Available for the following plans: Employment Plus, Employment Unlimited
Available for the following Payroll plans: Standard, Premium, Core Payroll, Unlimited+Payroll
Your organisation may have many different employee payment rates. Automating the relevant rate calculations is important to reduce the time spent on otherwise labour-intensive administration.
This article shows you how to use the Pay Categories feature. This allows you to create a new pay category and define the unit of accrual, rate loading, and payment classification. You can also edit any pay categories you have created previously and delete any that are no longer required.
Important
Any changes made to your pay categories will need to be synced to your HR classic platform. To learn how to do this, refer to this article.
Getting started
- Click the Business Settings menu.
- Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
- Click the Pay Categories button.
- Click the Add button.
- Enter the pay category name.
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Tick the Is Fixed checkbox if this is a fixed pay category.
Helpful Hint
A fixed pay category is used for payments that do not depend on hours worked, such as allowances. Once set as fixed, it cannot be changed to an hourly, daily, monthly, or annual basis—you will need to create a new pay category if adjustments are required. This ensures consistency and prevents payroll issues.
- Click the Save button.
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Complete the following fields:
- Name
- Units
- Super rate
- Rate loading
Important
The payroll platform will add the rate loading amount on top of the base rate.
- Penalty loading
Important
The payroll classic platform will add the penalty loading amount on top of the base rate and the rate loading.
- External ID
- Payment classification
- Rate precision
Helpful Hint
You can click the Add Linked Category button to link pay categories together. When linking a pay category to a base pay category, you only need to specify the base rate for the employee and it will automatically calculate the rate for the linked pay categories.
Note that you cannot add linked pay categories to ‘Fixed’ pay categories.
- Click the Save button.
Editing data
Warning
Renaming and reusing a pay category for a different purpose than initially required may cause corruption of historical records. If you require a new pay category similar to an existing pay category, we recommend creating a brand new pay category for this purpose.
- Click the Business Settings menu.
- Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
- Click the Pay Rate Template button.
- Click the pay category that needs editing.
- Make the required changes and click the Save button.
Data Management
- Click the Business Settings menu.
- Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
- Click Restore Deleted Items.
- Select Pay category from the drop-down menu.
- Select Restore for the correct pay category.
- Confirm the restoration of the pay category.
Deleting data
Warning
You should not delete a pay category used in a pay run, as this will affect your reporting; instead you should rename the category with the pre-fix DNU (do not use).
- Click the Business Settings menu.
- Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
- Click the Pay Rate Template button.
- Click the Delete button.
- Click the Delete button.
Further information
The EH payroll platform comes with pre-populated pay categories. The platform has marked these categories with a tag called system. They allow you to differentiate between the pay categories you have created, and the ones generated by the EH payroll platform. You cannot rename, delete, or link these categories to another pay category. The pre-populated pay categories are:
- Additional payments (Opening balance)
- Allowances - Other (Opening balance)
- Excluded (Type R) employment termination payment
- Leave loading
- Leave loading (Genuine redundancy)
- Lump sum'D component of employment termination payment
- Non - excluded (Type O) employment termination payment
- Pre 1983 tax-free component of employment termination (Type O)
- Pre 1983 tax-free component of employment termination (Type R)
- Unused leave payment (Genuine redundancy)
Watch the training video
Explore related content
- Manage pay schedules: This feature allows you to create a new pay schedule, specify the pay frequency, and set up the components that need automating and what components still require manual intervention.
- Manage leave categories The Leave Category feature allows you to create a new leave category, determine what type it will fall under, choose a payment setup, and what leave loading rates will apply.