Enter Details in an Employee Profile

Overview

Employee profiles can be viewed and edited from the Users > Employees menu. Once you've selected the applicable employee, the left-side menu will include a list of tabs that contain information relating to that employee's personal, payroll and job details.

At the top of the screen, the employee's name and employee ID will display. The tabs that appear in the profile will depend on the functionality that has been enabled in your portal. You'll be able to view and update the employee's personal and pay information, and edit the individual configurations that apply when the employee is to be included in a pay run.

Please note that the administrator view of an employee profile differs from what an employee can see and edit in their personal portal. New PAYG employees (Australian entities) may potentially see additional onboarding screens on their first login, which mirror the tabs that present in their Profile tab, and are used to collect their mandatory personal details. As an administrator, you won't see these onboarding screens, but will have access to the equivalent tab in their employee profile if you need to review or add information on the employee's behalf. 

Mandatory Fields in a New Employee Profile

When a new employee profile is created in your portal, there are some mandatory fields that must be completed before you can Save & Activate the user.

Required Details > User Details > Primary Email Address	The email address must be correctly formatted and have a valid domain. It is used to send all system email notifications to the employee except for pay advices.
Required Details > Employment Conditions > Pay Type	In Australian portals, you will need to select between PAYG and ABN subcontractor. If the employee is a subcontractor, you will not need to nominate an Engagement type In NZ portals, you will need to select between PAYE and Contractor as the Pay Type,
Required Details > Employment Conditions > Pay Cycle	The Pay Cycle dropdown will include all active pay cycles that have been set up in the portal.
Required Details > Employment Conditions > Engagement
Required Details > Job Details > Workplace	The Workplace dropdown will only populate with pre-configured workplaces if a Customer is selected first. Alternatively, you can manually create a workplace using the free-text option. A workplace that has been manually entered will not be linked to a Customer.
Required Details > Approvers > Primary Approver	The dropdown list will populate with active Staff/Admin users and Approvers.  A secondary approver can be selected but is not mandatory
Additional Details > Payroll Admin > Bill Through (Entity)	The entity that the employees is charged against

The Required Details and Additional Details tabs only appear during the creation of a new employee. Any completed fields will be saved on the employee's profile.

All fields that appear in the Required and Additional Details screens can be viewed in the standard administrator view of the employee profile once it has been activated. 

Personal Details

The Users > Employees > select employee > Personal Details screen details the personal, contact, and emergency contact details for an employee. 

Employees will have access to the same personal details fields in the Profile tab of their portal view that an admin user will see in the Personal Details screen. Both administrators and employees can edit these fields. 

A Date of Birth must be entered in the employee profile if you will be using password protection on pay advice emails. Pay advices will fail to send for employees missing a DOB because it is required for the password.

If you would like to lock the First Name, Middle Name, and Surname fields in an employee's portal view, please contact our Support Team. Other fields cannot be locked from editing. 

Email Addresses

The email address that you enter during the initial creation of the employee profile will appear in the Primary Email Address field. This email address is used for all system emails other than an employee's pay advice.

The Payslip Email Address field will be used when provided to send an employee their pay advices and is included when a Tax File Number Declaration is submitted for the employee. If this field is left blank, both these processes will use the Primary Email Address instead.

Notification Preferences

An employee's Notification Preference settings determine how notifications are received. System notifications can be sent via email or SMS (if SMS is enabled in the portal).

Deselecting the 'Send Notifications via Email' will prevent system emails from being sent to a user. 

Emergency Contact

The Emergency Contact section allows you to record the Contact Details and Postal Address of an employee's emergency contact. This section is optional but can be set as mandatory for all employees. If you would like to have this enabled in your portal, please contact our Support Team. 

Security Settings

The Security Settings tab will allow you to reset the configuration on an employee's two factor authentication (2FA) configuration. 

If an employee is unable to validate their login using their existing 2FA settings (for example, they cannot access their usual 2FA device or validate with their backup email address), clicking Reset user's 2FA configuration will clear their current settings and prompt them to reconfigure how they use 2FA upon their next login.

Employment

The Employment tab summarises the employee's Employment Details (ie the conditions under which they are employed). This includes the following fields:

Pay Type	The category assigned to the employee for tax purposes (eg PAYG, subcontractor)
Permission Group	The options that appear here will depend on the permission groups that you have configured in your portal
Engagement	This radio field will preset with the Engagement type you set when you first create and activate the employee profile
Pay Through entity	The entity that you will pay the employee through. This field can be edited after an employee has already been paid, but before you do this, you should consider the impact as all historical payroll data for the employee will be changed to the new entity.
Pay Cycle	The options that appear here will depend on the pay cycles you have configured in the portal
Full Time Week	You can select from the available Master Timesheets that you have configured for the portal, and the selection you make will be used to determine the employee's standard Full Time Week
Employment Start Date	This date is used in Australian portals to determine when employees should be moved to the highest marginal tax rate if they haven't provided a TFN, and in New Zealand portals for automatic enrolment into KiwiSaver after 28 days.
Employment Last Paid Date	This field is locked down and will automatically update to reflect the date of the last pay run that the employee was paid in.
Termination Date	When an employee is terminating and you enter a date, additional fields will appear in this section for you to complete.

A note on Labour Hire Engagement

In Australian entities, selecting an Engagement type of Labour Hire classifies an employee as a contractor, in accordance with the ATO definition. The employee's earnings will be classed as Personal Services Income (PSI).

If your employee is not a contractor per the ATO's definition, you should not select this option and should use one of the other Engagement options instead. For further clarification on this, please contact the ATO directly, or refer to the ATO website for details on the difference between an employee and a contractor. 

Bank Accounts

The Bank Accounts tab reports the bank account details that will be used when an employee is paid. The Primary Bank Account fields are required in order to pay the employee, as these details (at a minimum) are included in the bank file that is generated for a pay run.

You'll need to ensure that the Account Name, BSB Number, and Account Number are entered accurately, as there is no inbuilt validation of these details in the system.

Please note that the BSB and Account Number fields accept numerical characters only. Please do not include dashes, spaces, or letters in these fields.

Additional Bank Accounts

Your portal may be configured to allow for additional bank accounts to be nominated for employees who are requesting that their pay is split across multiple bank accounts.

If an employee nominates multiple accounts, the percentage or dollar amount of total earnings must be entered into the additional account. The system will then calculate this amount and allocate it to the Additional Bank Account, depositing the remainder into the employee's Primary Bank Account. 

For example:

• if an employee is paid $100 and has nominated their secondary bank account to receive a deposit of $25 (Dollar Amount), then the remaining $75 would be paid into the Primary Bank Account. 
• if an employee is paid $100 and has nominated to receive a Percentage of 20% into their secondary account, the percentage value would be calculated and deposited into the secondary account (ie $20) and the remainder would be paid into the Primary Bank Account (ie $80).

Change the Primary Bank Account

A Primary Bank Account must be set in the Bank Account tab of an employee's profile at all times. If an employee's banking details change, you can overwrite the data in the Primary Bank Account fields with their new account information.

If an employee has previously nominated multiple account, and needs to have the Primary Bank Account removed, you will need to manually transfer the details from their additional bank account into the Primary Bank Account fields in order to overwrite the old account.

Pay Items

The Pay Items tab allows you to set deduction, superannuation, and contribution pay items that have been configured in your portal on the employee, so that they will be applied when the employee is included in a pay run. 

For each item type, you can click the +Add button to add a new pay item, then select the specific item and complete the fields that appear.

When an item is added, the default values that have been set up in Config > Payroll for the item type will pull through. These appear in a light grey font and will be applied by the system if you don't have a custom value to enter.

By default, only Active deduction, superannuation, and contribution items will appear. To view items that have been assigned but are no longer active, click Show Inactive for the relevant item type. 

A note on Superannuation Pay Items

If you set a custom percentage or fixed amount in the Pay Item tab for an employee, any updates that are made to that same pay item in Config > Payroll > Superannuation will not flow through. 

For example, if you have set an employee with a custom value for Superannuation Guarantee Contribution (SGC), then any changes made in Config will not apply, and the custom value will be retained. You will need to update these employees manually to account for any legislative increase to SGC. 

Employees who have been assigned the item using the default rate for the SGC item in Config will automatically update when a new rate is set up

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Tax & Super

The Tax & Super tab is a record of an employee's tax and super information. In this tab, you can view submitted TFN declarations, submit a declaration on behalf of an employee, or request that they complete a new declaration.

The Tax Information section also report on the tax table, tax offsets, and Medicare Levy details (if other requirements are met). 

You'll also be able to view the superannuation fund currently assigned to the employee, update the fund on behalf of the employee or, if no fund has previously been nominated, set this up on their behalf. 

Your employees will have their own Tax & Super tab in their personal portal that allows them to submit TFN declarations and nominate their super fund, so you won't necessarily have to enter this information on behalf of each new employee. It's a business decision to decide how you manage these details.

Leave

The Leave tab outlines an employee's current leave balances, allows you to assign a new leave category to their profile, and lets you set their Leave Approver. This tab will only appear in portals where the Leave module is enabled. 

Manage the Leave Approver

An employee's current Leave Approver will appear at the top of their Leave tab. You can update the approver associated with the employee by selecting the relevant name from the dropdown list, then clicking Save.

Assign and Edit Leave Categories

Leave categories that have been assigned will appear in the Leave Balances table with the Accrual Method, Start Date, Current Balance, and Available Balance. Editing a leave category for an employee allows to you change the leave balance or the Start Date. 

There are some differences in how the Leave tab functions for Australian and New Zealand entities. For information specific to New Zealand, please refer to this Help Centre article.

Employment Eligibility

An employee's Employment Eligibility tab allows you to record their visa details, including their eligibility to work status, and their Country of Passport if relevant.

The options that appear in the Visa Type dropdown will contain items that have been enabled in Config, and will only include items that match the employee's region (ie only Australian visa types can be assigned to Australian employees; only New Zealand visa types can be assigned to New Zealand employees). 

You'll also be able to upload any eligibility documents by clicking Choose File, then selecting the document. Documents will upload immediately, without the need to save the page, however any other fields will require you to click Save before changes will apply. 

YTD Balances

The YTD Balances tab reports the year-to-date balances that you have manually entered, filtered by financial year. Generally, YTD balances are entered if you're transitioning to Astute in the middle of a financial year, and is something that will be covered by our Client Services team during your implementation.

Pay Advices

The Pay Advices tab allows you to manually upload payslips for employees that they will be able to view in their portal. This may include payslips that have been generated prior to using the Astute system, if you have moved across from another system and would like to keep a record of employees' payslip history.

Any documents that are uploaded in this tab will appear in the Profile > Pay Advices  > Uploaded Payslips section of the employee's portal, in addition to the pay advices generated in Astute. 

Compliance

You can manage which compliance profiles are assigned to an employee in the Compliance tab. The top section allows you to tick the checkboxes for compliance profiles that should be applied to the employee, with any documents that are linked to that compliance profile showing for the employee when they access their portal.

You'll also be able to review a history of accepted compliance documents, including a link to the document and a timestamp to indicate when it was accepted.

Payroll Admin

The Payroll Admin tab allows you to configure the Payroll Admin and General Ledger settings for the employee. 

Payroll Ready

In the Payroll Admin section, you can manually check off that the employee is Payroll Ready, which can also be managed in the Payroll Ready Report. Please note that if employees are not marked as Payroll Ready, they will receive regular reminders that there is outstanding information that they need to provide. Once they have been marked as Payroll Ready, these notifications will be disabled. 

Payroll Notes

The Payroll Notes field is a free-text field where you can enter important information about the employee that can be referred to by other admin users with access to the profile. This may include notes about penalty rates and overtime, award rules, or other important information that will impact how the employee is paid. 

General Ledger Settings

You can set the General Ledger Group that is assigned to an employee in the Payroll Admin tab.

The system will refer to the usual GL hierarchy to determine which group to apply, and will respect the selection you make in the Payroll Admin tab as long as there isn't a GL Group selected on the employee's job. Assigning a GL Group in the employee's Payroll Admin tab will override any group that has been set at the Billing Entity, Payroll Entity, or portal default level. 

If there are unique codes that you would like to set for Expense Account or Income Account at an employee level, you can also set these here. If you do enter codes manually into these fields, they will override the equivalent code set in the GL Group. 

You'll also be able to nominate the Invoice Item Type categories that will apply to the employee's Timesheets and Expenses. 

System Access Settings

The System Access page can be referred to if you need to confirm the employee's username. This information can also be found in the Users > Employees report, by filtering for the employee and then checking the Login column.

You may need to confirm the username for an employee if they are continuously receiving an error that their Username/Password is invalid. The main cause of this error is that the username that they are entering is not what has been set up in their profile (for example, they're entering an email address or their name without the correct formatting).