What procedures are used each payroll period to prepare the payroll?

Answer 1

Procedures for Preparation of Payroll each Period A Payroll is a list of employees receiving wages or salaries, with amount due to each. Further to this, other details about each employee are kept in the payroll such as sex, date of birth, state of origin etc. The payroll consist of two main sections: (a) Payroll Payments (b) Payroll Deductions PAYROLL PAYMENTSThese vary according to each organisation. For example, In Nigeria where most civil service salary has been consolidated, it consist mainly of consolidated salary and rent allowance. There could be other allowances such as High risk/hazzard, Shift duty, emolument arrears due employee etc. The total of all these makes the total emolument per each employee. Also, where time sheet are used to compute emolument, this forms the basis of payment. PAYROLL DEDUCTIONS Payroll deductions are those deductions that are made out of employees total emolument. The list also vary depending on organisation, these include tax, Labor union due deduction, thrifts or cooperative deductions, and other statutory deduction like pension fund, health insurance scheme, housing scheme, overpayment deduction, salary/wage proration etc. PROCEDURE: The list of all employees and their entitlement emanates from the HR or Registry of any organisation. This list of employees and their emolument/deductions are now maintained manually or automated. First and second check-run may be produced and checked for correctness. Final copy of payment is now produced. (It will be noted that contrary to the era of manual cash payment of salary or wage, salary are processed to individual bank online. This suggests that an employee bank details are kept in the payroll) The final copy may be produced in triplicate, a copy is passed to the internal audit, one is kept in the treasury or financial information system unit and the other for payment to the banks. This however, depends on the procedure of payment to banks adopted by each organisation. Subsequently, there could be variations ranging from Promotion, demotion, over/underpayments, new staff entrant, withdrawing/retiring staff, annual increments, bonuses, loan advances, deductions commencement and stoppages, etc. These are updated periodically as may be contained in the source document called variation sheet. For effectiveness and efficiency, there is what could be called periodic or monthly 'initialization'. This means that all payments and deductions that have to be stopped are wiped off at the beginning of each period to avoid over/underpayment. If the Dbase or Excel Spreadsheet are used for instance, then there could be fields or columns that are permanent and others temporary. The Permanent field store information that are not likely to change in the short run while the Temporary field will store information that are subject to change periodically. PAYROLL RECONCILIATION STATEMENT Different tabulation or schedule follow the payment of salary. These schedules list amount payable to various deductions and payment to banks that have been made. Unlike the normal reconciliation statement, Balance as per grand total emolument less all payment to banks and deduction schedules should give a nil balance. Again, there could be variation analysis report. This report shows the difference between last period and current period payment. Any increase or decrease must be duely accounted for by the variation sheet used/entered in the payroll for the period. BACK-UPS. An effective back-up systems is essential especially in an automated environment. There should be good backups of each period payroll. EFFECTIVE INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEM It is imperative to stress that there must be an effective internal control system to prevent loop holes for fraudulent act. This properly put in place, will prevent fraud except in a case of syndicate.