Overview of PAY-PACK

Overview of PAY-PACK

A more detailed description of PAY-PACK is available.

The Lewis PAY-PACK payroll system lets you use your computer to help you pay your staff.

The PAY RUN

PAY-PACK lets you process the pay run in several different stages.

Initially you are prompted for the information that could vary each pay run, such as the number of hours worked at each penalty rate. For salaried staff, the pay is automatically calculated.

PAY-PACK calculates the tax. You can edit the pay details in many ways, for example to enter sick pay or holiday leave or one-off pay adjustments. Pay slips and management reports can be printed. Finally, you file the pay run to update the PAY-PACK data files.

Flexibility is the keynote. All details of the pay can be edited. You can do editing, pay slips and reports any number of times and in any order. You can exit from PAY-PACK and resume processing of the pay run with all the pay information still intact.

The pay run reports include cash breakup and lists of abnormal payments such as leave payments. One report gives the total pay for each department or group of departments. You can control which reports get printed.

PAY-PACK can print cheques for your employees. There is an extra charge for this option.

If you pay direct into employees' bank accounts, the standard version of PAY-PACK will produce a report for each bank of the employees' deposits. If you buy the Bank Direct Entry option, PAY-PACK produces a diskette file containing the data needed by the bank to pay direct into your employees' accounts. This option also lets you do a Direct Credit payment of tax to the ATO.

Employees

Employees that are paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly can be included in the same payroll. The employees can be permanent or casual, and can be paid a fixed annual salary or hourly wages. Most PAY-PACK users will refer to their employees by name but you can also use an employee number.

For payment of overtime penalty rates and shift rates you only have to specify the number of hours worked at each "overtime factor". On the pay slip PAY-PACK prints the overtime details in a way that can be easily understood.

An unlimited number of allowances and deductions can be set up for each employee. These can be taxed or untaxed. PAY-PACK can calculate the amount of each allowance or deduction according to any of the formula types:

Fixed amount per pay;
Amount per unit (of shift, kilometre, etc);
Amount per hour worked;
Percentage of actual pay;
Percentage of regular pay.
Percentage of gross.

When appropriate, details of allowances and deductions are itemised on the Payment Summary.

PAY-PACK does all payroll aspects of superannuation, both employer and employee contributions. A special report can help prove that you have complied with your legal requirements. PAY-PACK can exclude super for employees earning less than $450 per month.

Sales commission and bonuses are treated by PAY-PACK. Tax on these "irregular" payments can be averaged over the course of the year.

For each employee you can store a virtually unlimited amount of free-form description in a notepad.

Leave Management

Holidays are accrued each pay period. Holiday time can be recorded in days or hours. Leave loading bonus is calculated when holidays are taken.

PAY-PACK keeps tab of each employee's entitlement of sick time in either days or hours. At a specified date, usually the anniversary of employment, PAY-PACK reminds you to review the entitlement.

PAY-PACK accrues the number of hours of Rostered Day Off pay due to employees. The RDO pay is specified on the pay slip.

Long Service Leave can be accrued. PAY-PACK can calculate provision estimates for holiday, long service and sick leave.

PAY-PACK offers you many variations for leave recording, to reflect the many different practices in different industries.

When an employee terminates, PAY-PACK can calculate the lump sums for unused annual and long service leave, and the tax thereon. You can enter details of other lump sums and print these on the Payment Summary, or on the ETP Payment Summary.

For juniors, PAY-PACK can remind you when a birthday is about to occur. Other dates can be reminded such as salary review.

Other Activities

PAY-PACK offers extensive on-demand reporting, in addition to the reporting each pay run. All reports can be displayed on the screen or printed. Most of the reports have numerous options. PAY-PACK stores all details of each pay, so that you can produce history reports. You can create your own Ad Hoc Employee reports.

For group tax remittance, PAY-PACK will produce a summary of all pay runs in a month, and the tax due. For any deduction, you can produce a report showing the contribution of all employees in the previous month.

PAY-PACK can print Payment Summaries (the replacement for group certificates) in either of two ways:

Self-print, onto an A4 sheet of plain paper, using a Laser printer. The Windows version of PAY-PACK can do this self-print using Inkjet or Bubblejet printers.
Directly onto the official Tax Office forms.

At the start of the financial year PAY-PACK creates a new set of data files. Use the new files to process current pay runs, and at your leisure you can print Payment Summaries and reports from the old files.

When there is a change of tax rates, you can update the new rates on the screen in a few minutes. Custom-Made Software Pty Ltd sends details to all customers who have paid for the maintenance service .

If there is an interruption to your computer while you are using PAY-PACK, you can immediately check whether the data files are intact so that no data has been lost. This process is called Validation of Data.

If employees work in several different cost centres or on several different jobs, you can purchase either of the costing options. These produce reports on a pay run, monthly or yearly basis of the labour cost of all jobs. All components of the pay, including leave pay, can be allocated to jobs. The contents of the report can be written to a disk file which other programs may access.

Some employers like to record pay run information on a day-by-day basis. If you purchase the day-by-day option, you would enter the hours worked each day, or the start and finish times. PAY-PACK will add these hours to get the weekly or fortnightly hours worked.