Employee Policy Profile
A policy profile is one named bundle of rules: which attendance policy applies, which leave group grants his leave, which pay cycle pays him, which overtime policy and rates he earns, and which contribution schemes he pays into. You build a handful of these, one per kind of employee, and then every employee is attached to one of them on his organization assignment.
What it is for
A factory does not have one set of rules. A ring frame operator is on a monthly cycle with a six day week, earns overtime at a factory rate and contributes to social security. A manager is on the same monthly cycle, works five days, earns no overtime at all and is above the social security wage ceiling. A daily wage hand is on a weekly cycle. Writing those differences onto every employee record one by one is where HR data goes wrong.
This screen gathers the differences into named profiles. One line on the organization assignment then carries all of them. Change a rule on the profile and every employee attached to it is covered from the next calculation, with no employee records touched.
A profile has three parts. The basic part names the attendance policy, the leave group and the calendar, which is what attendance and leave read, and says whether these people work to a shift roster at all. The payroll part names the pay cycle, the pay rate, the tax zone, the tax fiscal calendar and the tax pay rate, which is what the payroll run reads. The overtime part names the overtime policy and, line by line, the pay rate that applies to each overtime category, so night overtime and holiday overtime can pay differently inside one profile.
The fourth part is the contribution scheme list. The grid names the schemes that apply to the people on this profile, which is how a consultant says it out loud: these people are in EOBI and the provident fund.
There are three things a profile can say about contributions, and it is worth knowing all three before you open the grid.
| What you want to say | How you say it |
|---|---|
| Every scheme the company runs applies to these people | Leave the grid empty. This is the ordinary case and the commonest one |
| Only these named schemes apply | Add one line per scheme. Anything not listed does not apply |
| No scheme at all applies | Tick No Contribution Scheme Applies and leave the grid empty |
An empty grid cannot mean all of them and none of them at the same time, which is why the tick exists. Saying nothing and saying none are different sentences.
Leaving the grid empty for the ordinary case is deliberate, and it is the safe direction. When the client adds a scheme to the company next year it reaches the people whose profiles name nothing, and it reaches nobody on a profile that lists its schemes until somebody puts it there. Nothing is swept into a deduction on the next payroll run without a person deciding it.
Nothing on the profile is mandatory except the code and, in practice, the name. That is deliberate, because a profile for office staff with no overtime genuinely has nothing in the overtime part. But a profile with no attendance policy gives its people no attendance rules, and a profile with no leave group gives them no leave, so an empty profile is almost never what you want.
Every field, in plain words
Basic
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee Policy | The code of the profile | POL-WORKER-FSD | Required. It must be unique |
| Name | What to call it so an HR officer recognises it | Faisalabad Factory Worker | Name it after the kind of person, not the department |
| Attendance Policy | The grace, late, half day, absence and short hours rules | AP-FACTORY | Pick it from Attendance Policy |
| Leave Group | The set of leave types and the quantities granted | LG-WORKER | Pick it from Leave Group. Entitlement is granted from it when the employee is created and again when he is confirmed |
| Calendar | The working week and the public holidays that apply | CAL-FSD-2026 | Pick it from Calendar. A factory on six days and an office on five need different calendars and therefore different profiles |
| Is Roster Applied | Tick it where these people are due on a shift rather than on the same hours every day | Ticked, for a profile whose people rotate | Ticked, creating one of these people on Employee Basic Information asks which roster he is on and writes his line on it. Unticked, nobody is asked anything |
About Is Roster Applied. It sits next to Calendar on purpose, because the calendar is the thing a roster gets confused with. The calendar says which days are working days and that is true of everybody on the profile. A roster says which shift a particular man is due on, on a particular date, which is a fact about him and not about the profile - so the tick does not name a roster, it only says that these people are on one and somebody has to be asked which.
It is on the profile rather than on a company-wide setting because a roster is not a company-wide fact either: the mill rotates and the head office does not, and those are two profiles already.
Payroll
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payroll Cycle | How often he is paid and over which period | PC-MONTHLY | Pick it from Payroll Cycle |
| Pay Rate | The rate basis his ordinary pay is worked out on | PR-MONTHLY | Pick it from Pay Rate |
| Income Tax Zone | The tax regime he falls under | PK-SALARIED | Pick it from the list |
| Tax Fiscal Calendar | The tax year the tax is accumulated over | FY-2025-26 | Pakistani tax year runs July to June, so this is not the same as the payroll year in every client |
| Tax Pay Rate | The rate basis the tax calculation uses, where it differs from the ordinary pay rate | PR-MONTHLY | Leave it the same as Pay Rate unless the client taxes on a different basis |
Overtime
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overtime Policy | The rules that decide what counts as overtime and what multiplier it earns | OP-FACTORY | Pick it from Overtime Policy Setup. Leave it empty for staff who do not earn overtime |
Overtime pay rates
One line per overtime category, naming the rate that category is paid at for people on this profile.
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Line | Line number | Fills itself | |
| Overtime Category | The kind of overtime | OT-NORMAL Normal Overtime | Pick it from Over Time Category |
| Overtime Category Name | Fills itself from the category. Leave it | ||
| Pay Rate | The rate that category is paid at | PR-OT-SINGLE | Pick it from Pay Rate |
Add a line per category the client actually pays: normal overtime, rest day overtime and public holiday overtime usually pay at different rates, and this grid is where that is set per kind of employee.
Contribution
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Contribution Scheme Applies | Tick it where these people pay into nothing at all | Ticked, for a profile genuinely outside every scheme | Leave the grid empty when you tick it. The screen refuses to save with both, because they say opposite things |
Contribution schemes
One line per scheme the people on this profile pay into.
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Line | Line number | Fills itself | |
| Contribution Scheme | A scheme these people are in | CS-EOBI | Required on each line. Pick it from Contribution Scheme. The same scheme cannot be listed twice |
| Contribution Scheme Name | Fills itself from the scheme. Leave it | ||
| Remarks | Anything worth recording about the arrangement | Statutory, both shares | Worth filling, an auditor will ask |
Three statements, in the order consultants ask them:
- An empty grid means every active contribution scheme applies to everyone on this profile. That is the normal case, and it is what a client with one provident fund everybody is in never has to type.
- A grid with lines on it means only those schemes apply. Anything not listed is not deducted and not contributed for anybody on this profile.
- A profile that pays into nothing is the tick, not an empty grid. The grid being empty already means the opposite.
How to configure it
- Before you start, have the attendance policies, leave groups, calendars, payroll cycles, pay rates, overtime policies and contribution schemes in place. This screen only points at them.
- Decide how many profiles the client actually needs. Count the distinct combinations of working week, pay cycle, overtime treatment and statutory contribution treatment. A five hundred person mill usually needs three or four: factory worker, factory staff, office staff, and management.
- Create the first profile. Enter the code and a name an HR officer will recognise, for example
POL-WORKER-FSDand Faisalabad Factory Worker. - On Basic, pick the Attendance Policy, the Leave Group and the Calendar.
- On the payroll part, pick the Payroll Cycle, the Pay Rate, the Income Tax Zone, the Tax Fiscal Calendar and the Tax Pay Rate.
- On Overtime, pick the Overtime Policy if these people earn overtime. Then add one line per overtime category with the pay rate it is paid at. Leave the whole part empty for staff who do not earn overtime.
- Leave the contribution grid empty where everything the company runs applies to these people, which is the usual case. Where only some schemes apply, add a line per scheme that does. Where none applies, tick No Contribution Scheme Applies and leave the grid empty.
- Save, then repeat for the other profiles.
- Attach each employee to a profile on his Employee Organization Assignment. The assignment refuses to save without one.
Scenarios
Our workers pay into EOBI and social security, our managers pay into neither
Two profiles. On the worker profile leave the contribution grid empty, so everything the company runs applies to them. On the manager profile tick No Contribution Scheme Applies and leave the grid empty. Nothing else about the two profiles has to differ for contributions to come out right.
If the managers are outside social security but still in the provident fund, that is not the tick. Leave the tick off and add one line for the provident fund, because a grid with lines on it means only what is listed.
The mill rotates and the head office does not
Two profiles, which the client almost certainly has already. Tick Is Roster Applied on the mill profile and leave it unticked on the office one. A mill joiner is then asked which crew he is on while he is being created, and an office joiner is asked nothing.
What the tick does not do is name the roster. There is no such thing as the company's roster: a mill running three crews against one pattern has three, staggered by their cycle start dates, and which of them a man belongs on is the one thing only the person creating him knows. That is the question being asked.
The factory runs six days and the office runs five
Two profiles with two different calendars, and usually two different attendance policies as well, because the office has a longer grace and no shift allowance. The pay cycle can stay the same on both.
| Factory Worker | Office Staff | |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar | Six day week | Five day week |
| Attendance Policy | Factory, ten minute grace | Office, thirty minute grace |
| Overtime Policy | Factory overtime | Empty |
| Overtime rate lines | Normal, rest day, holiday | None |
| Is Roster Applied | Ticked where the people rotate | Unticked |
| Contribution | Grid empty, everything applies | No Contribution Scheme Applies ticked |
Night shift overtime should pay more than day overtime
That is what the overtime rate lines are for. Add one line for normal overtime at the single rate and another for night or rest day overtime at the higher rate, each pointing at its own pay rate. The overtime policy decides which category a given hour falls into, and this grid decides what that category is worth to people on this profile.
We hired a man whose contract says no provident fund
Do not touch the shared profile, because whatever you do there applies to everybody on it. Either make a profile for the handful of people on that contract type - listing the schemes they are in and leaving the provident fund off - or handle it on his own payroll record. The contribution list is a property of the profile, never of one person.
HR changed the leave group on a profile in March and now everybody has different balances
Changing the leave group changes what future entitlement grants read. It does not retrospectively rework balances already granted. If a correction to an already granted balance is wanted, do it on Employee Leave Entitlement, not here.
What it is connected to
- Employee Organization Assignment names the profile, and that is the only place an employee is attached to one. The assignment will not save without a profile.
- Attendance Policy and Calendar drive what the attendance process makes of a person's punches.
- Leave Group drives the entitlement granted to the person when he is created and when he is confirmed, in Employee Leave Entitlement.
- Payroll Cycle, Pay Rate and the tax settings drive Payroll.
- Overtime Policy Setup and Over Time Category drive Process Overtime and Employee Overtime.
- Shift Roster holds the rosters themselves. Is Roster Applied only decides whether a new employee is asked to pick one; the roster, its pattern and its dates all live there.
- Contribution Scheme is where the schemes themselves are defined, with their rates, their bases and their ceilings. This screen only says which of them reaches the people on the profile.
- Changing a profile affects every employee attached to it from the next calculation onwards. It is not dated, so it is not the place to record a change that should only apply from a date. Make a new profile and move the people to it on a dated assignment instead.
If something looks wrong
- "A contribution is still being deducted for our managers" - their profile's grid is empty, and an empty grid means every scheme applies. Either tick No Contribution Scheme Applies, or list the schemes they really are in. Or the managers are attached to a different profile from the one you edited: check the profile named on their organization assignment.
- "No contribution is being deducted for anybody" - the profile everyone is attached to has No Contribution Scheme Applies ticked, or its grid lists schemes that are not the ones you expected. An empty grid with the tick off is what makes everything apply.
- "A scheme the client has just set up is not being deducted for half the staff" - those people are on a profile that lists its schemes, and the new one is not on the list. That is deliberate: a new scheme never sweeps itself into a payroll run. Add it to the profiles it belongs on.
- "It will not save, it says a Contribution Scheme is on this policy more than once" - the same scheme has two lines. Delete one.
- "It will not save, it says the Contribution Schemes grid has to be empty" - No Contribution Scheme Applies is ticked and there are lines in the grid. Either untick it, or clear the grid.
- "It will not save, it says Contribution Scheme cannot be empty" - a line was added and no scheme picked on it. Pick one or delete the line.
- "Nobody is being asked for a roster" - Is Roster Applied is not ticked on the profile the joiners are actually attached to. Check the profile named on their organization assignment, not the one you edited.
- "It asked for a roster and the list was empty, so it did not ask" - every roster in the company has a Date To in the past. Raise the current one on Shift Roster.
- "A new joiner got no leave" - the profile on his assignment has no Leave Group, so there was nothing to grant.
- "Overtime hours are calculated but paid at zero" - there is no overtime rate line for the category those hours fell into. The policy classified them, but nothing said what the category is worth.
- "Attendance shows everyone absent on a Sunday the factory worked" - the Calendar on the profile marks Sunday as a rest day. Factory and office need different calendars and therefore different profiles.
- "It will not save, it says the code already exists" - the profile code must be unique. Open the existing one rather than making a second.