Payroll

#How payroll is organized

Where to find it: the Payroll section in the left sidebar.

Every payroll screen has its own link in the sidebar:

Bank Files and Payment Status also open from buttons on an approved or paid cycle.

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#The monthly payroll run, end to end

Before diving into each screen, here is the whole run in one picture. A cycle moves through four states, and each state unlocks the next action.

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#Payroll Cycles

Where to find it: Payroll → Cycles

A cycle is one payroll run — usually one calendar month. This is the screen you'll live in during a pay run.

#What you can do here

• See every cycle as a card with its net payroll, basic pay, allowances, deductions and tax.
• Filter by status and year.
• Create a new cycle.
• Open a cycle to calculate, approve, finalize, download payslips and generate the bank file.

#How to create a payroll cycle

1. Go to Payroll → Cycles.
2. Click + Create Cycle (top right).
3. Either fill the form or click Quick Fill to auto-populate the current month.
4. Enter a Cycle Name (e.g. "January 2026 Payroll").
5. Set the Start Date and End Date for the pay period.
6. Set the Payment Date (when staff should be paid).
7. Optionally add Notes.
8. Click Create Cycle.

The moment the cycle is created, a draft payslip is generated for every active employee automatically — you don't add people one by one.

Field guide — Create Cycle

#How to run a cycle (calculate → approve → finalize)

1. From Cycles, click the cycle card to open it.
2. In the Actions panel, click the button that matches the current status:
   • Calculate Payroll (when Draft) — computes every payslip and submits the run for approval. You'll be warned that this locks approved timesheets.
   • Approve Payroll (when Calculated) — signs off the run. This can't be undone.
   • Finalize & Pay (when Approved) — marks all payslips as paid.
3. Confirm the prompt each action shows.

Once approved or paid, extra buttons appear: Download PDF (all payslips in one file), Generate Bank File, and — after paying — Payment Status.

#What "Finalize & Pay" posts to the ledger

Finalizing is the point where payroll reaches your books. In one balanced accounting entry, the system:

• Debits Salary & Wages Expense with the total gross pay, and debits Employer Social Insurance with the employer's share.
• Credits Salaries Payable (net pay owed to staff), PAYE / Withholding Payable (income tax withheld), Social Insurance Payable (employee + employer contributions), and Other Deductions Payable (loans and other withholdings).

Paying the salaries out of the bank (via the bank file and Payment Status) settles the Salaries Payable balance separately — the payroll entry accrues what's owed; the bank payment clears it.

#Cycle statuses

#What "Calculate" actually does

For each employee it pulls together:

• Basic pay, prorated by days actually worked in the period (from attendance/leave).
• Overtime — regular, weekend and holiday hours from approved timesheets, each at its own multiplier.
• Allowances (housing, transport, food, other, plus any salary components).
• Deductions, including loan and advance repayments due this cycle, which are added automatically.
• Tax and social insurance, using the rules for the cycle's country.

It then totals the whole cycle and locks the timesheets it used.

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#Payslips

Where to find it: Payroll → Payslips (or click a payslip inside a cycle)

A payslip is one employee's pay for one cycle. It shows the full earnings and deductions breakdown plus year-to-date figures.

#What you can do here

• Open any payslip to see Earnings Breakdown, Deductions Breakdown, Payslip Information and Year-to-Date.
• Send an approved payslip to the employee by email.

#How to send a payslip to an employee

1. Open the payslip (from the cycle's payslips table or Payroll → Payslips).
2. Make sure its status is Approved.
3. Click Send Payslip.
4. Confirm the prompt (it shows the employee name and email address).

#Payslip statuses

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#Salary Components

Where to find it: Payroll → Salary Components

Salary components are the recurring extras on top of an employee's basic pay — an allowance that adds to pay, or a deduction that subtracts from it. They flow into every future cycle automatically.

#What you can do here

• Filter components by type (Allowance / Deduction) and status (Active / Inactive).
• Create a component for a specific employee.
• Edit a component's amount, end date or notes.
• Delete a component.

#How to add a salary component

1. Open Salary Components.
2. Click Create (Create Salary Component).
3. Pick the Employee the component applies to — search by name or employee number.
4. Choose the Type — Allowance or Deduction.
5. Enter a Name (e.g. "Transportation Allowance").
6. Enter the Amount.
7. Set the start/end dates and add optional Notes.
8. Save.

Field guide — Salary Component

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#Deductions

Deductions reach a payslip in three ways, and it helps to know which is which:

You don't enter tax or social insurance by hand — the calculation applies them from your configured rules.

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#Adjustments

Where to find it: Payroll → Adjustments

Adjustments are one-time changes to a single employee's pay — a bonus, a deduction, or a correction. Each one goes on the employee's payslip in a specific payroll cycle that isn't approved yet, and changes that payslip only once it's approved.

#What you can do here

• See every adjustment with its employee, cycle, type, payslip line, amount, and status.
• Filter by Status, Payroll cycle, and Employee.
• Create an adjustment with + New Adjustment.
• Approve or Reject a pending adjustment.

#How to create an adjustment

1. Go to Payroll → Adjustments and click + New Adjustment.
2. Choose the Payroll cycle. Only cycles still in Draft or Calculated are listed — approved and paid cycles are locked.
3. Pick the Employee. You're choosing that employee's payslip in the cycle, so the list shows only the people in it, each with their current net pay.
4. Choose the Type — Bonus, Penalty, Arrears (back pay), Reimbursement, or Correction.
5. Check Effect on pay — Add to pay or Deduct from pay. It switches to Deduct for a Penalty, but you can change it.
6. Enter the Payslip line — the wording the employee sees on their payslip, for example "Q3 performance bonus".
7. Enter the Amount. For an addition, leave Taxable ticked if it should count as taxable income.
8. Enter a Reason. The approver sees it.
9. Click Create Adjustment. It starts as Pending approval.

#How to approve or reject an adjustment

1. Find the adjustment with status Pending approval.
2. Click Approve and confirm. The amount is added to (or deducted from) the payslip, the payslip is recalculated, and the payroll's totals update.
3. Or click Reject, enter a Reason (the requester sees it), and click Reject.

#Adjustment statuses

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#Loans and Salary Advances

Where to find it: Payroll → Loans

Loans and advances are money lent to an employee and repaid through payroll over a number of installments. A salary advance is simply a loan of type Advance. Once a loan is approved, its repayments are pulled into each cycle's deductions automatically.

#What you can do here

• List loans, filtered by Employee (search by name or number), status and type.
• Create a new loan or advance.
• Open a loan to approve it and to record repayments.

#Loan types

#How to create a loan or advance

1. Go to Payroll → Loans.
2. Click to Create New Loan.
3. Search and select the employee by name or number.
4. Choose the Loan Type.
5. Enter the Loan Amount.
6. Enter the Interest Rate (%) (use 0 for interest-free).
7. Enter the Number of Installments.
8. Set the First Installment Date.
9. Optionally add Purpose and Notes. The Loan Summary panel previews the totals.
10. Create the loan. It starts as Pending.

#How to approve a loan and record repayments

1. Open the loan from the list.
2. In the Approval Required panel, click Approve. This generates the repayment schedule and moves the loan to Active.
3. As installments come due, open the loan and mark each repayment as paid (repayments are also confirmed automatically when the matching cycle is finalized).

Field guide — Create Loan

#Loan statuses

#Repayment statuses

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#Salary Changes

Where to find it: Payroll → Salary Changes

A salary change is a request to move an employee to a new basic salary — a raise, a promotion, an adjustment, or a demotion — from a chosen effective date. It goes through approval before it takes effect, so pay can't be changed silently. Once approved, it updates the employee's active contract on the effective date.

#What you can do here

• See every salary change with the employee, type, current and new salary, the change in %, the reason, the effective date, and the status.
• Filter by Status and Employee.
• Request a salary change with + New Salary Change.
• Approve or Reject a pending request.

#How to request a salary change

1. Go to Payroll → Salary Changes and click + New Salary Change.
2. Pick the Employee. Their Current basic salary appears underneath. (An employee needs an active contract before a salary change can be requested.)
3. Choose the Type — Raise, Promotion, Adjustment, or Demotion.
4. Set the Effective date.
5. Enter the New basic salary (monthly). The difference shows as you type, for example "+10.0%".
6. Enter a Reason (the approver sees it) and any Notes.
7. Click Request Salary Change. It starts as Pending approval.

#How to approve or reject

1. Find the request with status Pending approval.
2. Click Approve and confirm. The confirmation tells you when it takes effect:
   • Effective today or earlier — it takes effect now, and the active contract is updated.
   • Effective on a later date — it takes effect on that date, and the active contract is updated automatically that day. You don't need to do anything else.
3. Or click Reject and give a Reason (the requester sees it).

#Salary-change statuses

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#Tax Brackets and Country Rules

Tax is calculated from income tax brackets plus country payroll rules. These are set up once and reused every cycle.

#Tax Brackets

Where to find it: Payroll → Tax Brackets

Brackets are the income bands and the rate charged on each. There's also a built-in Tax Calculator to test an income figure against the current bands.

How to add a tax bracket:

1. Go to Payroll → Tax Brackets and pick the Tax Year at the top.
2. Click to Create Tax Bracket.
3. Enter a Bracket Name (e.g. "First Bracket").
4. Set the Tax Year and Bracket Order (1 for the lowest band, 2 next, and so on).
5. Enter the Min Income and max income for the band.
6. Enter the Tax Rate (%).
7. Choose the Country the bracket applies to from the list. Payroll uses the brackets for the payroll cycle's country.
8. Save.

To test a figure: scroll to the Tax Calculator, enter an income amount, and it shows the tax due under the current brackets.

Field guide — Tax Bracket

#Country Rules

Where to find it: Payroll → Payroll Settings → Country Rules tab

Country rules capture the statutory items that vary by country — tax, social insurance, mandatory allowances or deductions, end-of-service and other compliance rules.

How to add a country rule:

1. Go to Payroll → Payroll Settings and select the Country Rules tab.
2. Click + New Rule and give it a Rule Name (e.g. "Income Tax Deduction").
3. Choose the Country from the list.
4. Choose the Type — Tax, Social Insurance, Mandatory Allowance, Mandatory Deduction, End of Service (gratuity), or Compliance. (The type can't be changed later — create a new rule instead.)
5. For any type except End of Service, choose the Calculation Method — Percentage, Fixed Amount, Progressive / Tiered, or Formula — and enter its settings (a Rate (%) or an Amount).
6. Choose Applies To — All Employees, Nationals Only, or Expatriates Only.
7. Add an optional Description, and click Create Rule.

End-of-service (gratuity) rules have their own labelled fields instead of a calculation method. Gratuity = daily wage × days of pay earned for each year of service, where the daily wage = monthly salary ÷ days per month.

For example, the default bands give 21 days of pay per year for the first 5 years, and 30 days per year after that. In the rules list, an end-of-service rule shows as "Tiered gratuity (n bands)".

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#Social Insurance

Where to find it: Payroll → Payroll Settings → Social Insurance tab

Social insurance (social security) rules define the employee and/or employer contributions taken each cycle. There's a Preview Calculator to check contributions for a sample salary before you rely on the rule.

#How to add a social-insurance rule

1. Go to Payroll → Payroll Settings → Social Insurance tab.
2. Click + New Rule and give it a Rule Name (e.g. "Social Security").
3. Choose the Country from the list.
4. Choose the Contribution Type — Employee & Employer, Employee Only, or Employer Only.
5. Choose the Contribution Base — Basic Salary, Gross Salary, or Total Salary.
6. Enter the Employee Rate (%) and Employer Rate (%).
7. Optionally set a Salary Cap (leave it empty for no cap).
8. Save.

#How to preview a contribution

1. In the Preview Calculator, enter a Monthly Salary.
2. Optionally choose a Country. Leave it empty to use your company's country.
3. Choose the Employee Type — National or Expatriate.
4. Click Calculate. The calculator shows the employee, employer, and total contributions.

Field guide — Social Insurance rule

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#End of Service (Gratuity)

Where to find it: Payroll → End of Service

This calculator works out an employee's end-of-service gratuity (severance) based on their length of service and the gratuity rules configured for their country.

#How to calculate a gratuity

1. Go to Payroll → End of Service.
2. Select the Employee.
3. Optionally enter a termination date and a salary override (leave the salary blank to use the contract salary).
4. Read off the result — service years, monthly salary, gratuity days and the gratuity amount.

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#Bank Files (salary transfer file)

Where to find it: Payroll → Bank Files, or an approved or paid cycle's Generate Bank File button.

A bank file is the transfer file your bank uses to pay everyone in one batch. You generate it from an approved (or paid) cycle, validate it, download it, and upload it to your bank's portal.

#What you can do here

• List all bank files with their format, cycle, currency, total amount, record count and status.
• Filter by status.
• Generate a new bank file.
• Validate, Download, Submit and Confirm a file.

#How to generate a bank file

1. From an approved or paid cycle, click Generate Bank File (or open Bank Files and click + Generate Bank File).
2. Select the Payroll Cycle. Only approved or paid cycles can produce a bank file.
3. Choose a File Format, or leave it on the default for your country.
4. Optionally pick the Bank Account the salaries are paid from. The list shows your company bank accounts from Finance → Bank Accounts (you need Finance access to pick one).
5. Click Generate.

The system builds one transfer line per employee whose net pay is above zero and who has bank details on file. Employees missing bank details are excluded (with the reason "Missing banking information") rather than blocking the file.

#File formats

The default format is chosen from your company's country. Available formats include a generic CSV plus country-specific formats (for example WPS files for Qatar and Saudi Arabia, SEPA XML, and a Jordan bank format). If your country has no specific format, CSV is used.

#How to validate, download and hand the file to your bank

1. In the Bank Files list, click Validate on the file. A message tells you how many records are valid and lists any problems.
2. Once valid, click Download to save the file.
3. Upload that file to your bank's payment portal (this step happens at the bank, outside ApixONN).
4. Back in ApixONN, click Submit to mark the file as sent to the bank.
5. When the bank confirms the batch cleared, click Confirm.

#Bank-file statuses

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#Payments (payment status & reconciliation)

Where to find it: Payroll → Payments (then pick a cycle), or a paid cycle's Payment Status button.

After a cycle is paid and the bank file is out, this screen tracks whether each employee's transfer actually succeeded, and lets you reconcile the run.

#What you can do here

• Choose a payroll cycle and see every payslip's payment status, method, reference and processed date.
• See a progress bar of how many have been paid.
• Bulk Confirm All pending payments at once.
• Per employee: Mark Paid, Mark Failed (with a reason), or Reprocess a failed one.

#How to reconcile a cycle's payments

1. Open Payment Status and choose the cycle.
2. To confirm the whole batch, click Bulk Confirm All.
3. For a single employee, use Mark Paid if their transfer succeeded.
4. If a transfer bounced, click Mark Failed and enter the reason.
5. Once the issue is fixed, click Reprocess on the failed line to try again.

#Payment statuses

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#Payroll Reports

Where to find it: Payroll → Payroll Reports

A library of read-only reports for finance, tax filing and audit. Open any card to run that report.

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#Who does what (roles)

Payroll actions are gated by permission, and permissions map to roles. In practice:

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#Common questions

My bank file says "no records" or "0 records to transfer." Why? A cycle only produces transfer records for payslips that are approved with a positive net pay and whose employee has bank details on file (IBAN or account number). If nobody in the cycle has bank details, the file has nothing to send. Add bank details to the employees, then regenerate.

How do an employee's bank details end up in the bank file? Each transfer line is built from the employee's saved bank name, account number, IBAN and SWIFT code (set on the employee record in HR) together with their net pay for that cycle. Keep those fields current — the transfer file copies them exactly.

Why is one employee missing from the bank file? Most likely they have no bank details, so they were excluded with the reason "Missing banking information," or their net pay was zero. Everyone else still goes through — one missing person doesn't block the file. Add their bank details and regenerate.

Can I undo an approval? No. Approving a cycle cannot be undone. Review the numbers carefully while the cycle is still Calculated. If something is wrong after approval, correct it with an Adjustment on the next run, or contact your Admin.

Why can't I approve my own cycle? Calculating and approving are separate permissions on purpose (separation of duties). The person who runs the calculation often can't also approve it — that's usually the Finance Manager's job.

A payment bounced at the bank. What do I do? On Payment Status, click Mark Failed and record the reason. Fix the underlying issue (usually wrong bank details), then click Reprocess to try that employee again.

Where do recurring monthly deductions come from? From Salary Components of type Deduction. Tax and social insurance are applied automatically from your configured rules; loan repayments are added automatically from active loans. Use an Adjustment only for a one-off change on a single run.

Do I have to add loan repayments to each cycle myself? No. When you calculate a cycle, any loan or advance installment due that month is added to the employee's deductions automatically and confirmed when the cycle is finalized.

Gratuity shows as 0 for a long-serving employee — is that a bug? Usually it means the end-of-service rule for that country isn't configured yet (add a rule of type End of Service (gratuity) under Payroll Settings → Country Rules), or the employee hasn't passed the rule's minimum service period. A zero result means "not configured / not eligible," not a calculation error.