Category: Phoenix Payroll

Main Form

Upon successful login to Phoenix Payroll, you will be brought directly to the Main Form.  The Main Form serves as Phoenix Payroll’s main graphical user interface (GUI) and was intuitively designed with standard windows components to ensure ease of use for any user who is familiar with the Windows operating system.

A brief description of each of the components you will find on the Main GUI is listed below:

Section Buttons

Section Buttons on the left of the Main Graphical User Interface (GUI) provides easy access to Phoenix Payroll’s key sections. 

Phoenix Payroll has five (5) key sections:

1. Employees – The Employees Section is where employee records are maintained.  This section displays a listing of all employees stored in the system.  To access a particular employee’s record, simply select the employee and right-click and select the “Properties”.  Double-clicking on a particular employee will have the same effect.  See the section entitled “Employees section” for more details.
2. Schedules –  The Employee Schedules Section allows you to maintain employees’ schedules.  The first column lists all employees which are configured as “Attendance based on employee schedules”
3. Tables –  The Government Tables Section displays the actual government deduction tables referenced by the system when processing payroll.  See the section entitled Tables section for more details.
4. Recurring –  The Recurring Section is where users can add additional earnings or deductions.  These additional earnings or deductions may be scheduled or preprogrammed to recur for a specific period of time, thus the term “Recurring” entries.  See the section entitled Recurring Entries for more details.
5. Calendar –  The Calendar Section displays the calendar of holidays and special days as prescribed by law.  Users may add or edit special days or holidays in order to conform to the national and local government holiday declarations. See the section entitled Calendar section for more details.
6. Payroll –  The Payroll Section is a step-by-step wizard that guides the user in processing company payroll.  The Payroll Wizard is made up of four basic steps:  (1) Select the Payroll Cut-off/Pay Period; (2) Input Attendance Records; (3)  Additional Earnings/Deductions; (4) List of employees to be processed; (5) Process/View Employee Pay; and finally (6) Report Generation.  See the section entitled “Payroll Wizard” for more details.

Main Data Panel

The Main Data Panel changes in display, depending on what section is currently selected by the user.

When you are on Employees Tab, you can right click anywhere on the Main Data Panel and a drop-down window will appear displaying the following functions:

1. New – To create new employee records
2. Properties – Opens for viewing or editing the currently highlighted item on the current section you are in.
3. Select All – To select all employees in “Main Data Panel” list for batch update actions.
4. Delete – Allows for a way to delete entire entries and/or related materials on the section you are in. Note: deleting employee records with existing payroll process is prohibited.
5. Find – Allows you search a particular employee by name, email or employee ID.
6. Filter – Filter view of employees using various filter options.
7. Manage Columns – Allows you to insert or remove a column from the display panel.

Note: You can rearrange the columns by dragging the column title.  You may sort the list view by clicking the column header.

Status Bar

The Status Bar at the bottom of the screen shows pertinent information concerning the current status of the system.

Tools Section

Displays menu tabs of available functions and features.

Print

The Print Tool Button provides a drop-down menu of the common reports found in Phoenix Payroll.

Action

The Action Tool Button provides a drop-down menu of other important tools and features that comes with Phoenix Payroll.  The Action Tool Button provides access to the following Tools and Features:

• 13^th Month Pay Wizard – This menu item runs the 13^th Month Pay Preparation Wizard, which will assist you in processing 13^th month payroll for your employees.  See Error! Reference source not found. for additional details.
• Annual Reports Preparation Wizard – This menu item runs the Annual Reports Preparation Wizard, which will assist you in preparing annualized reports, such as BIR 2316, BIR 1604CF, Alphalist Schedules, Certificates of Contributions, etc.  See Using the Annual Reports Preparation Wizard for additional details.
• Employee Attendance Monitoring Wizard – This menu item launches the Employee Attendance Monitoring Wizard, which can assist you in generating reports useful for monitoring employee attendance records in detail.  See Using the Employee  Attendance Monitoring Wizard for additional details.
• Custom Report Builder Wizard – This menu item can create or generate a report which is fully customizable.
• Government Deduction Certification Wizard – This menu item runs the Government Deduction Certification Wizard, which can assist you in preparing certifications of contributions or remittances to all employees or a select group of employees who require them.  See Using the Government Deductions Certification Wizard for additional details.
• Export Remittance Wizard – This menu item is an Excel export utility for bank remittance files (Payroll Bank file; Government remittance files).  See Using the Export Remittance Wizard for additional details.
• Incentives Wizard – This menu item provides access to the Incentives Wizard, which is a useful module for preparing bonuses, incentives, or other additional earnings of your employees.  See Using the Incentives Wizard for additional details.
• Last Pay Wizard – This menu item provides access to the Last Pay Wizard module, which facilitates preparation of employees’ final, separation, or terminal pay and the generation of pertinent reports.  See  Using the Last Pay Wizard for additional details.
• Leaves Conversion Wizard – This menu item provides access to the Leaves Conversion Wizard, which is a useful tool for the preparation of leave credits for conversion to cash equivalent and for inclusion to employees’ payroll.  See Using the Leaves Conversion Wizard for additional details.
• Transfer Employee Data Wizard – This menu item is for multi-company setup that allows you to transfer employee record from one database to another.  See Using the Transfer Employee Data Wizard for additional details.
• Tardies/Absences Notification Utility – This menu item allows you to generate a list of employees based on the no. of tardiness, undertime or absent entries in a specific period. This utility provides option to notify selected employees via email.  See Using the Tardies/Absences Notification Utilityfor additional details.
• Encode Contribution Remittances – The Encode Contribution Remittances feature provides the means for encoding details of contribution remittances to the different government agencies (PhilHealth, Pag-Ibig, BIR).  Information such as payment dates, SBR numbers, etc. can be inputted here, which are then printed on the many different government certification reports found in Phoenix Payroll.
• Salary On-hold List – The feature provides you to create a list of employees whose salaries are on-hold. This means that even if they are included in payroll processing, they will not be included in bank remittance file.  Resigned employees will automatically be included in the Salary On-hold list.
• Export data files – The Export data files feature provides a means for outputting payroll data for a specific pay period onto a Microsoft Excel worksheet.
• Import Employee Records – The Import Employee Records feature provides a means for importing employee 201 file records from CSV files.  See Annex B for the proper CSV format for importing employee 201 file records via this feature.
• Import attendance data – The Import attendance data feature provides a means for importing summarized attendance records from CSV files.  See  Annex C for the proper CSV format for importing attendance records via this feature.
• Export data files – The Export data files feature provides a means for outputting payroll data for a specific pay period onto a Microsoft Excel worksheet.
• Import/Update Employee Records – The Import/Update Employee Records feature provides a means for importing employee 201 file records from CSV files.  See Annex B for the proper CSV format for importing employee 201 file records via this feature.
• Import Payroll Records – The Import Payroll Records feature provides a means for importing the employees’ historical payroll records CSV files.  See Annex F for proper format of importing payroll records via this feature.
• Import Project Cost Items – The Import Project Cost Items provides you to upload project codes with corresponding description.  See Annex F for proper format of importing job codes via this feature.
• Payroll Bank Wizard – The Payroll Bank Wizard option runs the Automated Bank Remittance System, which facilitates the generation of net payroll amounts for transmittal to your bank.  This feature varies little in functionality, depending on the bank code selected.  See Error! Reference source not found. for more details.
• Launch PhilHealth Program – The Launch PhilHealth Program feature tells Phoenix Payroll to automatically output payroll data for a selected pay period onto the PhilHealth remittance program and executes the program for preparation of reports and/or generation of PhilHealth diskette.
• Launch SSS Remittance Program – The Launch SSS Remittance Program feature tells Phoenix Payroll to automatically output payroll data for a selected pay period onto the SSS contribution remittance program and executes the program for preparation of reports and/or generation of SSS contributions diskette.
• Launch SSS Loans Program – The Launch SSS Loans Program feature tells Phoenix Payroll to automatically output payroll data for a selected pay period onto the SSS Loan Payments program and executes the program for preparation of reports and/or generation of SSS Loan Payments diskette.
• Launch SSS File Generator – The Launch SSS File Generator feature tells Phoenix Payroll to automatically output payroll data for a selected pay period onto the SSS contribution remittance program and executes the program for preparation of reports and/or generation of SSS contributions diskette.
• Pag-Ibig Export Utility – The Pag-Ibig Export Utility feature tells Phoenix Payroll to generate the Pab-Ibig CSV files for Pag-Ibig Remittances and Pag-Ibig Loan Payments for a selected pay period.

Preferences

The Preferences tab provides a drop-down menu of system settings including system security settings.

Find

The Find Button is triggered by hitting ctrl + f.  This is used for locating employee records quickly.

Help

The Help Button provides a drop-down menu of help options (i.e., display currently logged-in Users, Running a patch update, Legends, Product Registration, Release Notes)

Information Bar

The Information Bar provides you with general information on what particular section you are in. 

Application Bar

The Application Bar displays the title of the application, which is Phoenix Payroll, together with the license edition you are currently running.  For example, if your system is running the Unlimited Edition, the Application Bar will display Phoenix Payroll – Unlimited Edition.

Installing Phoenix Payroll

Depending on your company’s requirement or preference, Phoenix Payroll may be installed either as a standalone program on a regular or independent workstation (see Stand-Alone Installation instructions below), or on a workstation that belongs to your Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN) (see Client Installation and Network Server Installation below). As a guide to assist you determine what type of installation you require, try to answer the following questions:

• Are your office computers interconnected in LAN or WAN?
• Will more than one person need simultaneous access to any of the payroll features (i.e. employee 201 file records, employee loans/allowances information, employee time and attendance, etc.)?

Note for Windows Vista users:  The program directory (“C:\Program Files\Phoenix\ Payroll”) and the corresponding data directory (“C:\Program Files\Phoenix\Payroll”) must be configured for read-write access for the current user for Phoenix Payroll to function properly under Windows Vista.

Minimum Hardware Requirements

Phoenix Payroll requires that your PC and Operating System meets the following minimum requirements:

Client Workstations:  

• Pentium IV, 1GHz or higher, 1GB RAM, 60GB Hard Disk, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) 
• Windows XP or later

Web Server:

• Intel Core i5, 1.8GHz or higher, 4GB RAM, 60GB Hard Disk, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) 
• Apache 2.4 (IIS or Equivalent), PHP 5.4, MySQL 5.5

Database Server:

• Intel Core i5, 1.8GHz or higher, 4GB RAM, 60GB Hard Disk, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
• Apache 2.4 (IIS or Equivalent), PHP 5.4, MySQL 5.5

(Web Server and Database Server can be installed and operated on a single machine with minimal performance degradation)

Stand-Alone Installation

Installing Phoenix Payroll in Stand-Alone mode means that it will be installed only on one machine within your company.  This means that both database and the program itself will reside on your machine.

To install Phoenix Payroll, follow the following simple steps:

Step 1: Double click on the file Phoenix Installer.exe. Upon executing the installation package, you are brought to the introductory screen:

Step 2: Select Server and Click Next to proceed to the next screen.  You are now ready to begin the installation process.

Step 3: Click Finish to finalize the installation.

Network Server Installation

The following section is recommended for System Administrators only. 

Before you install Phoenix Payroll, make sure that:

• MySQL 5 database server is installed on the server (or workstation you wish to use as a database server).  Install the database server by running Phoenix Installer.exe.
• Client users are able to ping the database server (or workstation to be used as database server).

Client Installation

The following section is recommended for System Administrators only. 

Please be sure that the “Network Server Installation” section above has been completed prior to installing Phoenix Payroll on a Client machine. 

To install Phoenix Payroll as a client machine, simply follow the following steps:

Step 1:  Install the Phoenix Installer.exe and select Client in Select Installation Type Window

Step 2:  Configure the Database Connection Settings:

License Registration

When running Phoenix Payroll for the first time (or when running a fresh installation on a new machine), you will be brought to the Phoenix Payroll Registration page.  This page asks you to supply your Company Name and Serial Number:

Company Name field in this page are case sensitive.  Be sure to input the correct company name here as you will not be able to change it later on.  If you are running a licensed copy, you will have to register the Company Name and Product Key (be sure to copy both Company Name and Product Key exactly as they appear) with iSoftware Support (call +63 2 8742006 or email support@phoenix-payroll.com.com or skype account support@phoenix-payroll.com) in order to get your Serial Number for this machine. 

Introductory Edition users (or companies with 1 to 10 employees) may proceed without the Serial Number by simply clicking the OK button.  Be sure to input your company name, however at the Registration window.

Initial Login

The first time you run Phoenix Payroll, the system will be able to detect if this is your first time running the software.

Initial Configuration

When running Phoenix Payroll for the first time and after creating an administrator password, you will then be brought to the System Settings form wherein you can input pertinent information about your company.   This section may be skipped at this time; however, it is advised that you fill up the basic information needed. You can return to the System Settings form later on by simply clicking Preferences à Settings from the main menu.

Clicking OK without filling up all the required fields will result in a message prompting that all required fields must be completed.  For more detailed explanation about the Settings Form, please see the section entitled System Settings.

Phoenix Payroll is the core of a comprehensive payroll solution for all types of employers.  The system comes complete with its own set of tools which are essential to every company’s HR/Payroll departments.

Take a look at some of Phoenix Payroll’s standard features below:

• Automated computation of government contributions
• Automated deduction and monitoring of loans and advances
• Automated validation of attendance records from employee schedules or predetermined authorized shifts
• Automated Time & Attendance/Access Control System Interface (Elid, Chronolog, Microterm, Miniterm, Superterm, Bio-I, BisBio T2, T4, F4, B-27X, BFlex, iGuard, CardAccess 3000, B3-TFT and Custom Template Text File ready)
• Automated bank remittance system (BPI, MBTC, UCPB, RCBC, BDO, EPCI, Security Bank, Chinatrust, East-West, Citibank, AUB ready)
• Supports Grace periods and Tiered Lates / Undertimes
• Leaves benefit according to positions and years of service, Pre-determined attendance types converted to leave credits.
• Live Update of government deduction tables and Holidays/Special Days
• Phoenix’s backbone is a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), which provides for unlimited recurring earning/deduction types
• Four different payroll schedules (Daily, Weekly, Semi-Monthly and Monthly Wages)
• Preparation of pay slips and a wide selection of payroll reports (includes Custom Report Generator)
• Preparation of government reports:
  • BIR 1601C, 1604-CF, 2316, Alphalist schedules 7.1-7.4
  • PhilHealth ME5, SSS R5, ML-1 and Pag-Ibig M1-1, MPL; 
  • Exporting of SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-Ibig data
  • Summary/Certificates of SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-Ibig, and other contributions, loans, allowances, etc.
• Multi-user; Win32 password encryption with User-defined Multi-Level Group Access
• Intuitively Designed Interface; Very User-Friendly Payroll Wizard
• Written in Borland C++ Builder
• MySQL 5.0 database; Purely SQL-based transactions; Requires no additional Licensing
• Other Noteworthy Reports and Reporting Tools:
  • Employee Attendance Report, Payroll Report and Custom Report
  • Employee Attendance Report, Payroll Report and Custom Report
  • Filter by Name, Department, Employee Type, Position, or User-defined Classification
  • Group by Department or User-defined Classification
  • All reports exportable to CSV, XLS, RTF, PDF and many other file formats

Other noteworthy tools and features that Phoenix has to offer include:

• Other Features & Modules
  • Import from CSV or XLS (Employees, Loans & Allowances, Employee Schedules, Attendance Records, Historical Payroll Information)
  • 13^th Month Pay Wizard
  • Annualization Wizard
  • Automated Bank Remittance System
  • Employee Attendance Monitoring Wizard
  • Government Deductions Certification Wizard
  • Last Pay Wizard
  • Leaves Conversion Wizard
• Optional Modules
  • Phoenix Payroll Web Interface
  • Phoenix Payroll SMS Interface
  • Phoenix Payroll HRIS
  • Phoenix Payroll HRIS Web