Termination Preferences

Termination Preferences is a new feature; please feel free to provide feedback by clicking on the NEW label.

When you terminate the service of an employee on the End Service screen, there may be certain items that you have to take action on.

To assist you in this process, we require you to select how to manage the payroll items that will have an outstanding balance upon termination of the employee's service.

Setting Termination Preferences at Company Level

You can set your preferences regarding the default termination action to take for each payroll item as follows:

1. Go to Settings > Payroll Calculations > Termination Preferences.

2. From the dropdown menu, select the appropriate termination action for each relevant payroll item.

   Selecting termination actions

   You can leave any (or all) of the dropdown menus on the default blank setting. However, when you end the service of an employee who has one of the payroll items – and you haven't set the defaults here yet, you will have to set these preferences for the specific employee. See the section below.

   Applicability of settings

   If you make a selection for a certain system item such as Savings, your selection will apply to custom items that are copies of that system item, too.

3. Click Save.

Termination Actions

When you select the termination action for a payroll item (whether at company level or for an individual employee), you will see some or all of the options below. The consequences of selecting each option are described below.

Auto payout on final payslip

This is an option for Savings, Leave, and Provision for Tax on Annual Bonus.

Savings – On the final regular payslip of the service period, the Pay out on current payslip box will automatically be checked. This means the full amount will be paid out on the regular payslip as a Savings Payout, and the Closing Balance will go down to 0.

Leave – On the final regular payslip of the service period, the Leave Paid Out item will automatically be added. The amount will be calculated by using the default number of Annual leave encashed, which is the leave balance as at the termination date. The result is that the leave balance will go down to 0.

Checking calculation of Leave Paid Out

When you are on the employee's profile, you can click on the hyperlinked Leave Paid Out item on the Payslip summary. A detailed calculation of the amount will then be shown in the Trace.

Provision for Tax on Annual Bonus – On the final regular payslip of the service period, the Pay out Tax Provision on Current Payslip box will automatically be checked. This means the full amount will be paid out on the regular payslip as a Payout of Provision for Tax on Annual Bonus, and the Closing balance will go down to 0.

Applicability to respective Periods for Tax Provision

The above will apply to both the "Up to Date of Payment" and "Remainder of Tax Year" Period for Tax Provision. In the case of "Remainder of Tax Year", the Type of Payout will automatically be set to "Pay out tax provisioned to date".

Auto deduct from final payslip

This is an option for Employer Loan.

Employer Loan – On the final regular payslip of the service period, the Once-off Repayment field will automatically be populated with the outstanding balance amount. The full amount will be deducted from the payslip as a Loan Repayment, and the Closing Balance will go down to 0.

Carry forward to next service period

This is an option for Savings, and Employer Loan.

Savings – The balance will not automatically be paid out on the final regular payslip. If there is an outstanding balance, the item and remaining balance will appear on the first regular payslip in the next service period.

Employer Loan – The balance will not automatically be deducted on the final regular payslip. If there is an outstanding balance, the item and remaining balance will appear on the first regular payslip in the next service period.

Carrying forward savings and loan balances

This option is very useful if you employ seasonal workers. Since those workers are expected to return after a few months, you might want to retain their savings and loan balances.

Manage manually

This is an option for all the relevant payroll items.

Savings – The balance will not automatically be paid out on the final regular payslip. If there is an outstanding balance, the item and remaining balance will appear on the first regular payslip in the next service period.

Employer Loan – The balance will not automatically be deducted on the final regular payslip. If there is an outstanding balance, the item and remaining balance will appear on the first regular payslip in the next service period.

Manage manually vs Carry forward to next service period

For the Savings and Employer Loan items, the "Manage manually" and "Carry forward to next service period" options have basically the same effect. However, the "Manage manually" option also caters for a Savings payout or Employer Loan repayment that an employer may wish to handle outside of payroll. If the balance of these items is not adjusted to account for the off-payroll transactions, it will be carried over automatically.

Leave – If there is an outstanding balance, the remaining balance will NOT be carried forward to the next service period. A warning message will appear reminding you to deal with this manually.

Provision for Tax on Annual Bonus – The item will not automatically be added to the final regular payslip. If there is an outstanding balance, the remaining balance will NOT be carried forward to the next service period, and a warning message will appear. You will not be able to finalise the final payslip until you have manually dealt with this item.

For more information about the payroll items mentioned above, please see the following help pages:

• Savings
• Employer Loans
• Leave Paid Out
• Provision for Tax on Annual Bonus

Setting Termination Preferences for an Individual Employee

As mentioned above, it is not mandatory to set the preferences for all relevant payroll items at the company level.

However, when you end the service of an employee with an outstanding balance on any of those payroll items, you will be unable to save the termination of service unless you have selected a termination action for each of the payroll items.

For each payroll item, there are the following possibilities:

• You have previously set a termination preference at company level, in which case the option you selected at company level will be automatically selected from the dropdown menu. Note that you will still be able to select a different option from the dropdown menu for the particular employee.

• You have not set a termination preference at company level for the particular payroll item. In this case, the blank option will be selected by default, and you have to select the appropriate termination action.