I just noticed that there is an employee summary report that shows all the earnings, taxes, deductions, etc. about an employee. It’s an awesome feature.
However, it shows all of the payroll items that are set up under settings.
This creates a funny situation where a payroll item used only for one employee shows up on all reports. The issue here is that on some payslips there are items which are private (for example a court order to pay such and such amount from the salary of the employee), so no one should be able to see that (at least no one from the other employees).
So maybe this could be fixed in two ways: either to be able to set up individual payroll items under settings, i.e. to tie them with a specific employee, or to have the report show only lines where there is a value, so that empty lines don’t show on the report.
What is the harm of including a zero-quantity field on a report like this? An employee might also (in some jurisdictions) earn too little in a period to have income tax deducted. Or there might be a monthly deduction for some benefit that produces a zero entry during some pay periods, but shows the deduction during the one where it was taken from pay.
The proper approach, I believe, is to name the payslip items in ways that do not compromise anyone’s privacy, such as Garnishments. Most employees will be happy (and not surprised) that they have none. Those who have a court-ordered garnishment will know what it is for.
Similarly, you might offer optional benefits paid entirely by employees. For example, employees could voluntarily elect to participate in a company-sponsored (but not company-funded) health club membership to obtain a discount. Those with zero-amount entries for that report field will see each period that they are not being mistakenly charged for something they did not sign up for.
My point is that empty fields on payroll reports are very common. Why make the setup any more complex?
I can see that empty fileds might be useful sometimes but in this case the issue is that I have to state each item like Court order no. 1234/18, so then I can’t have the same number show for everyone.
The question is, where do you have to show that private information? If you can legally just show it on the payslip itself, then you can edit the default Description field for that payslip item on the individual’s payslip. Now, you have legal documentation of what the deduction was for. But only the title of the payslip item shows on the Employee Summary.
To my way of thinking, this is the same as showing XXX under Wages, even if those wages came from Project A, Project B, and Project C. The Employee Summary is a summary. The payslip records the actual transaction and documents the details. And that is preserved, in case it would ever be needed. Personally, I doubt there is anything in your local law that addresses the format of the Manager Employee Summary report.
OK. I see your point. This could be a possible workaround on the payslip. But will make things more vague on the summary.
I’m not saying there is anything in the law. It just seemed as a nice feature to have the summary exclude items zeros as it is possible on other reports.
