Sometimes an employee will get into debt that they are unable to pay. An emolument attachment order (EAO) is a court order that compels you, as the employer, to pay an employee’s debt from their salary.
SimplePay has a built-in item to accommodate this process, whereby you make a deduction from an employee’s salary and pay it over to a specified beneficiary. There are two steps involved in setting this up:
Creating a Beneficiary
- Go to Settings > Beneficiaries.
- Click on Add under Garnishee / Maintenance Order.
- Enter the name and account details of the person that should be paid (the judgement creditor).
- Click Save.
Adding a Garnishee
- Go to Employees and select the relevant employee.
- Click on Add (next to Regular Inputs).
- Click on Garnishee under Deduction.
- Select the Beneficiary and enter the Installment amount.
- Click Save.
- Click on Garnishee under Payslip Inputs.
- Enter the total amount that has to be paid next to Increase balance.
- Click Save.
The system will then automatically include garnishee deductions on the employee’s payslip until the full amount has been settled.
Please note: Currently, third party payments cannot be made directly from our system; however, you can view a list of such payments to be made by going to the Pay Runs section on the left-hand menu and clicking on the PDF icon next to Beneficiaries.
Please note: If an employee has a positive Garnishee item balance and is terminated, the employer must inform the debt collector, and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) if an IT88 is effective for the garnishee order.
Commission
By default, a 5% commission will be deducted from the garnishee payment and shown in the accounting report as income for the employer. To view the accounting report and the treatment of the commission, go to the Pay Runs section on the left-hand menu and click on the PDF icon under Accounting Info.
If commission should not be deducted from payments made to judgement creditors, this can be de-activated as follows:
- Go to the Settings tab.
- Click on Garnishees under Payroll Calculations.
- Tick the box next to Do not deduct commission.
Please note: This is a company-wide setting, so if this box is ticked, then commission will not be deducted from any garnishee payments.