Most organizations employ people under a number of categories, having different components of earnings and deductions. Payroll is governed by statutory regulations like PF, ESI, Professional Tax that are subject to change and which specify a number of mandatory forms that need to be filed by the employer every month. The Payroll module of Sage Pocket enables you to deal with these issues in a simple, automated manner.

Sage Pocket has the following key features:

Employee master management

Sage Pocket enables the creation of a comprehensive employee master sheet containing all employee information pertaining to his education, training, past employment, current earning and deduction components, leave record, increments, transfers etc. Sage Pocket also allows you to upload employee photos, resume and other employee documents.

With Sage Pocket you can customize the fields that appear on the screen, their display name and their text type; set the specific components for earnings and deductions for each category and also specify formulas that need to be used for calculation of monthly salary for each category.

Monthly Payroll Processing

Using Sage Pocket you can configure variable monthly data components like housing allowance, HR allowance etc. while calculating gross salaries. It also allows you to compute PF and ESI as applicable for each employee. You can then set formulas and conditional settings for earnings and statutory requirements and calculate each employee’s monthly earnings automatically. Due to its integration with leave, the necessary leave information such as number of leaves availed and loss of pay etc. are also considered while calculating monthly earnings.

Grade based bonuses can also be computed as per company policy. Loans that have been availed of from the company and related deductions are also included at the time of salary computation. Payslips format and settings can also be configured. Payslips are generated in pdf format which can be mailed to employees.

Promotions and Transfer Management

Sage Pocket allows you to record employee information such as increments or transfers in the employee master details. If the increment is retrospective the arrears can also be calculated for the said period and added to the monthly pay. There is also a provision for recording separations from the company, issuing stop payment on their monthly payroll and calculating and processing their full and final settlement.

Statutory Compliance

Sage Pocket makes available PF form 12a, PF form 5, PF form 10, PF form 3a, PF form 6a, PF summary and extract, Form 2, PF challan, ESI form 6, ESI form 7 and ESI extract. Statutory regulations like PF, ESI and Professional Tax can be set and deducted from salaries, on the basis of earning slabs, state-wise government regulations and other considerations. Sage Pocket also helps you to maintain records of monthly and annual PF, ESI and Professional tax returns.

Report generation

Customized reports with select masters, components and bank templates using the report wizard for data such as depart-wise Salary, cost centre wise salary extract, Bank statement, etc.

Loan Management

Sage Pocket professional edition allows you to manage employee loans without levy of interest. It enables you to track loans and salary advances to employees and maintain a separate loan ledger for each employee. It also helps in loan recovery from the employee by integrating with the payroll computation and payment.

Import & Export from excel

Sage Pocket allows you to flexibly import and export data from pre-existing excel sheets by configuring fields in the excel sheet to the related field in the Sage Pocket software. This is a feature that sets it apart from other payroll applications.

Calculation of Income tax is another routine and pain staking activity that needs to conform to government regulations and norms. Sage Pocket allows you to automate this activity for greater efficiency and accuracy.

Employee Declaration management

It allows you to enter employee declarations of investment under each section and also upload proof documents for these declarations. It also enables you to keep a record of pending declaration documents and generate MIS reports.

Income Tax updation to payroll

Sage Pocket Income Tax module calculates the monthly income tax for each employee either on actuals on the basis of proof or on the basis of declarations and updates the TDS in the payroll module during the computation of monthly salaries.

Form generation

It allows you to create TDS worksheets and Form 16 and submit the same for each employee on a monthly basis. Similarly it enables you to generate quarterly and annual TDS related data for e-filing in Excel sheet

Different organizations follow different leave policies and the leaves allotted against each leave type, such as casual leave, earned leave, sick leave etc., may also vary. Employee leave data needs to be captured on a daily basis for accurate salary computation.

Sage Pocket’s Leave Module helps you to:

Track Leaves

It keeps track of leaves taken by employees and maintains a daily attendance register which is transferred at the end of the month to the payroll module.

Define Leaves

It enables you to create dynamic leave types like casual leave, sick leave etc. It also allows you to define the various types of leaves that each employee is entitled to and set different leave parameters for different categories of employees. The easy reporting feature enables reports to be generated at the touch of a button

Dynamic Definitions

The Sage Pocket Benefit Module allows you to set CTC related reimbursements, define dynamic reimbursement components like fuel, transport, medical etc. and define limits for each component.

Bundle with Pay or singly

It gives you the option to link the reimbursement with the payroll module or else to pay it outside of the salary.

Accumulation and Increments

If the monthly reimbursement entitlement is not availed of entirely then the residual amount accumulates till the end of the financial year when it is taxed and paid to the employee. The reimbursement module is also linked with increment in the payroll module, as well as the full and final settlement.

Template creation

This module enables you to create any number of formats and templates for appointment letter, relieving letter, salary certificate, experience certificate etc. that can be saved and used in the future.

Mapping with Employee master

This module enables data mapping from the Employee master in the payroll module so that relevant data from here can be merged with the required template to produce HR letters.

The email module is a separate module that is linked to Payroll, Income Tax and Benefits. Reports such as pay slip, TDS worksheet, pending proof etc. are generated as pdf documents in these modules and the subsequent email to the employee is generated using the Email module. This module can also be used to send out employee wedding anniversary and birthday greetings through e-mail.

Sage Pocket is integrated with Sage Accpac – ERP Accounting Software. However the payroll activity, which is also a company expense like any other vendor payment, is managed by the payroll application. Since the payroll operation involves multiple stakeholders performing different activities, it can be quite cumbersome and error prone to manually enter the payroll expense into the company General Ledger.

However since Sage Pocket is tightly integrated with Sage Accpac it seamlessly shares information with it. As a result the expenses incurred in Sage Pocket reflect in the General Ledger module of Sage Accpac, thereby preventing duplication of effort and errors. Currently, this is facilitated through the export and import of option available in Sage Pocket and Sage Accpac