Author Archives: Pragya Gupta

Apple Announces the Release of iOS 9 for September 2015!

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The World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) last week saw a host of announcements by Apple, including the introduction of Apple Pay in UK, a new trackpad feature for the iPad and (what is now becoming) the customary announcement on iOS upgrades. iOS 9 is scheduled to roll out in September, with the public beta starting out in July.

What does this mean for PayrollHero?Singapore Payroll

There are currently 3 PayrollHero iOS apps: TeamClock, #MyClock and Xray Insights. The launch of iOS 9 means that we will stop supporting iOS 7. PayrollHero supports the most recent version of Apple’s iOS and the one prior. (which is the same support Apple provides for their iOS)

The new versions of the iOS PayrollHero apps will have:

  • Full compatibility with iOS 9.
  • Performance tweaks – faster and smoother operation.
  • Improvements on the face detection system.
  • Enhanced security and data privacy.
  • Multiple code optimizations and bug fixes.

The announced list of compatible devices with iOS 9 is:

  • iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2
  • iPad mini, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3
  • iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus
  • iPod touch (fifth generation)
  • Newer devices than these above should be supported, please contact us at support first to confirm.

If you are using a 5th generation iPod, an iPad 2 or iPhone 4s or any newer models and you haven’t already upgraded to at least iOS 8, make sure you get on that as soon as possible. As of September, we will not be able to fix any bugs that surface on the iOS 7.1.2 or lower.

 

Domain Driven Design Workshop by Mr. Kiro Harada

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[Update] Here is the full recap from the event.

Next week is an eventful one for PayrollHero. All of our team is flying in from Whistler and Manila to learn more about Domain Driven Design (DDD). The workshop will be conducted by Agile expert Mr Kiro Harada.

What is DDD, you say? Well, let me have a go at it. DDD is an approach to software development where domain experts collaborate in order to place their primary focus on the core domain. Often, keeping up a unified, single model becomes progressively harder, leading to subtle differences between different groups of people. In simple terms: we’re trying to get everyone on the team to speak the same language.

If that sounds cryptic, that’s because I haven’t been to the workshop yet! (not for lack of trying to scour through Wikipedia pages to figure this out, I promise)

The workshop will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday (16th and 17th June). Mr. Harada will be flying in from Japan. After helping us Improving Scrum with Kaizen back in April, we decided to go a step further and do a 2 day workshop on DDD.

Stay tuned with our blog because we will be giving you a post-event breakdown soon!

The Complete Guide to Selecting Your Internet Provider in Singapore

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As a restaurant owner or retail owner, you have a number of things to consider; one of them is making sure your internet connection is reliable and fast so that your operations run smoothly. While we have talked about the need for you to upgrade your technology, this post is some practical advice on what internet plans are available to you.

We picked out fibre broadband plans, catered towards multiple stores across the island. Aside from bandwidth, contract terms and installation costs, we have also put together information on discounts for multiple store locations, how their customer service team performed and waiting time for installation. Do note, all options available have the symmetric download and upload speeds. Based on where you are in the island, speeds are different.

We looked at the top 3 internet service providers in Singapore: Singtel, Starhub an M1. We tried contacting other service providers in order to give you a broad set of options, but their customer service lines were facing high volume. So here we are:

Fibre Broadband Bandwidth: Winner – Singtel

Singtel: 100-500 Mbps

Starhub: Upto 250Mbps

M1: 10-200 Mbps

Singtel wins hands down in the bandwidth that they provide. Their BizWifi Enterprise package is catered towards businesses (they mentioned cafes) that want to provide internet services to their customers while also using it for operations.

Price Plans: Winner – Tie between Starhub and M1

Singtel: $250 – 552/month

Starhub: $209/month

M1: $200/month

Starhub and M1 rank equally in terms of competitive pricing.

Installation costs: Winner – Starhub

Singtel: $535 for the 2 year contract, free for 3 year contract

Starhub: Free

M1: $300 for a 2 year contract, but the fee is waived if they install for multiple stores

Starhub clearly wins. Singtel installation costs are pretty heavy if you take the 2 year contract.

Contract Limit: Winner – It’s a tie

Singtel: 2 or 3 year contract

Starhub: 2 year contract

M1: 2 year contract

Waiting Time: Winner – It’s a tie

Singtel: 4-8 weeks based on survey of the establishment

Starhub: 6-8 weeks

M1: 6-8 weeks

This is pretty standard. All three companies survey your establishment to figure out how the connection should be installed.

Customer Service: Winner – M1

Singtel: Good. Very high volume on their corporate line. But they were helpful and polite when they finally received the call.

Starhub: Very good!

M1: Awesome. They suggested emailing a proposal immediately.

MyReupublic: Well, we tried calling them but we were on hold for around 20 minutes

Discount for multiple stores: Winner – M1

Singtel: No

Starhub: No

M1: Yes!

Phone Numbers:

Singtel: 1688

Starhub: 1606

M1: 1622

While the competition is close, it depends on what you are looking for. In terms of bandwidth, Singtel wins. But for everything else, especially pricing, M1 stands out as a winner. For your reference, here are the websites for Singtel, Starhub and M1

We will update this list as we hear from other operators. Like we said, we tried to contact MyRepublic but they were unavailable. Do let us know if you have suggestions!

Rankings on Ease of Doing Business in Southeast Asia

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Ease of Doing Business in SE AsiaSoutheast Asia is a hot market for business. There is untapped potential, both in terms of consumer demand and labour markets. With all eyes on Asia, it is important to focus your capital and team where you generate the greatest return on your investment. Which means getting into the details of every country’s laws: ease of setting up a business, access to credit, construction permits, registering property, taxation laws. This can be daunting, not to mention time consuming. Which is why we have come up with a few metrics that will give you a head-start on some high level knowledge on a few chosen countries in SEA.

The countries we have chosen are: Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The metrics we have chosen are from the ease of doing business rankings published by the World Bank Group. They are: overall ease of doing business, starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, paying taxes, enforcing contracts, USD equivalent of a worker in retail/restaurants. For a thorough understanding on how the World Bank Group creates these rankings, you can read the explanation here.The data for rankings and number of procedures has been taken from World Bank Group’s Doing Business publication.

Ease of doing business
Singapore 1
Malaysia 18
Thailand 26
Vietnam 78
The Philippines 95
Indonesia 114

Singapore ranks first on the ease of doing business. This is not surprising. Since its independence, Singapore has positioned itself as a leader in doing business in SEA. By reducing bureaucratic procedures and taking the entire process online, Singapore has lived up to its top position for many years now.

Starting a Business
Singapore 6
Malaysia 13
Thailand 75
Vietnam 125
Indonesia 155
The Philippines 161

This metric is considered by measuring the number of days it takes to start a business. According to the World Bank Group, it takes 3 days to start a business in Singapore while in the Philippines, it takes 34, which gives you a good idea as to why the rankings look like the above. In the Philippines, much of the time is wasted moving from one department to another. It takes 16 independent procedures to start a business.

Dealing with Construction Permits
Singapore 2
Thailand 6
Vietnam 22
Malaysia 28
The Philippines 124
Indonesia 153

Indonesia ranks the lowest. It takes 17 procedures to obtain a construction permit in Indonesia while Singapore requires you to complete 10 procedures.

Getting Electricity
Singapore 11
Thailand 12
The Philippines 16
Malaysia 27
Indonesia 78
Vietnam 135

Vietnam has an average of 10 procedures taking 34 days while Singapore has 4 taking 31 days.

Registering Property
Singapore 24
Thailand 28
Vietnam 33
Malaysia 75
The Philippines 108
Indonesia 117

On average, Indonesia has 5 procedures, taking 25 days, while Singapore has 4 procedures, taking 4.5 days.

Getting Credit
Singapore 17
Thailand 89
Vietnam 36
Malaysia 23
The Philippines 104
Indonesia 71
Paying Taxes
Singapore 5
Malaysia 32
Thailand 62
The Philippines 127
Indonesia 160
Vietnam 173

This statistic is by far the most extreme. The total number of tax payments in Singapore is 5 per year which takes about 82 hours in the year whereas Vietnam has 32 payments per year which takes about 872 hours.

To understand more about taxation laws on some countries in the APAC region, you can read about it here for Singapore and for the Philippines.

Enforcing Contracts
Singapore 1
Thailand 25
Malaysia 29
Vietnam 47
The Philippines 124
Indonesia 172

In Singapore there are 21 procedures for enforcing contracts which takes about 150 days whereas Indonesia has 40 procedures, taking about 451 days.

Corruption Perception Index
Singapore 84
Malaysia 52
Thailand 38
The Philippines 38
Indonesia 34
Vietnam 31

The corruption perception index is a measure of how people within the country view the public sector. The index is relative to every other country on the list. It ranges from 0 (weakest perception) to 100 (cleanest perception).

Considering the countries we have chosen, it is pretty obvious why Singapore stands out. It is one of the most mature markets in SEA. The other countries are still in a developing stage. Singapore stands more as a reference point on these lists. Many of the SEA nations are held back by the large number of bureaucratic procedures and rampant corruption.

In addition to these factors, we should also consider the cost of doing business, in terms of labour, land and capital costs. There is a trade-off between cost and efficiency which we have avoided considering in order to bring out the basic metric of ease of doing business in SEA.

Hope this was helpful and relevant for your business! Watch out for more posts on rankings in SEA.

If you are in need of a payroll solution for your business, check out our Southeast Asia offerings here – PayrollHero.Asia

– – Related Posts – –

Doing Business in the Philippines

Payroll in APAC: Singapore

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Employer contributions in Singapore are collected by the Central Provident Fund (CPF). The deductions and levies contribute towards savings for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents (PRs) for retirement, insurance and building their homes. There are also certain levies that go towards different ethnic funds. We will go through all these deductions and levies.

CPF

CPF contributions are done by the employee and employer. The contributions arsingapore cpfe restricted to Singaporeans and PRs only. There are 4 major accounts that CPF contributions go into: Ordinary Account (for retirement, housing finance, investment, education), Special Account (for old age and special contingencies), Medisave Account (for hospital bills) and Retirement Account (this account is opened once the employee turns 55). Check out these links to find out contributions rates and deadlines.

Foreign Workers Levy

The levy is imposed on employers who employ foreign workers with Work Permits or S Passes. Levies do not need to be paid for employees with Employment Passes. The levy is calculated based on the ratio of Singaporeans to foreign employees that your business employs. Here is a link on how the foreign levy is calculated. The levy is paid on the first of every month. More details on the FWL here.

Skills Development Levy

The SDL goes to the Skills Development Fund, which provides grants for training programmes and workforce upgrading programmes. The levy must be paid for Singpaorean, PR and foreign workers. The rates are linked here.

Ethnic Fund

There are 4 Self Help Group (SGH) Funds that collect levies based on the ethnicity of your employees. The four funds are:

  1. Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) Fund, administered byCDAC
  2. Eurasian Community Fund (ECF), administered by the Eurasian Association(EA)
  3. Mosque Building and Mendaki Fund (MBMF), administered by Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS)
  4. Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA) Fund, administered by SINDA

The levy is paid out of employees’ salaries. Employees may choose to opt out of the levy by signing the relevant forms. The levy must be paid every month. Here are the rates.

If you are looking for a Singapore cloud based payroll platform – look no further. PayrollHero’s end to end solution includes time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS and Singapore payroll. Plus, amazing business intelligence. Let us know if you want a one on one demo.

For more information on CPF contributions, make sure to read this link. If you want to know more about employer contribution in the Philippine, check out Payroll in APAC: the Philippines.. Hope this helps!

Disclaimer: As always, consult your lawyer or accountant for advice! We are here to help, but your specific situation should be reviewed by a professional with complete knowledge of your situation.

Payroll in APAC: The Philippines

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The Payroll in APAC blog posts are (as you might have guessed), a series of blog posts on tax and employer contribution laws in APAC nations. This gives payroll and human resource administrators a high level understanding on what you should know in these countries. Our first post is on the Philippines.

Creditable and Final Withholding Taxes:

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is the Philippine equivalent of the IRS in the United States. Companies are required to withhold taxes from employees who are subject to income tax. They are then required to remit these taxes to the BIR.

There are two broad classifications of withholding taxes: Creditable withholding taxes and final withholding taxes. Creditable withholding taxes apply for certain income payments and are creditable against income tax. On the other hand, Final Withholding Taxes are not creditable against withholding taxes. Unlike the former, final withholding taxes are prescribed on royalties and interest incomes.

Social Security Service (SSS)

The SSS is the social security net for Filipinos. It covers a list of contingencies: from disabilities to maternity. All private companies are required to register with the SSS and deduct contributions for their employees. Around 70% of the contribution comes from the employer and 30% from the employee.

Deductions are made from the employee’s salary and remitted to the SSS. Payments are done monthly or quarterly, based on the type of employee. The summary on benefits and schedule on payments is posted here.

PhilHealth

The health insurance institution in the Philippines is called PhilHealth. All private and government institutions are required to register and deduct contributions from their employees’ salaries. PhilHealth covers a number of benefits. The share of the contribution is split between the employer and the employee. The payment dates and contribution schedule are available here.

Pag-IBIG – Home Development Mutual Fund

The final contribution that employers need to be aware of is Pag-IBIG. This institution provides housing finance for Filipinos. Contributions by the employer are equal to 2% of the employee’s salary. The dates for payment are in this link.

These are the 4 major tax and employer contribution laws that Payroll and Human Resource administrators should be aware of. At PayrollHero, we deduct the required contributions and generate payroll for our clients. Here are examples of how we compute BIR taxes, SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG contributions.

For more information on BIR, SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG with respect to what forms need to be filled and filing deadlines, make sure to click on the links!

Disclaimer: As always, consult your lawyer or accountant for advice! We are here to help, but your specific situation should be reviewed by a professional with complete knowledge of your situation.

If you are in need of a payroll provider in the Philippines that can provide an end to end solution, then let us know. PayrollHero’s Philippine cloud based payroll platform incorporates, time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS, business intelligence and Philippine payroll in one, easy to use solution.
Cloud Payroll Software for Philippines

Part III: Employer Contributions in the Philippines: Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG)

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This is the final iteration of the ‘Employer Contributions in the Philippines’ set of blog posts. So far, we have given you an overview of the BIR, the SSS and PhilHealth. We will now talk about the Home Development Mutual Fund – popularly known as Pag-IBIG Fund. The fund is the biggest source of housing finance in the Philippines. Along with the SSS and PhilHealth, employers also need to register to Pag-IBIG.

Requirements: Before you register your business with Pag-IBIG, you will need the following:

  1. Employer’s Data Form (make sure you have a TIN and your SSS employer number to fill the form)
  2. Specimen Signature Form (SSF [HQP-PFF-003])
  3. SSS certification
  4. Proof of business existence (Business permit/ Mayor permit)

You need to fill these forms and take them to the nearest Pag-IBIG service center. After the documents are processed, you will receive the Pag-IBIG Employer ID.

The following is the contribution that is required by the employer and employee

The Pag-IBIG registration process can be done online as well. After deductions, payment to the fund can be done online or through one of the accredited banks.

Employee Share Employer Share
PHP 1,500.00 and below 1% 2%
Over PHP 1,500.00 2% 2%

Finally, here we have an example on how PayrollHero calculates Pag-IBIG deductions.

This marks the end of our 3 part blogpost on Employer Contributions in the Philippines. For details on BIR, SSS and PhilHealth, click on the links. To see how PayrollHero calculates deductions on BIR, SSS and PhilHealth, make sure to click on the links.

Here is a helpful video from our friends at ZipMatch.com about Pag-IBIG

Disclaimer: As always, consult your lawyer or accountant for advice! We are here to help, but your specific situation should be reviewed by a professional with complete knowledge of your situation.

If you are interested in learning more about PayrollHero for your Philippine business, check out our website at PayrollHero.ph. We would be pleased to chat further about your needs.

Part II: Employer Contributions in the Philippines: PhilHealth

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Philippines PhilHealthOur previous post was an introduction to employer contributions in the Philippines with a closer look on BIR and the SSS. In this post, we’ll give you an idea about how health insurance works in the Philippines. PhilHealth is the health insurance institution that all private and government companies are required to register their new employees to. Here is a list of benefits that PhilHealth covers. Unlike the SSS, the employer’s share towards insurance is equal to the employee’s share towards insurance. The contribution schedule is available here.

Step 1: Employers need to first register their business through the Philippines Business Directory.

Step 2: All employees must submit the PhilHealth Member Registration Form (PMRF) to the HR department. Once that is done, you need to register your employees by filling out Employee Data Record (ER1) Form and submit the ER1 Form with the PMRF for each employee.

Step 3: After the forms are processed, companies will be given the following:

  1. PhilHealth Employment Number (PEN)
  2. Certificate of Registration
  3. PhilHealth Identification Number (PIN)
  4. Member Data Record (MDR) of registered employees.

The Certificate of Registration is required to be displayed clearly in your business’s offices.

Step 4: After deducting employer and employee contributions from the basic monthly salary, payment must be made to PhilHealth or via Accredited Collecting Agents. The payment should be made on or before the due date. The table below is from the PhilHealth website:

Employers with PENs ending in 0-4 Every 11th-15th day of the month following the applicable period
Employers with PENs ending in 5-9 Every 16th-20th day of the month following the applicable period

Step 5: Once the payment is done, you will have to report it within 5 days with the revised RF-1 Form. Alternatively, you can report it online using the Electronic Premium Reporting System

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Additional Info:

For new employees in the company, you will have to file the ER2 form to ensure that they are covered by PhilHealth too. Make sure to ask them if the have their PIN so that you can add it to the ER2 form. The form should be submitted to PhilHealth within 30 days of the new employees coming into office. For separated employees, Form RF1 must be filled and submitted within 30 days of the employee leaving. To amend employer data, ER3 form must be filed along with supporting documents.

This is it for PhilHealth. For reference, here is how PayrollHero calculates PhilHealth deductions. Check out Part III of our posts on employee contributions. We give you a crash course on Pag-IBIG deductions.

Disclaimer: As always, consult your lawyer or accountant for advice! We are here to help, but your specific situation should be reviewed by a professional with complete knowledge of your situation.

If you are interested in learning more about PayrollHero for your Philippine business, check out our website at PayrollHero.ph or contact us at sales@payrollhero.com. We would be pleased to chat further about your needs!

Part I: Employee Contributions in the Philippines: BIR and SSS

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As an HR admin or payroll admin, it is important to understand how employee contributions work for the social security nets that are in place for Filipinos. There are 4 institutions that you should know about for employee contributions:

  1. Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)
  2. Social Security System (SSS)
  3. Philhealth
  4. Home Development Mutual Fund

We will be talking about each of these over the next few blog posts. Let’s start with the first:

Bureau of Internal Revenue

When you are employing someone in the Philippines, the first requirement is to have a Tax Identification Number (TIN) that is registered in the same Revenue District Office (RDO) as your business. The TIN is essential in order to process employee contributions.

  • If the employee does not have a TIN, she must file form 1902 at the RDO where your business is registered.
  • If the employee does have a TIN but is not registered in the same RDO as your business, then she must fill form 1905 and file it at the RDO where her previous employee was registered in order to cancel it.
  • If the employee has a TIN registered at the same RDO as your company’s, then you will have to file form 2305 at the same RDO to update your employee’s information.

Here are all the BIR forms for your convenience.

Social Security Service

All employees in private companies across the country are required to be SSS members. The social security net covers a range of contingencies such as disability, sickness, retirement. Here is a summary of contingencies that the SSS covers. Around 70% of the contribution towards the SSS is made by the employer while 30% is made by the employee. Here is a schedule of contributions based on monthly salary.

First, you need to register your company as an employer in the nearest SSS office by filing Form R1. Along with this, you need to submit a list of employees with their SSS numbers. Note that private companies can only hire employees with SSS numbers. The form that needs to be files is Form R1A. The last form that needs to be submitted is the Specimen Signature Card SS Form L501. With these 3 forms, you will have to submit a sketch of your business address.

You will also have to pay a fee of PHP 160 for an Employer Registration Plate at the SSS or any SSS accredited bank. The list of accredited banks are here (at the bottom of the document). Along with the payment, you need to submit validated Miscellaneous Payment Return – SS Form R6 along with a Special Bank Receipt with this form.

You need to submit Form R1A – the Employment Report – every time a new employee joins. It must be filed within thirty days of the employee receiving the benefits of the coverage. The form must be submitted with the Specimen Signature Card and the 13 digit ER number and business address.

If there are changes to business operations, you need to file an Employer Data Change Request. This way, you will be billed correctly by the SSS.Singapore Payroll

Now that you know what these institutions are and what forms need to be filled, here is our example on how SSS contributions are calculated using PayrollHero software. As a bonus, we also have an example on how BIR taxes are computed.

That’s it for now! Check out our next few posts on Philhealth and Home Development Mutual Fund to find out everything you need to know about employer contributions.

Disclaimer: As always, consult your lawyer or accountant for advice! We are here to help, but your specific situation should be reviewed by a professional with complete knowledge of your situation. 

If you are interested in learning more about PayrollHero for your Philippine business, check out our website at PayrollHero.ph. We would be pleased to chat further about your needs.
Cloud Payroll Software for Philippines

4 Job Boards to Hire Your Best Recruits in Southeast Asia

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unnamed-1Today, there are a mind boggling number of channels to use while searching for the best candidate to join your team. In Singapore, the number one channel for recruiters to hire employees is through an online jobs portal. The other Southeast Asian nations are catching up to the trend. Which means, not only do you have to post in multiple online portals, you also have to stand out from every other company in your industry because everyone is using the most popular channel. We want to help you with that. Here we have a list of jobs portals, both conventional and specialized, for restaurant and retail owners to recruit staff.

Recruitasia: This website is devoted to the hospitality sector in Singapore. This is a great site for very specific roles for your establishment. It also provides industry news so that you can stay ahead of the curve when you are recruiting. Currently, the website is in beta stage. During this stage, jobs can be posted free of charge while the website is adding new features and receiving customer feedback to improve their application procedure.

JobsDB: This website runs ads in many Southeast Asian countries: Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and China. In Singapore, it currently has 300 positions posted on the website under F&B. In the Philippines, the site features 960 positions. Every recruiting ad costs SGD 99. However, JobsDB is turning over all Job ads to JobStreet.com.ph in order to streamline the two recruiting sites into one.

JobStreet.com: JobStreet runs in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Currently, the Singapore site is featuring approximately 800 vacant positions in the F&B industry.This is the largest recruitment website in the Philippines and one you cannot miss while posting ads. The Philippine website is currently running a promo package that is 40% off the standard price (the standard price being PHP 5,600). The Singapore website runs 3 packages, based on number of ads you want to post and how long you want them to stay live. The price ranges between SGD 180 to SGD 400.

KalibrrKalibrr: This startup recruitment website works on a completely different pricing strategy. Instead of charging employers per ad, the ads are free and the database is open for employers to find their best candidate. They are charged a minimal fee of PHP 50 only when they want to contact the candidate. This company is becoming increasingly popular in the Philippines with around 1000 applicants signing up every day. Kalibrr features restaurants and retail as the most popular searches. (Disclosure, both Mike Stephenson and Stephen Jagger of PayrollHero are investors in Kalibrr)

These four are a few of the most popular recruiting website in Southeast Asia. We hope this list is useful and do let us know if you have any additions to the list that are unconventional or special to the retail or restaurant industries.