In any company it is very important to monitor the employee’s attendance for accurate payroll & discipline.

In older days companies are using manual punch card to record the employee’s attendance. In punch card machine employees can easily do the proxy attendance for others. Especially in the companies where there is more overtime involved it is very critical to record the employees IN & OUT time accurately.

Also at the end of the month the payroll officer need to calculate the daily overtime day by day for all the employees. It is very time consuming and lot of manual errors may happen.

Biometric / Fingerprint Time Recorder:

It is very efficient to have a fingerprint time recorders to track the employees attendance instead of having manual punch card. The biggest advantage of using the fingerprint system is the employees can’t do the buddy punching (making proxy attendance for other employees). 

Usually in most of the fingerprint time recorders, Up to 3 fingers per employee can be registered. While doing attendance the employee can use any one of the finger to do clocking. The purpose of registering 3 fingerprints is, if any one finger has problem due to injured / cut / dirty then the employee can use alternative finger. So it is better to have a fingerprint time recorder with higher capacity. Usually the time recorder will have the capacity of 1500 / 3000 / 5000 fingerprint templates. 

It takes about one second to verify the employee finger, once verified the employee id, Date & time will be recorded into the device internal memory. Also it is good to have a device which can store more records. In general most of the fingerprint time recorder can store 20,000 / 30,000 / 50,000 records. Once the records reach the limit the new record will automatically overwrite the very first record. Those records can be downloaded to the Time Attendance Software via built-in Network card or via Thumb Drive. 

Time Attendance Software:

Information from fingerprint time recorder can be transferred to the Time Attendance Software which will calculate the useful information like Lateness, Overtime, allowances, etc…  

Usually the time attendance software will have the option to create multiple shift patterns like morning shift, afternoon shift, night shift, etc… 

Good software should come with nicely designed useful reports like Daily attendance report, Individual attendance report, consolidated reports which consolidates the late comers, Early Leavers, Absents & missed out punching, Lateness summary report and Working hour’s summary report. 

The working hour summary report usually will have the monthly lateness, early leaving & overtime worked by the employees. This summary report is very much good enough to calculate the employees overtime pay together with the salary.

Conclusion:

It is good to have a biometric time recorder for employee attendance monitoring which enables fast & efficient payroll calculation. 

Resources:

The writer is a Director of a software company Info-tech Systems Integrators Pte Ltd provides integrated one database solution for Payroll, Leave, HR, time attendance software’s and Biometric time recorder for employee attendance. Please visit his company web sites below for more details.

http://www.info-tech.com.sg/biometric-biofinger1.htm

http://www.info-tech.com.sg/fingerprint-bioaccess1.htm

 http://www.fingerprint.com.sg

Payroll software is the one which computes the employee salaries every month. The employee may be paid by hourly rate / daily rate/ monthly fixed salary. The employee may have some additions and deductions in every month like overtime pay, daily allowances, advance payment, medical claim, special allowance, etc… And the employee unpaid leave, lateness & early leaving pay needs to be deducted from his salary. 

Every month the payroll software should able to generate the pay slip for the employees. And payroll software must have useful management reports like, Monthly Salary Summary Report, Overtime Payment Report, Taxation Report, Yearly Summary Report, and Monthly Reconciliation Report. 

And different countries have their own computation for taxation & provident funds. So the payroll system should comply with the local government regulation for salary calculation.

Payroll for Singapore:

Payroll in Singapore country should be complying with Singapore government regulations as below. 

CPF – CENTRAL PROVIDENT FUND:

An employee who is Singaporean / permanent resident of Singapore must contribute CPF to the CPF board. The CPF amount comprises of employer & employee contribution. There are different percentage of calculation based on the employee salary and age. The information can be found in CPF BOARD website. 

Ethnic Funds: (SINDA / CDAC / MBMF / ECF):

Based on the employee ethnic group there is a need of ethnic fund needs to be contributed by the employee. This contribution amount will be deducted from the employee salary every month and this fund directly goes to the relevant ethnic group welfare. The ethnic funds are SINDA (for Indians) CDAC (for Chinese), MBMF (for Malays), ECF (for Eurasians). The contribution amount will vary depends on the employee salary. The information can be found at the relevant ethnic group web sites.

SDL- (SKILL DEVELOPMENT LEVY):

This levy must be paid for all the employees working in Singapore. Currently the SDL is 0.25% for salary up to S$4500 (as of 2010). This amount must be paid by the employer to the SDL board. The SDL board uses this fund to provide subsidy for employees training programs / upgrade skills, etc… Usually there are many training courses will be run by SDL approved vendors. A company can able to get up to 90% subsidy from SDL board while the company sends their employees for training. 

FWL- (FOREIGN WORKERS LEVY):

This levy must be paid by employer for the foreign workers working in their company based on the worker skill level. Currently (as of 2010) LOW / MEDIUM /HIGH levels of levy need to be paid by the employer. The levy amount can be found from the FWL website. 

Income Tax:

Based on the employee salary, income taxes are needed to be paid by the employee. Currently Singapore income tax board makes mandatory condition that the employer must submit their employee’s yearly income details to the income tax board directly which is called auto inclusion. There are various forms like IR8A, IR21, IR8S, APPENDIX-A needs to be submitted based on the requirement. 

National Service:

It is mandatory that the all eligible Singaporean & permanent resident must go for the national service on request. During the national service period the employee salary will be paid by the government (MINDEF – Ministry of Defense) and the relevant CPF must be paid by the employer. 

Leaves – (Annual Leave, Medical Leave, Child care Leave, Maternity Leave):

There are certain types of leaves mandatorily provided as employee’s benefit. Like annual leave (7 days), Medical Leave (14 days), Child care Leave (6 days for Singaporean & 2 days for non Singaporean), Maternity leave (60 days) 

Payroll Software for Singapore:

Payroll software suitable for Singapore should have all the above features built-in. In addition to that a good payroll software for Singapore should have the below additional features. 

Remainders:

There are many foreigners working in Singapore. Those foreigners having work permit pass / employment pass / professional pass. Usually this passes is valid for certain years.  So the payroll software should show the remainders when it is due.

Online Bank GIRO:

For employee salaries Writing cheques / paying cash are very outdated. The payroll software should able to generate the interface file to the banks with their employees’ salary details. Then the bank can directly credit their salaries to their account. 

Multi Company:

There are companies having subsidiaries as well. So the payroll software should be capable to create multiple companies records in the system and the reports must be separated accordingly. 

Concurrent Multi User Access & User Rights:

Payroll is always in-charged by the HR department and there may be more than one HR user accessing the system. And company bosses also want to access the system directly without always depend on the HR executive reports. So the payroll software should have concurrent multi accessing capabilities with different access rights. 

Backup & Restore

Audit Trial – To monitor the changes done by other users

Reports like 1. Payroll Summary report, 2. Year to Date Summary Report, 3. Overtime Summary Report, 4. Reconciliation / Salary comparison Report, 5. Allowance / Deduction Report, 6. Custom Report Writer to generate the reports needed by the user.

 Conclusion:

Singapore Government insists to have all kind of employee related transaction like income tax, provident fund, ethnic fund contribution, Skill Development Levy, Foreign Workers Levy, etc… via online rather than paper / manual. Also as per government law a company should keep all those payroll records at least for 7 years for audit checking.

It is very difficult to do all those kind of calculation & transaction by manual and keep all the papers. It becomes mandatory than important to have the payroll software in any company for efficient & accurate payroll processing.

Resources:

The writer is a Director of a software company Info-tech Systems Integrators Pte Ltd provides integrated one database solution for Payroll, Leave, HR, time attendance software’s and Biometric time recorder for employee attendance. Please visit his company web sites below for more details.

http://www.info-tech.com.sg/payroll.htm

http://www.payroll-singapore.com.sg

http://www.fingerprint.com.sg/payroll.html

As a first step you should approach a real estate agent in order to discuss about all the details concerning a sales to be conducted in future. You cannot approach any real estate agent just like that. You should make enough enquiries to make sure the person or the real estate body is efficient who genuinely work for the customers needs without asking any extra charges. There will be many real estate agencies in your town and you can seek help from internet in order list a few. White rock real estate is one among them. You will have to do certain repair works or small modifications in your house before listing for sale. Sometimes there will be a need to paint the walls if its looking dirty in order to make your house attractive. Once you are done with these repair works, you can ask your real estate agency to do a home value analysis. Most of the agencies will do this task free of cost without giving any charge. This is mainly done in order to confirm the facilities available in your house and it will be clearly listed in the agencies database. It is sure that all the buyers will be enquiring about the facilities present in the house rather than giving importance to price. When you are completely prepared with all the alternatives you can tell the real estate agency to list your house for sale. If the market is hot, there will be more buyers for your home. You may not be lucky if you are placing the house for sale during cold times. There will be many houses listed for sales at the same time and as the time goes the price value will fall steeply. You may not be able to get the expected rate for your house. You should discuss accordingly with real estate person before listing your home for sales in their database.

When it comes to buying a white rock real estate, it can be a rewarding life experience, a well as great investment.However, we need to require some education and research, when we are trying to purchase surrey homes for sale and for more information please visit us.

Hemp comes from the Cannabis plant. This material is identified to have far more separate and diverse uses than any other material in the world. It might be utilised to create paper, clothing, food, cosmetics, fabric, textiles, rope, plastic alternatives, constructing supplies, and also the list goes on. The American constitution was written on hemp paper. Those prior to us have been fully conscious of just how beneficial hemp genuinely is. George Washington, one particular of the founding fathers from the United States, grew fields of Hashish plants himself. At one point in particular states of your US, it was illegal not to grow hemp. That is how priceless this useful resource was when considered.

As time handed on and we started to use other resources much more like oil, we started to forget about hemp. Laws have been passed that allowed people to legally not must develop hemp. Then when individuals began understanding how useful it was as soon as again around 1930, it was taken out with the light by a greedy man. This man’s name was William Randolph Hearst, and he owned the vast majority with the newspapers within the United States. When he heard of this new phenomenon of hemp, he was not happy. This was simply because he had all of his newspaper mills already set up as tree paper. Since he didn’t wish to cope with the costs of establishing a new set of hemp mills, he began publishing false stories all throughout his newspapers across the countries associating hemp with marijuana as if it were an evil drug. His propaganda nevertheless works on a lot of people these days. As a result of his propaganda prohibition on cannabis began in 1937 and from that level forward far more and more propaganda was used to curb the minds of citizens.

Today, hemp is linked with marijuana and isn’t allowed to be grown basically due to the fact it comes from the identical plant as cannabis. The reality is cannabis could be the female cannabis plant whilst hemp could be the male hashish plant, and they aren’t connected at all. Hemp doesn’t include any THC, the chemical that gets folks high. Nevertheless as a result of conservative politicians these days, many people nonetheless ignore the worth of hemp as a pure source that could potentially solve our power and useful resource crisis.

Hemp Information and Facts

The Best Spinner by Article Marketing Robot

When I was in operations management many years ago, I remember attending a meeting in our Detroit, Michigan facilities with the General Manager and his Department Managers.  They were having a problem with lost business and their customer attitude survey scores.  Customer attitude scores were based upon research conducted by an independent customer service consulting company.  Their findings showed that on average, customers said service was not satisfactory.  A frequent reason for their dissatisfaction was the number of new people servicing them who were not familiar with their needs.  They were telling us that we had an employee turnover problem… which we did.  They were telling us that we were not hiring very good people.  The management team was determined to turn the situation around.

There are usually a lot of reasons for high employee turnover, but experience has taught me that poor hiring and staffing decisions are always on the list. I was there to help them figure out what was wrong and what we should do about it.

A good place to start was a complete review of their hiring system. We looked at their hiring process.  Everything seemed in order. The process was well designed and they had even added a few extra steps.  On paper, their process should have been effective.  We reviewed their hiring standards, which seemed to accurately reflect job requirements.  I tested their knowledge and skills of interviewing.  Everything seemed fine.  We knew that we had a serious problem somewhere, but we were getting nowhere finding the answers. We were tired and frustrated…it was time for a coffee break.  We didn’t know that a revelation was about to unfold.

The General Manager and I were talking as we walked to the break room when young, excited Service Manager stepped in and interrupted.

“Jim”, he nearly shouted, stopping the General Manager by his arm.  “I just interviewed a woman that I think is perfect for open service job.  She is outstanding!”

The line of us stopped and stared at the young man.

“Look”, he said sheepishly, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but is there any chance of you breaking away to talk to her?  She’s fantastic … I think she’s perfect for the position!”

There was a short period of silence … we had experienced an awaking, a revelation.

This was a management team committed to hiring well.  In very clear terms, they   had defined job requirements and hiring standards.  They had a disciplined, step-by-step process for hiring, and they were excellent interviewers.  They were doing everything right, until we all experienced what was wrong.  “She’s fantastic … perfect for the job!” It was as we say, an “A-Ha” moment.

Do you think Jim would have been totally objective in the interview?  There’s no question that Jim’s appraisal of the candidate would have been affected by the comments from his subordinate.  And what if the tables were turned?  What if the General Manager made those comments asking a subordinate to interview a favored candidate?  I think your can predict the outcome of that interview.

That young manager did us a great favor – he contributed more to solving the problem than he will ever know.  No matter how well you have defined hiring standards, designed hiring processes, and refined interviewing skills; nothing matters if you lose objectivity.  Without maintaining objectivity, everything is for nothing. Your judgment is biased.  This manager taught us a great lesson and established a new hiring principle that we’ve taught thousands of managers over the years and we continue to teach it to this day.  It’s one of the most important fundamentals of any hiring system.  That young man created the … Summit Principle.

Simply stated, The Summit Principle tells us that no one should talk about a job candidate until the interviewing process is completed.  You may have the personal authority to reject candidates passing through the hiring process.  That’s fine.  But “bottom line,” when you meet a candidate for the first time, you should only know what is written on his résumé and that he was not rejected by someone earlier in the process.

If you’re serious about improving your hiring process, this principle will immediately improve your hiring results.  You should have a rule in your hiring system — “No one discusses the candidate until the interviews are finished or the candidate rejected.” Talking about candidates and passing along biases and opinions corrupt processes more often than you think.  Guard against it.

There should be a summit meeting embedded in your hiring process following all of the interviews. This meeting is the first time that interviewers should talk about   candidates who successfully made it through the process.  The summit meeting gives interviewers the opportunity to share information and impressions.  The summit meeting increases objectivity of hiring decisions.  You eliminate biases and opinions passed along from one interviewer to another during the interview process.

I believe the summit meeting should be facilitated by the hiring manager, regardless of rank in the company.  A second alternative is an impartial manager or someone from the Human Resources Department staff.  The purpose of the meeting is to allow interviewers time to provide the hiring manager with facts, information, and impressions about the candidate’s qualifications, fit with the job, and fit with the company.

Failure to enforce the summit principle will always bias interviews and corrupt your hiring system.  The moral of the story:  put a summit meeting in your process.  No one should talk about candidates until the interview process is over.

William E. Miller    Performance Leadership, LLC

wmiller@performanceleadershipllc.com