Payroll Items

Payroll items are the building blocks of pay: the earnings and deductions a payslip is assembled from. Salary, allowances and bonuses on one side; EPF, SOCSO, EIS, PCB and other deductions on the other. Each item knows how to calculate itself, which is how the system's payroll maths is built up from simple parts.

Anatomy

• Identity – code, name and the label that prints on the payslip.
• Type – Earning (adds to pay) or Deduction (subtracts).
• Recurring – once only (a one-off bonus), monthly (a standing salary or allowance), or every run (a variable amount recalculated each time).
• Processor – the calculator behind the item.

How it behaves

The processor is the calculation

A plain salary item just holds a number, but a statutory item carries a processor that computes its value: an EPF item works out the contribution from the official schedule, a PCB item runs the income-tax calculation. This is how Malaysian statutory maths, EPF, SOCSO, EIS, SKBBK and PCB, is delivered as ready-made items you simply enrol employees into.

Contribution bases

Statutory items must know which earnings to calculate on. An item declares the earnings that feed it (an EPF base might be salary plus bonus), so contributions are computed on the correct figure rather than on everything indiscriminately.

Worked example

You set up Basic Salary (earning, monthly), Travel Allowance (earning, monthly) and an EPF deduction (every run, EPF processor) whose base is the salary. Each payslip then assembles these automatically, the salary and allowance adding up, the EPF computing from the salary.

Edge cases and good practice

• Earning or deduction sets the sign; pick correctly so net pay is right.
• Match the recurrence to reality: monthly for standing pay, every-run for variable, once for a single bonus.
• Set the base on statutory items so they contribute on the right earnings.

Related

• How to: Set up payroll items
• Reference: Employee payroll configuration
• Reference: Statutory contributions