth of payment per year: 16.7 percent One months worth of payment per year: 8.3 percent All payments attract NAPSA charge. |
| Audit Trail Data Changes | How do I access the Audit trail of Data Changes? | The audit trail of User-Activities comes with the standard package. You can further opt for an upgrade and use an additional detailed Audit Trail of actual Data-Field changes. For example, changes to salary or daily rate. To access this click on the Audit-Trail of Data-Changes icon on the Settings page. Note: You must click on Upgrades to purchase this feature and then this audit trail will be available. The audit trail reflects the user name that made the change and the date & time of the change. This is especially helpful to prevent ghost workers etc as any change in employee status(terminated to employed etc) or the adding of someone is clearly recorded. Many other employee data changes are also audited. eg Fixed Salary or key employee personal-data changes. There are over 60 different audit-trail codes of various changes that a user is audited on. Please note: the detailed Audit Trail of data changes is available for 2 years and then this needs to be renewed if you want to continue using the audit trail on users. |
| Bank Account FNB or Zanaco or Stanbic or Flexipay | Bank Account Report for FNB or Zanaco Flexipay or Stanbic ? | 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. |
| Payroll Summary or Personal Details Report | How do I quickly view the payroll summary to check for possible input errors? | To view the payroll summary to check for possible input errors before printing and exporting reports then go to the home page and click on the 'View Payroll Summary' icon. This will take you to the payroll input summary screen where you can confirm your payroll captured amounts for the current payroll period. Note: Make use of the column headings to search in ascending or descending order. This is a quick way to check for possible errors like inputting 200 days instead of 20. Note: use the "Full Summary for Excel-Export" report and export this to excel to see all your payroll detail summaries in one report. This is especially useful when you export it to excel by clicking on the Export icon above the report. Note you may also click on the Summary-Basic report and export this report to excel as well. There are also other summary reports of personal details of employees found under the “general reports” section. For example, look for the “personal details” report (must be exported to Excel). This report has amongst other things: NRC SOC No Health No TPIN Cell No (Column P) For Journal totals to enter into your accounting package, its probably best to use the "Full Summary for Excel-Export" report. |
| Payment Class Management | How do I specify the payment Class? | You may specify the type of employee payment class so that employees can be sorted for payroll input capture according to their class as opposed to their department. This is accessed using the "Edit-Employee" page where the "Pay-Class" drop down setting is found. The various options you have are: Daily: Employees paid by number of days inputted. Hourly: Employees paid by number of hours inputted. Fixed: Employees paid by a fixed basic wage salary. Management: Employees who are part of management. This last management class is important if you would like to ensure that level 2 or 3 users of your payroll do not have access to these salaries. For example : You may change the payment class of any permanent or seasonal employee to the “management class” if you would like level 2 or level 3 access to ensure that these users can only access casual employees. Those who have management class will still behave just as they were before the change. For example they will still behave like a permanent employee, even if their pay class is changed to management. |
| Payroll Input by Payment Class | How do I process employee payments by Payment-Class? | On the main home page look for the Payroll-Entry-Options icon. You will then have the option to select which Payment-Class of employees. You will then be able start payroll capture according to the class specified. |
| Extras No Input needed in Excel | Why does my custom extra not reflect on excel input? | Why cant I get any change I make on the custom extras "payroll-input-screen" to reflect on the payroll or the pay slip? This is probably because you have chosen the type of addition to be one that does not require user input. All extras that do not require user input are labeled with a message in red saying 'No Input Needed'. If your extra is a company wide extra, then it will show on the offline excel input sheet, but make sure that it is an extra that is of the type that DOES require "user input". If not then Harvester assumes you don't need to "input any value manually" each month for the the extra and it will not show on the excel input template and neither will it show on the "payroll-input-screen". If you would like to capture variable inputs for a particular custom extra then make sure that you edit the extra under settings and change the type to one that requires monthly input. ie Specify "Straight from user Input" in the "Type" field. Extras that do not require input are for those extras that are normally a fixed amount that does not change each month..eg a 5 percent bonus or a fixed Kwacha Allowance where you specify the amount once in the Extra settings. Note: If you want to specify INDIVIDUAL Itemised rates per employee and would like Harvester to "remember" these values from month to month, then type "Individual" in help. |
| Housing Allowance | How do I assign or edit Housing Allowance? | Use the Edit Employee page and then under Rates enter the Employee Housing Percentage. When you change a percentage like Housing, it will only be reflected the next time you process pay. Whatever you enter in the housing percentage will be auto loaded when you process the pay for the next month. You will see the housing calculated amount on the right hand side of the normal payment capture screen. Should you wish the housing change to be reflected on an already processed payment, then delete the payment and re pay the employee. NB As with many settings, you may apply a particular housing allowance percentage to all employees within a Department with one single edit. In this case go to Settings and then Department settings and choose your Department. Once you click 'apply to all' then all employees within the department will have the same Housing allowance percentage. It is calculated as percentage of basic pay as per legal requirement. ie no overtime, holidays or extras are used in the calculation of the housing value. Note: “Cashing of leave” is considered above basic as the employee does not go on physical leave if they are “cashing in” on their leave without taking the days off work. If you want the employee to receive a fixed salary and to have their leave cashed as an extra then we have the option to change the employee ”pay type” from “fixed” to “daily” and then the employee can still remain on a “fixed” basic pay. To change the setting on the employee from “fixed” to “daily” then on the “edit individual employee” page look for the “employee pay-type” drop down setting. (Not on department settings) |
| Tax Return Online | How do I submit my online Tax return? | Simply click on the Monthly Tax return icon on the Print Options page. then click on the 'Export to Excel' icon at the top left to export your return into the format specified and required for direct upload to the ZRA. Note: The excel export does say the sheet is hidden and you can not view it. This is correct and is already in the exact online return format that you can upload to ZRA server. (You do not need to manually add or copy employees using other ZRA excel templates) You may also print the paye online return in a manual form where you can see what the amounts and totals are. To do this, use the same online paye print option and then instead of pressing 'Export to Excel', use your web browser and click on the 'Print Preview' button and then print directly off your browser. |