Monthly payroll with EPF, ETF and APIT worked out

Who is monthly payroll for?

Businesses that pay staff a monthly salary and deduct EPF and APIT: shops, wholesalers, restaurants, workshops and offices with anything from three to a few hundred people. If you are working payroll out in a spreadsheet today and typing the totals into the EPF and bank forms, this does the arithmetic and the files for you.

What does it do?

• Keeps each person's salary details: basic pay, allowances, EPF number, NIC and bank account.
• Works out the month: gross pay, no-pay days, overtime, EPF at 8% and 12%, ETF at 3%, APIT and loan recoveries.
• Moves each month through Draft, In review, Approved, Locked and Paid.
• Sends payslips to staff phones as private links.
• Gives you the EPF Form C, APIT monthly schedule, half-year ETF return, a payroll summary and a bank transfer file as CSV.

How do I switch it on?

Monthly payroll is part of Payroll, which is off by default and comes as an add-on. Your EasyTaskr contact switches it on. Once it is on, open Payroll from the menu and press Open monthly payroll, or choose Monthly payroll from the page's menu.

The pages are Months, Salary details, Advances and loans and Rates and settings.

Owners and admins can see salaries and approve months. Managers, finance and accountants can help prepare a month only if they are named as payroll officers. Anyone else sees "Only the owner and payroll officers can see salaries".

What do I set up first?

Open Rates and settings before anything else.

Press Save settings. Then open Salary details and fill in each person: basic salary, allowances, NIC, EPF member number, bank details, and the switches Pays EPF and ETF and This is their main job. NIC and bank numbers are stored encrypted; only the last four characters are ever shown.

How is a month worked out?

For each person:

• EPF and ETF base = basic + allowances that count for EPF and ETF − no-pay. Employee EPF is 8%, employer EPF 12%, employer ETF 3%.
• No-pay = (basic + EPF allowances) ÷ 30 × no-pay days. No-pay is off by default; you can switch it to come from attendance, where a planned working day with no clock-in and no approved time off counts as one no-pay day.
• Overtime = basic ÷ 240 × 1.5 for each hour beyond the standard day, from approved timesheets.
• APIT is worked out on the month's cash pay using the confirmed table.
• Loans and advances come off at the monthly amount you set, never taking net pay below zero.

A worked example: basic Rs 100,000 and a Rs 10,000 allowance that counts for EPF, no no-pay days, 8 overtime hours. The EPF base is Rs 110,000, so employee EPF is Rs 8,800, employer EPF Rs 13,200 and ETF Rs 3,300. Overtime is 100,000 ÷ 240 × 1.5 × 8 = Rs 5,000. The APIT base is Rs 115,000, which is below the Rs 150,000 monthly relief in the built-in table, so APIT is nil. Net pay is Rs 115,000 − Rs 8,800 = Rs 106,200. Check your own figures against the confirmed table; this example only shows how the parts fit.

Step by step: run a month

1. Open Monthly payroll and press Start with the month's name. Everyone with salary details is included.
2. Open each person who had no-pay days, overtime or other deductions, change No-pay days, Overtime hours or Other deductions, and press Save and work out again.
3. Look at the This month totals: gross pay, EPF, ETF, APIT, net pay and the cost to the business.
4. Fix anything listed under Before approval, such as an unchecked rates table.
5. Press Send for review.
6. The owner or an admin presses Approve.
7. The owner or an admin presses Lock the month. You see "Locked. Payslips can be sent now."
8. From the menu, download the Bank transfer file (CSV) and upload it to your bank, or pay by hand.
9. Download EPF Form C (CSV) and APIT monthly schedule (CSV) to send with your payments.
10. Open each person and press Send payslip by WhatsApp, or send by text or email.
11. When salaries have gone out, press Mark paid, choose Paid from and Paid on, and confirm.

Until a month is locked, Back to draft lets you reopen it. Once locked, it is frozen.

What about advances, loans and the ETF return?

On Advances and loans, press Add advance or loan, choose Who and What (Salary advance or Loan), and set Amount given, Taken off pay each month and First month it comes off. Each locked month recovers an instalment; if pay is too low, the shortfall moves to next month.

For the half-year ETF return, choose ETF return (half-year) from the Months menu, pick the half-year and press Download CSV. It uses locked months only. Check the layout against the ETF Board's R4 form before you send it.

What does it not do yet?

• It does not file or pay EPF, ETF or APIT for you.
• The EPF e-Return text file and bank-specific transfer formats are not built; the bank file is a general CSV.
• APIT for secondary employment (Table 02) is not built; the month warns you when someone's main job is elsewhere.
• Payroll is worked out monthly only. Agents and a second approver for large teams are not built.
• With accounting on, a locked month posts the salary journal, and Mark paid moves it out of salaries payable.

Related features

Monthly payroll uses approved hours from staff hours for overtime and no-pay. Commission from till extras is reported separately. For the tax side of running a business, our guides on VAT and SSCL cover what you file beyond payroll.