Payroll Updates for Version 5.0

·         Fixed bug in the initialisation of gender and marital status combo boxes in the Personnel form. ·          Fixed rounding error in the computation of overtime, hourly pay and daily pay.

·         Fixed bug in employer’s mandatory NSSF contribution. For employees for whom NSSF was switched off the employer’s NSSF was not computed. Instead the payroll defaulted to the amount for the preceding record, if any.

·         Updated the SFI file format to cater for longer account numbers (up to 20 digits). This is more than enough for the longest Co-op Bank account numbers. ·         Implemented the payroll variance report which shows the difference between all payments and deductions for each employee in any two payrolls. It is laid out in the same way as the muster roll.

·         Added Pay Groups to full menu of Register Standard. This option had been omitted by mistake.

·         Fixed bug in the computation of taxable pay when employer pension is taxable on employee.

·         Fixed bug in absence & leave form. Leave sold was being saved as leave forfeited and vice versa. ·         Made remaining reports exportable to text. ·         Added bank code column to bank transfer report.

·         Many more reports for each pay period can be filtered by pay group, including muster roll, control account and listings of earnings and non-statutory deductions. ·         Job title shown in muster roll. ·         Benefits can be shown in the muster roll report. This is optional. ·         Use can choose whether benefits appear in employee pay sheets. ·         Basic pay report expanded to show pay rate and time worked. ·         Time and attendance data can be imported into the payroll transactions file. (Premier edition only)

Version 5.0 Aren Register Premier Edition

New features have now been added to our payroll software in  version 5.0,Kindly contact u if you are interested in purchasing the software or if currently using it for an upgrade.

•         Many more reports for each pay period can be filtered by pay group, including muster roll, control account and listings of earnings and non-statutory deductions.
•        Job title shown in muster roll.
•       Benefits can be shown in the muster roll report. This is optional.
•        Use can choose whether benefits appear in employee pay sheets.
•       Basic pay report expanded to show pay rate and time worked.

Time and attendance data can be imported into the payroll transactions file. (Premier edition only)

Kenya's minimum wage increases for the second year running

The Kenyan Labour Minister has announced a 12.5% increase in the basic minimum wage for all workers in the country.

This increase is in addition to last year's 10% increase, and comes as the Minister revealed plans to develop a wage and income policy which will provide a framework for all future increases, and will also be linked to the bill of rights in the new constitution.
It is a far cry from the 60-100% increase demanded by the Central Organisation of Trade Unions, who also called for a general increase of 10% to everyone's wages, not just the minimum wage.  The minimum wage was increased from Sh7334 to Sh8250.75.

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PATERNITY LEAVE

Some companies have decided to create a paid paternity leave benefit for their employees, seeing it as a good investment in the workforce. “It helps with retention and to build loyalty to the firm,” says Maryella Gockel, flexibility strategy leader at accounting and advisory firm Ernst & Young.

Ernst recently boosted its paid paternity leave from two weeks to six. “Some men take two weeks when the baby is born, then another four weeks when mom goes back to work,” says Gockel.

Another Big Four firm, KPMG, offers two weeks of paid leave to fathers of new children. “We’ve had an incredible take-up on this benefit,” says Barbara Wankoff, national director of workplace solutions. “Eighty-five percent of eligible dads take paternity leave; the rate was 30 percent in the program’s first year,” which was 2002.

Paid Leave Doesn’t Always Equal a Free Lunch

So how does the work get done when fathers go on leave? When employees are exempt from overtime pay, companies are less likely to hire temporary replacements. “We had four dads in the same office all expecting, and they covered for each other,” Wankoff says.

And many white-collar workers can’t or don’t entirely let go of their professional responsibilities when they’re home rocking the baby to sleep and changing diapers. Whether and how much working fathers continue to labor while on leave “varies per person and according to circumstances,” says Gockel. “If you’re in the middle of a big (business) deal, the transition to leave may take longer.”

Why are Salaries treated like state secrets?

It’s a golden rule in most Kenyan businesses that salaries must be kept secret. Except for a few heretics it is almost universally accepted that mayhem would ensue in the workplace if people knew what their co-workers, their managers or – gasp – the CEO was making.

Making salaries open inside a company instead seems like a wild idea sure, but it makes a lot of sense and
brings advantages for both the workplace and for its people. Read on to see why.

The case against secret salaries

There are three major reasons why secret salaries are silly:

• It frustrates employees because any unfairness (real or perceived) can’t be addressed directly.
• They’re not secret anyway. People talk, you know.
• It perpetuates unfair salaries which is bad for people and for the organization

Let’s look at each of these.

If Kimani over in Accounting is making twice a month than I am and the CEO is making 22 times what I’m making, then hopefully there’s a good reason for it – one that I as an employee am entitled to know and capable of understanding. So why are salaries treated as state secrets?

The main reason may precisely be that they’re not currently fair and therefore making them open seems dangerous to many workplaces. Maybe Kimani is making more than me, not because he does a better job, but because he drives a harder bargain when it comes time to negotiate salaries. Or sucks up to the boss. Or has some pictures from the last christmas office party showing the Director of Finance and an intern in… never mind. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? We can all agree, I think, that it makes much more sense to determine salaries based on people’s value to the company.

I have worked at two different companies where salaries were secret and guess what: They weren’t. Most people knew what most others were getting. In one company I consulted for, the IT department had even found the Excel spreadsheets HR kept the salaries in. They knew what everyone was getting.

And here’s the problem: If Kimani’s salary is (unfairly) higher than mine, and secret, I can’t complain to my manager about it because I can’t admit that I know about it. When a company sets up a situation where people can see the unfairness but can’t address it directly, or even discuss it openly, they’re rigging the system for maximum frustration.

Companies must attempt to pay their people as fairly as possible. You might think a company should try to pay people as little as possible, but companies who subscribe to that philosophy must be prepared to steadily lose all their good employees to competitors willing to pay people what they’re worth. A company must attempt to pay each employee a fair salary, ie. one that matches the employee’s skills, the market average and other employees inside the company. In other words, the company itself has a vested interest in keeping salaries fair, and keeping salaries secret makes that nearly impossible.

The case for open salaries

I believe on a very fundamental level that openness is better than secrecy, in life and in business. I’m not naïve enough to share all information all the time, but my chosen approach is “Let’s make everything open by default and only make those things secret that absolutely need to be”.

KRA Returns And Your Salary

KRA Returns And Your Salary.

Kenya Revenue Authority issues guideline on this years filing tax returns.

You don't need to file your tax returns if your only source of income is your salary and if you are certain that your employer has been remitting the correct taxes to the Revenue authority.

KRA however says those earning an income other than from employment, holding more than one job, or seeking refund of taxes must file their returns.

Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta had recommended that employers file tax returns on behalf of their workers to avoid duplication.