Pay groups
A pay group is a set of employees whose payroll you process in its own run. Use pay groups when different groups of employees are paid, checked or approved separately, for example:
- each plant or office has its own payroll team (Pune plant, Chennai plant)
- each legal entity is processed and paid separately
- workers and staff are run on different days, or by different people
If you process everyone in one run, you don't need pay groups. They are optional.
Find them in Payroll configuration → Pay groups.
How an employee ends up in a pay group
Each employee is in at most one pay group on a given date. The app decides which one in this order:
- Set by hand. A pay group chosen in the employee's payroll settings, or with Assign employees, always wins.
- By rule. Otherwise, the first matching assignment rule places the employee.
- No pay group. If nothing matches, the employee has no pay group.
The Placed column on the Pay groups screen shows which of these applied: Set by hand, By rule or No pay group.
Because placement is worked out from the employee's current details, rules automatically handle new joiners and transfers. When an employee moves location or grade, the next run places them using their new details.
Create a pay group
- Go to Payroll configuration → Pay groups and select Add pay group.
- Enter a Name, for example Pune plant, and an optional Description of who belongs in it.
- Save. The group is Active.
You can't deactivate a pay group while employees are still in it. Move them to another pay group, or change the assignment rules that place them there, first.
Assignment rules
Assignment rules place employees in a pay group automatically. Select Add rule under Assignment rules.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pay group | The pay group matching employees are placed in. It must be active. |
| Priority | Lower numbers are checked first. |
| Location, Employment type, Category, Division, Department, Sub-department, Cost centre, Grade, Designation | The employee details to match. Leave a field as Any to ignore it. |
| Active | Inactive rules are ignored. |
An employee matches a rule only if they match every field you chose. Choose at least one field; a rule with every field set to Any is not allowed.
When several rules match the same employee:
- The rule with the lowest priority number wins.
- On a tie, the rule with more fields set wins.
- If they are still tied, the rule created first wins.
Rules that point to an inactive pay group are ignored.
Example
| Priority | Pay group | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Pune contractors | Location = Pune, Employment type = Contract |
| 20 | Pune plant | Location = Pune |
| 30 | Chennai plant | Location = Chennai |
A contract worker in Pune matches the first two rules. Priority 10 is lower, so they go to Pune contractors. A permanent employee in Pune goes to Pune plant. An employee in Mumbai matches nothing and has no pay group.
Place employees by hand
Use this for exceptions that rules can't express.
- One employee: open the employee's payroll settings and choose the Pay group.
- Several employees: on the Pay groups screen, select Assign employees, search by code or name or filter by location, select the employees, choose Assign to and an Effective from date, then select Assign.
A pay group set by hand takes precedence over the rules. To hand the employee back to the rules, choose Follow assignment rules. This removes the hand-set pay group from the date you pick.
Where pay groups are used
| Where | What happens |
|---|---|
| Run payroll | You choose a Pay group, or Employees with no pay group, when starting a run. Only employees in that group on the last day of the pay period are included. |
| Variable pay | Variable inputs can be filtered by pay group. |
| Payslip templates | A template can be assigned to a pay group, so each group gets its own payslip layout. |
| Structure rules | A structure rule can suggest a pay structure for one pay group. |
Good to know
- If you use pay groups, remember to also run Employees with no pay group, or make sure every employee is placed. The Pay groups screen shows how many employees have no pay group.
- Placement is checked on the last day of the pay period. An employee who transfers mid-month is paid in the group they belong to at the period end.
- Changing a rule changes placement for everyone it matches from the next run. Runs already processed are not changed.