The Payroll Process – Start to Finish

Getting Started with Elite Payroll

When you open Elite Payroll for the first time, the Elite Payroll Upgrade Wizard takes you through the process of upgrading your company file and reports from a previous version of Elite Payroll, Quicken Payroll, QuickPayroll or Payroll Premier. You can also open the Upgrade Wizard from the Wizard menu.

When you have completed the information for each step, click Next. If you want to go back to a previous step, click Previous.

1 The Upgrade Wizard is started automatically when you first open Elite Payroll, or when you select Upgrade Wizard from the Wizard menu.

2 Click Next. The Upgrade Wizard will locate any previous versions of Elite Payroll, Quicken Payroll, QuickPayroll or Payroll Premier on your computer. Your old company data file will be left unchanged in the previous version file folder.

3 Click to þ select which files you want to upgrade. Generally, you should upgrade both Reports and Data files.

4 The list of data files will be displayed. Files that will be upgraded will have Yes in the Upgrade column. To select or de-select a file, click on the Upgrade column.

5 When you have completed all of the steps, click Finish. Your company files and reports can now be used in Elite Payroll.

If this is your first time using Elite Payroll, we strongly recommend that when you run Elite Payroll in parallel with your existing system for at least four pay periods so that you can compare results to ensure that your are using Elite Payroll correctly.

Press F1 at any point for additional help on the currently displayed window.

Step 1: Set up your company

If this is your first time using Elite Payroll, you need to create your company file, and enter all of the company information that will be used throughout the payroll process—information such as your company name and address, phone numbers, ACN or ABN number and banking information.

To make the job easy, when you create a new company file, the Company Wizard will take you step-by-step through the process of entering all your company details. Any information that you don’t have handy can easily be added later through Company Details.

Click on Create New Company to start the Company Wizard.

When you have finished entering your company information through the Company Wizard, the Configuration Wizard starts up automatically allowing you to specify which features of Elite Payroll you want to use. As is the case with all of Elite Payroll’s wizards, you can always change the information later, in this case through Preferences.

Step 2: Set up your Awards

An Award can be used to group employees together with common pay rates, and other pay details. Rather than add the details each time you enter an employee, you can create an award. Then, when you add a new employee, you can select the award and all of those details are added to the new employee record.

Awards are optional unless you want to pay employees using the Timesheet method. If you only have a few employees, or your employees don’t have many details in common, you may decide not to set up awards, but in most cases, setting up awards will save you time in the long run. For further details, see Awards List.

When you apply the award to an employee, the following details are transferred from the award to the employee record:

$image\bullet.gif$ Department

$image\bullet.gif$ Pay period

$image\bullet.gif$ Superannuation calculation

$image\bullet.gif$ Leave accrual details

$image\bullet.gif$ Allowances (optional)

$image\bullet.gif$ Additional pay rates (optional)

$image\bullet.gif$ Shift pay rates (required only for timesheet awards)

Once awards have been created, adding new employees or changing pay details for a group of employees becomes quick and easy.

Click on Create New Award to begin adding awards. The Adding a New Award window is displayed. Enter details such as leave details, pay rates, pay periods, departments, and the customer and job. To add additional awards, click on Create New Award again, or add them through Awards from the Lists menu.

Step 3: Set up your employees

As an employer, you must obtain and track a lot of information on each employee—information such as personal details, method of payment, pay rates, award, department, deductions, allowances, superannuation and bank. Elite Payroll keeps track of all this information, so that you only have to enter it once.

The easiest way to enter your employee information is to use the Employee Wizard, which takes you step-by-step through the process of entering employee details.

Click on Create a New Employee to begin adding employee details and start the Employee Wizard.

If you don't have all of the information handy don't worry—not all of the details have to be entered through the Employee Wizard. The Employee Wizard will let you know if you have not entered mandatory information at each step. You can add or change any of the employee details later through the Employees List.

Lists – As you enter employee and award details, you'll be creating new list items such as tax scales, pay rates, deductions, allowances and others. You may find it easier to enter these items through the Lists menu. For further details, refer to the Lists Menu.

Step 4: Prepare your payroll

As soon as you have entered all of your company and employee information, you can start to process your payroll. Payroll preparation includes selecting which employees are to be included in the pay, entering hours worked for employees paid using the Timesheet or Spreadsheet method and making any modifications to the employee's standard pay details. These details are entered on the Pays Summary window.

If all your employees receive the same wage each pay period, with no variations in hours, deductions, allowances, etc, all you need to do at this stage is click on Activities>Process Pays.

You must enter additional information through the Pays Summary window in any of the following situations:

$image\bullet.gif$ You use the Timesheet or Spreadsheet method to enter hours that an employee works;

$image\bullet.gif$ You need to record hours worked that differ from the employee's standard hours;

$image\bullet.gif$ You need to make any kind of adjustments to allowances, deductions, or superannuation that apply to this pay only;

$image\bullet.gif$ An employee is taking annual, sick, or any other type of leave;

$image\bullet.gif$ You need to enter a sundry item or adjustment to the employee's pay; or

$image\bullet.gif$ You are paying a commission or annual bonus.

Step 5: Process your payroll

Once you have prepared your payroll on the Pays Summary window, you are ready to process your payroll. You can select with which employees to pay and enter the pay dates on the Process Pays window.

The processing stage involves:

$image\bullet.gif$ Selecting the pay periods that you want to pay. For example, if you are processing a weekly pay, you may only want to pay the employees that are paid weekly. Alternatively, you may want to pay out both weekly and fortnightly paid employees in this pay.

$image\bullet.gif$ Entering the dates – the pay period date, and the date the employees were or are to be paid. Typically these will be the same as the pay date, but if you pay the employees on a date other than the last day of the pay period, these dates will differ.

$image\bullet.gif$ Selecting a single department or employee if you don't want to process pays for all employees under the pay period you are currently processing.

$image\bullet.gif$ Printing your payroll reports. You can print your payroll reports anytime, but the best time to do it is right after you have processed the pay. Elite Payroll provides you with a list of reports that you should print after processing the payroll. You can print all of the reports, or choose the reports that you want to print. You can also choose what period you want to print at this point.

After the processing is complete, the Employees List is displayed, so that if you choose, you can review individual pays. If you find that you need to make any changes, you can delete individual pays and process them again.

And don't forget to Backup your company files on a regular basis. A good time to do this is immediately after you have processed your payroll. Remember that it only takes one power surge or failure to corrupt your company data, and if your company file becomes corrupt, you may not be able to restore it, and may end up having to re-enter your payroll information.

Step 6: Make your payroll payments

Now that your payroll has been calculated, you need to pay your employees, the ATO, your Workers Compensation insurer, superannuation funds, and possibly other payroll related agencies. Elite Payroll makes these payments as easy as possible, by providing you with three options that you can choose from when you want to make payroll payments:

1 Transfer your payroll data and use Quicken, QuickBooks, MYOB, or Simply Accounting to write the cheques;

2 Make your wage, superannuation and ATO payments directly through Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT); or

3 If you prefer to make payments manually, or you require payroll data to use with accounting software other than Quicken, QuickBooks, MYOB, or Simply Accounting, use Elite Payroll's reports to provide you with all of the information that you need.

For further details, refer to Making your Payroll Payments