The first five things to set up
Set up the essential company, employee, leave, claims and payroll settings before inviting employees.
What this guide helps you do
There are some things that every new company must set up, such as default leave types and claim categories. This guide explains the five areas to check before employees start using HRStuff.
You do not need to complete every optional field immediately. Start with the settings that affect calculations, approvals and access. Then use one employee to test the complete process.
Before you start
Have the following information ready before you begin. You can change most settings later, but testing is easier when the basic information is correct from the start.
The company’s legal name, address and identifying number, such as its registration number.
The company’s country, currency, time zone, date format and number format.
The normal working week, leave-year start and payroll-year start.
Each employee’s manager, and whether leave and claims should be approved by that manager or by HR.
Leave entitlements, claim categories, receipt policy and the payroll rules your company actually uses.
Set up five essential areas
Check the company settings
Go to ADMINISTRATION → Settings. Open Company Profile to check the company’s legal details and country. Then open Company Settings to check currency, time zone, display formats, working week, leave year, payroll year and the normal salary payment date.
The time zone determines the current date in HRStuff. The working week and public holidays determine which days are deducted from an employee’s leave balance. The currency determines the symbol and number of decimal places used for new amounts. Changing it does not convert amounts already entered.
Choose the company’s country before adding its suggested public holidays.
Check every public-holiday date against an official source, especially holidays that move each year.
Changing the working week or a public holiday can change the number of leave days in upcoming requests that have not started. Past leave and leave in closed years stay as recorded. Read the confirmation message after saving.
Add people and reporting lines
Open ADMINISTRATION, then Employees. Create each person’s employee record before giving them a login. An employee record can exist without login access. Record their start date, job details, reporting manager, residency status and salary information that payroll rules may need.
The reporting manager is the person an employee reports to. If manager approval is enabled, this manager receives the employee’s leave and claim requests. You can create the employee record now and provide login access later.
Choose the login role that gives the person only the access needed for their job.
Managers do not receive access to salary, bank details, personal details, employment documents or payslips.
Enter the employee’s real work email only when you are ready to create their login and send access instructions.
Set the leave policy
Open ADMINISTRATION, Leave, then Leave Settings. Review each leave type. For each leave type, check its yearly entitlement and whether HRStuff tracks the balance, allows half days, carries unused leave forward, allows payout, requires approval and lets employees select it.
Choose whether requests go to the employee’s reporting manager or straight to HR. Automatic approval books eligible leave immediately, so use it only where your policy genuinely needs no review.
Do not track a balance for leave types that do not have a fixed allowance, such as unpaid leave.
You can give an employee a different leave allowance on their employee record. This replaces the company’s default allowance for that person. Clear the personal allowance to use the company default again.
Closed leave years keep the entitlement that applied at the time instead of being rewritten by a later policy change.
Set the claims policy
Open ADMINISTRATION, Claims, then Claims Settings. Add, rename or remove the expense categories employees can select. Then decide which claims need receipts, whether the company records sales tax and who approves each claim.
A category limit does not prevent an employee from submitting a claim. If a claim exceeds the limit, it can still be submitted, but HR administrators are notified. Pending, approved and paid claims count toward a limit; rejected and cancelled claims do not.
Use automatic approval only for categories or amounts that do not need a person to check them.
Approved and Paid mean different things. Approved means the claim has been accepted. Mark it as Paid only after the reimbursement has been transferred.
Build and test payroll
Open ADMINISTRATION, Payroll, then Payroll Settings. Add the payments, employee deductions and employer costs your company needs. For each item, set who it applies to, how HRStuff calculates it and when the rule starts or ends. HRStuff does not add legally required tax or contribution rates automatically.
Create a draft payslip for one employee and one month. Check the employee’s gross pay, deductions, employer costs and net pay. Open the calculation explanation to see how HRStuff produced each amount. If something is wrong, correct the employee’s information or payroll rule, then recalculate the draft.
A draft is private. Publishing is what makes it visible and notifies the employee.
Publishing a payslip only makes it available to the employee. It does not pay the employee, send money to a bank or submit information to a government authority.
Do not publish a test payslip unless the employee should be able to see it.
Run one complete test
Before inviting everyone, use one employee to test the complete process. Give that person the intended manager and login role, then test a leave request, a claim and a draft payslip.
Sign in with each test role and check what it can see. The employee should see only their own information. The manager should see only the permitted information for their team. The HR administrator should see the company-wide records and tasks that require attention.
A leave request deducts the correct number of working days and is sent to the correct approver.
A claim follows the receipt and approval rules you set.
The draft payslip contains the expected salary, payments, deductions and employer costs. Confirm that it remains hidden from the employee until it is published.
Notifications and calendars show the correct events without revealing private salary information or confidential reasons.