Setting up your payroll in Zimbabwe or any other country in the world is about knowing a few different things and getting those things right. The key being to make it as easy and convenient for your business.
Once a payroll has been set up to your needs it becomes easier to manage and administrate it as you don’t expect too much to change during the year.
1. Get your employee information
When starting your payroll ensure that everyone who is supposed to be in the payroll is known in the business. What this means is ensuring you have the following details
- Name and surname
- ID number
- Employee address
- Basic Salary
- Employee Benefits and Allowances
- Employee Department
- Contract start date and end date (if an end date exists)
These details can be split into two functions
- Personal Details
- Contract details
2. Know your Payroll Statutory Requirements
Your statutory requirements are those things that the regulations in your country require you to pay through your payroll. These can vary from the following categories
- Pension
- Labour contributory amounts to employee associations
- Government related deductions that are required per employee
Knowing these will help you to set up your payroll knowing fully well that you have covered the different areas that are required in your country.
Some requirements may be age specific so you might need to know who qualifies and who does not.
3. Leave Days
Leaves days are important to the employees as well as to your business. Know what your labour law says with regard to leave days and have them ready to be incorporated in your payroll where appropriate. Leave liability will be important to know as you will have obligations for those leave days.
Some leave days are mandatory whilst some are not hence knowing the different types is important.
4. Know your wage bill and Tax bands
Your payroll will come with different obligations which include
- Tax obligation
- Regulatory payments
- Benefits and Allowances obligations
- Basic Salary obligations
- Leave liability
This is a cost to your business which you must be prepared to fund monthly or whichever period of payments that you will do in your payroll. Each one once the payroll is running whether on Microsoft Excel or in a Payroll system, requires to be fulfilled.
You will need to regularly assess and track the implementation of these as they are running for your business. Your wage bill and tax obligations help your to plan more.
5. Train your Payroll Administrator
Your payroll administrator is the guardian of the payroll system and is responsible for ensuring that all goes well and that everything is done as per requirement. Invest in your payroll administrator by ensuring that they attend different courses once in a while or have appropriate subscriptions which allow for them to be as functional as possible.
You need a payroll administrator who has the capacity to once in a while test the system for accuracy and be able to check different areas that need input or verification.