Set country, currency, time zone and formats
Understand what each setting changes and what historical figures it leaves alone.
What this guide helps you do
Country, currency, time zone, date format and number format answer separate questions. HRStuff asks for each one because a country can have several time zones, use several currencies and write dates in more than one way.
Open ADMINISTRATION, then Settings. Country is in Company Profile. Currency, time zone, date format and number format are in Company Settings. Changing the date or number format changes how values appear; it does not convert historical data.
Country
Country records where the company is based. When a company is first created, it is used to choose the starting public-holiday template and the starting residency-status list.
Changing Country later does not replace the company’s existing public holidays. HRStuff warns you to review them manually, which prevents a carefully edited calendar from being overwritten by a new national template.
Currency
Currency sets the code and number of decimal places for new money records. After you save a change, current company-wide and claim-category limits also use the selected currency.
HRStuff stores the date on which the company currency changed. Older money records remain in their original currencies and are not multiplied by an exchange rate. Review salaries, standing payroll, Payroll Builder items, claim limits and draft work before the next run.
Time zone
Time zone sets the company’s local date and time. HRStuff uses it to decide when leave becomes current or past, when scheduled payroll work is due, and which date and time appear in the Activity Log.
Choose the city or region whose clock the company actually follows. Do not choose a nearby country merely because the current offset looks the same: daylight-saving rules can make two clocks diverge later in the year.
Date and number formats
Date format controls how dates are shown, typed and sorted throughout HRStuff, such as day/month/year, month/day/year, year/month/day or a written month. It does not move the underlying date.
Number format chooses American punctuation such as 1,234.56 or European punctuation such as 1.234,56. It changes how amounts and numbers are shown, not the stored value.
Currency and number format are independent. A currency code says what the amount is; number format says how the digits are separated.
Change a location setting safely
Record the current values
Take note of the country, currency, time zone and formats before editing, especially when correcting a live company.
Change only the intended selections
Choose from the supplied lists. HRStuff refuses an unknown country, currency, time zone or format instead of storing it.
Choose Save and read the message
A country change produces a public-holiday warning. A currency change records the date from which the new currency applies. All changes are recorded in the Activity Log.
Spot-check the product
Check a calendar date, an amount, a report and a payroll or claim draft. Correct the source setting if the display or future default is wrong; do not edit historical figures to imitate a conversion.