Every coded value, in one place
PeopleNest has a number of fields that offer a short list of codes rather than free text. The codes are terse, a few are not obvious, and one of them has no label at all. This page is every list that matters, with the meaning of each value and when to pick it.
Each list below says which screen it appears on. If you want the whole screen instead of one field, follow the link.
Wage type direction
The field clients call "the d, c and star field". It is on Wage Type and it is the single most consequential dropdown in the system, because it decides what the payroll run does with the money.
| Code | Shown as | What the payroll run does with it |
|---|---|---|
D | Debit | Adds to pay. This is the earning side. Basic salary, house rent, conveyance, a bonus, overtime: all of them are Debit. |
C | Credit | Takes away from pay. This is the only direction that reduces the net amount the man receives. Every deduction is Credit: income tax, a loan installment, the employee's own share of a provident fund, an advance being recovered. |
* | nothing | A company cost. It prints on the payslip and is not deducted from the man. The employer's share of a contribution is this. The company pays it, the payslip shows it so the employee can see the full value of his employment, and his net pay is untouched by it. |
In the system today, the third value's label is genuinely an empty string, so the dropdown shows a blank row below Credit. There is nothing wrong with your installation. Pick the third row. It is worth telling the client's HR officer this before they find it on their own and report it as a bug.
Why the direction matters three times over
Direction does not only decide addition and subtraction. Together with the taxable flag on the same screen, it also decides the tax base. The payroll run builds taxable income from every wage type that is Debit or star, and taxable.
So an employer share wage type set to the star direction with taxable off has three separate consequences, and all three are usually what you want:
- It is not deducted from the employee.
- It is printed on his payslip.
- It is not taxed in his hands.
Change any one of those two fields and you change which of the three happens. This is the commonest configuration mistake in Payroll.
Wage type indicator
Also on Wage Type. The indicator classifies the wage type for grouping and reporting. It does not change the arithmetic; the direction does that.
| Code | Shown as | When to pick it |
|---|---|---|
E | Earning | Anything the man earns: salary, allowances, overtime, bonus. |
B | Benefit | Something of value that is not cash in hand: an employer contribution, a company-paid benefit. |
T | Tax | Income tax and anything statutory of the same nature. |
O | Other | Everything that is none of the above: a loan recovery, a staff store deduction. |
Contribution basis
On Contribution Scheme. This is the figure the contribution is worked out from, before any cap or floor is applied.
| Code | Shown as | What it uses |
|---|---|---|
BASIC | Basic Salary | The basic salary of the period. This is the default behaviour and what most Pakistani provident funds use. |
GROSS | Gross Salary | The gross salary of the period, so allowances are included. |
MINWG | Statutory Minimum Wage | The minimum wage amount typed on the scheme itself, ignoring what the man actually earns. This is how the old age benefit contribution is normally set up, because it is a flat statutory figure for everybody. |
FIXED | Fixed Amount | The fixed basis amount typed on the scheme. Use it when the contribution is worked out from a figure that is neither basic nor gross. |
The arithmetic that follows, including the cap and the floor, is on The maths.
Contribution scheme type
Also on Contribution Scheme.
| Code | Shown as |
|---|---|
EOBI | EOBI - Old Age Benefits |
SESSI | PESSI / SESSI - Social Security |
PF | Provident Fund |
GRAT | Gratuity Fund |
OTHER | Other Contribution |
You cannot save a scheme without it, so it is not optional. But no calculation anywhere in PeopleNest behaves differently because you picked one value rather than another. It is there so that a consultant, an HR officer and an auditor can tell at a glance what a scheme is, and so schemes can be grouped and reported on by kind.
That is the honest answer to the question every client eventually asks. If a client expects picking EOBI to bring statutory rates and rules with it, tell them it does not: every rate, ceiling, floor and rounding choice on an old age benefit scheme is typed by the consultant like any other.
Rounding
On Contribution Scheme and, under a second name, on several other calculating screens.
| Code | Shown as | Effect on 1,247.60 |
|---|---|---|
NONE | No Rounding | 1,247.60, left exactly as calculated |
UP | Round Up | 1,248 |
DOWN | Round Down | 1,247 |
NEAR | Round to Nearest | 1,248 |
Two further rounding lists exist elsewhere in the system with the same four ideas under different codes, U D N G on one and UP DOWN NEAREST NONE on another. Read the label on the screen in front of you rather than assuming the codes match.
Payment basis
On the loan and payout screens in Payroll.
| Code | Shown as | When to pick it |
|---|---|---|
O | Outright | Paid in one go. |
I | Installment | Spread over installments, which is how a staff loan is normally recovered. |
S | Stage | Paid in stages as something is reached. |
a | Additional | An extra payment on top of the agreed schedule. |
AD | Adjustment | A correction to what was paid before. |
Leave encashment rate basis
On Leave Group, beside the encashment divisor.
| Code | Shown as | What one day of leave is worth |
|---|---|---|
BAS | Basic Salary | The man's basic salary for the month, divided by the divisor. |
GRS | Gross Salary | His gross salary for the month, divided by the divisor. |
The encashment divisor is the number that monthly figure is divided by to get one day's money. Set it to 30 and a month is treated as thirty days regardless of the real calendar. Set it to 26 and Sundays are excluded, which is what a client paying a six-day week usually wants. The worked arithmetic is on The maths.
The two fields answer two different questions, and clients run them together. The basis asks which salary figure. The divisor asks how many days that figure covers. Changing either changes the day rate.
Leave year basis
On Leave Group. It decides when a man's entitlement resets.
| Code | Shown as | When the year turns over |
|---|---|---|
CAL | Calendar Year | Every 1 January, the same date for everybody. |
FIS | Fiscal Year | At the start of the company's financial year, the same date for everybody. |
JOI | Joining Date | The label promises each man's own joining anniversary. It does not do that. See the warning below. |
Only the fiscal basis actually moves the start of the leave year. Set a group to Joining Date and its leave year still begins on 1 January, exactly as the calendar basis does. The label is a promise the system does not keep.
So do not offer anniversary based leave years to a client. If a client insists on them, the only honest answer today is a leave group per joining month, which is twelve groups and a transfer every time somebody's anniversary month is wrong. Say that plainly rather than picking Joining Date and hoping.
Scoring basis
On Evaluation Metric. It is the only classifier on the metric, and it decides how a score comes out of a measurement.
| Code | Shown as | How it scores |
|---|---|---|
TGT | Based on Target | The achievement is compared against a target, so the score moves with how close the man came. |
BND | Score Band | The achievement falls into a band, and the band carries the score. |
There is no answer type field, no category field and no objective type field on the metric. If a client has been shown one in an older demonstration, it is not there now.
Performance payout basis
On the payout and increment screens in Performance.
| Code | Shown as | What it means |
|---|---|---|
CYC | Cycle - annual increment | Paid once at the end of the cycle. |
PRD | Period - periodic bonus | Paid at the end of each period inside the cycle. |
BOT | Cycle and Period | Both. |
And the figure the payout is worked out from:
| Code | Shown as |
|---|---|
BASIC | Basic Salary |
GROSS | Gross Salary |
CTC | Cost to Company |
FIXED | Fixed Amount |
Where a value list is not on this page
Most coded fields in PeopleNest are not on this page, because their list is specific to one screen and is documented on that screen's own page: the attendance statuses, the leave categories, the applicant stages, the identification types. Use the search box with the field's label.
If you need to see a list the documentation does not show, the dropdown on the screen itself is always the truth. This page exists for the lists whose meaning is not obvious from the label, which is a much shorter list than the total.