Singapore Payroll Update

We announced at the start of November that we will be expanding our payroll platform into the Singapore market soon. Since that announcement we have held a couple Charter Client Events in Singapore where business owners, HR managers and payroll professionals can learn more about our platform and how it will function for the Singapore market. These events have been a big success and we will be holding one more before our official launch into Singapore. So, if you are interested in learning more about PayrollHero’s Singapore payroll platform, contact us now. Our next event will be early January 2015 and space is very limited.

Singapore Payroll Software by PayrollHero

15 Reasons Why You Should Use PayrollHero’s TeamClock iOS

Here are 15 reasons why you should use PayrollHero’s TeamClock iOS for your time and attendance needs.

  1. Simple, easy to use Time and Attendance tool
  2. It can function offline (for when you have internet interruptions)
  3. Kiosk Mode can include Customer Feedback tool
  4. Kisok Mode can include Apply for a Job tool
  5. Managers can edit schedules right through the app
  6. You can lock down the iPad with Guided Mode (free, part of Apple’s iOS) so employees and customers can’t access other apps
  7. Quality hardware that has the power to operate quickly
  8. Fantastic camera that takes perfect photos
  9. Employees can see their past clock photos on the home screen
  10. Employees can view their upcoming schedules
  11. TeamClock can be set to auto-update
  12. Wifi and cellular option
  13. PayrollHero releases new feature to iOS first
  14. PunchClocks are prone to fraud (ie. buddy punching)
  15. Bio-metric machines are built for a single purpose

Need more reasons? Contact us and we would be pleased to speak with you about your needs and how PayrollHero can help.

12 Reasons Why Emerging Markets Rock

employee count in the philippines

Most software as a service (SaaS) companies focus on the US market, or other western countries with little regard for emerging markets. While there are definitely challenges with focusing on emerging markets (internet, power, traffic, corruption, to name a few) there are some big advantages.

For example, the above photo was taken at a department store in the Philippines. In this photo, of one of the many areas of the 3 floor department store has no less than 12 employees. For a company like PayrollHero that charges based on employee count, you can see why we like emerging markets. In Canada or the US, if I took the same photo, you would be lucky to see 1 employee.

But it is not all as easy as it seems. These employees are actually not employees of the department store but rather merchandisers who work directly for the brands they are standing beside. So while you might see 12 employees, they most likely work for 12 different companies. Making selling a product or service to them a bit more of a challenge.

But still, employee counts in restaurants, retail, etc are usually much higher in emerging markets due to the cost of labour.

Would you like to learn more about PayrollHero? Contact us and we would be pleased to speak further or visit our country specific websites; Philippines, Singapore with the rest coming soon.

Recap: Youth Entrepreneurship Congress, Naga, Philippines

I had the honour of being invited by the Camarines Sur Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CSCCI) in Naga, Philippines to speak at their 1st Annual Youth Entrepreneurship Congress Conference. It was an amazing event with over 1000 in attendance from all over the region. My talk was on techno-entrepreneurship in which I told the story of how Mike and I started out working together and how we have progressed over the pat 14 years.

Youth Entrepreneurship Congress, Naga, PhilippinesMy friend and EO forummate Carlo Buenaflor who is the CEO of Bigg’s Diner (check it out, great food) and the Honorary Consul of Spain for Bicol also setup a private event at his residence with a few of the regions top technology startups. It was an intimate event where we got to chat a bit about the region, the challenges of running a startup in a province of the Philippines and how we came to be a payroll platform for emerging markets. All in all an awesome weekend.
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Adventure Engineers Scatter This Weekend

Our team has been full on the past few months so a few of them took this weekend to see the sights around the region. The timing was was a coincident, but we have PayrollHero #AdventureEngineers in 7 cities around the world today. They are in Hong Kong, Shenyang China, Whistler Canada, Singapore, Manila Philippines, Cebu Philippines and Squamish Canada. Below are a few pictures from their adventures.

Nico Suria is in Hong Kong along with Kieran Peppiatt and their girlfriends seeing the sights, doing a little shopping and taking in some of the local culture.

adventure engineer in hong kong

(Nico in Hong Kong)

adventure engineer kieran in hong kong

IMG_0539.JPG(Kieran Peppiatt in Hong Kong)

Bram Whillock, the very definition of #AdventureEngineer takes his outdoor time to the next level. Today, he can be found in the far off peeks of Whistler mountain in Canada.
whistler mountain ruby on rails engineer(Bram Whillock on Whistler mountain ~
photo by Bradford McArthur of ForeverExploring.com)

Aidan Sullivan is in Shenyang, China which is one hour north of Beijing. Shenyang is one of China’s very polluted cities as you can see from the picture below.
aidan in china

(Aidan Sullivan in Shenyang, China)china adventure engineer

(pollution in Shenyang, China)
vince paca in cebu(Vince Paca in Cebu, Philippines)
singapore payroll guys(Michael Stephenson and Adam Baechler in Singapore)


Are you looking to join a hard working team? We are looking for a few people to join our team. Roles available: Event Manager, Content Writer, Ruby on Rails Engineer, Customer Service Specialist, Business Development and Marketing Manager.

Watch our Adventure Engineering video below to learn more about us…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyyaprfMifg

Why Choose the TeamClock iOS over a Punch Clock or BioMetrics?

We put together an infographic and a new page on our website that showcases the value us using PayrollHero’s TeamClock iOS versus traditional punch clocks, biometrics or even Android. While our platform does work on Android, the experience is better on an iOS device. Check out the page and let us know what you think.

Going Open Source with our Singapore Payroll Gems

At PayrollHero we are proud of our work and want to share it with the business community of Singapore.  Over the coming months we intend to release the payroll aspects of our code for free to the public.

That’s right, we are going open source with our Singapore payroll code!  Any developer or interested party will be able to scrutinize the code responsible for Singapore Payroll calculations like CPF.  PayrollHero’s payroll transparency will allow anyone the opportunity to use our code . It will engage the software community to provide the best possible product to all our clients – this will result with furthering our mission to bring Payroll Accuracy for Singapore Employees.

We write our software using a language called Ruby on the Ruby on Rails Framework (we flew DHH to Whistler in 2004). The Ruby community is a passionate collection of developers who have helped us create the HR Platform we have today. This is our opportunity to give back to the community who helped us get to where we are today.

Not a developer but you are interested in learning more about the quality of our code at PayrollHero?  We use a program called code climate that systematically grades every line of code that we write.  It helps us to write the best code possible and gives a neutral and outside indication of it’s quality using a GPA system.  We don’t release anything less than a 4.0 GPA!

code climate singapore payrollSecurity important to you? Our code also receives a Security Scan performed every few hours for potential vulnerabilities. When anything is found we immediately act on the alert.

Here are the links you need for our Singapore Payroll CPF Gem:

Source Code: https://github.com/payrollhero/singapore_cpf_calculator
Gem: https://rubygems.org/gems/singapore_cpf_calculator
Code Climate Score: https://codeclimate.com/github/payrollhero/singapore_cpf_calculator

Singapore Payroll Software by PayrollHeroWant to learn more about PayrollHero Singapore? Head over to singapore.payrollhero.com to find out more about our Charter Client Program.

New Security Feature: Password Strength Policy

As we continue to enhancing security across PayrollHero, we have created a new system that enforces a password policy on user’s password. Users are now required to use at least the following in their password:

  • one lowercase letter
  • one uppercase letter
  • one number
  • 8 characters in total for the password length

We’re hoping this will help to avoid using simple passwords and secure everyone’s data.

This change will be effective November 3, 2014 and will affect all new user creations and password changes.

We also added Two Factor Authentication a few weeks ago. Read more here.

Welcome to the family, FamilyMart

familymart-payrollhero2FamilyMart joins many successful food & beverage and retail businesses in the Philippines that have chosen PayrollHero as their time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS, business intelligence and payroll platform.

FamilyMart is a joint venture between Ayala Land, Inc., part of the Ayala Group, one of the country’s largest business groups, and Stores Specialists, Inc., part of the Rustan Group, one of the largest retailing groups.
They plan to open 100 stores in 2014 within the Philippines and just launched their franchising efforts to as part of their goal of having 500 stores in the country by 2018.
FamilyMart franchising launch event at the Dusit Hotel in Makati, Philippines.

FamilyMart franchising launch event at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati, Philippines.

Pictures From An Amazing Morning with Local Filipino Kids

We had an amazing morning with the PayrollHero team feeding the poor at the Real LIFE Foundation community kitchen. Every Saturday, the Real LIFE Foundation conducts a feeding program for more than 100 malnourished children. These children range from 3 – 14 years of age and come from squatter communities in Pasig, Metro Manila.

The kids were fun, excited to play games and have a healthy meal. Some were very much under weight and obviously hungry but it was great to be able to help in a small way.

Big shout out to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (Philippines) who is their largest corporate donor and who introduced us to the program.

If your team is interested in participating you can get more information here.

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