Time Management Redefined

Beyond the #selfie clock ins, facial recognition, leave management feature, and many more, what PayrollHero wants more than anything is to give you back the time you lose from outdated time, attendance, and payroll methods.

One of our clients, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Philippines, shared their experience on how PayrollHero makes their payroll processes faster and more efficient.

Here’s a snippet from CBTL’s CEO Walden Chu:

“We wanted a payroll solution that was cloud based and built for the Philippine business environment, PayrollHero was exactly what we were looking for and took our payroll processing time for 700 employees from 16 days to 5 minutes” – Walden Chu, CEO, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Philippines

WATCH: Walden Chu’s Testimonial on How PayrollHero Helps Their Business

16 days to 5 minutes.

That’s 144 working hours (or more, due to OT) brought down to just 5 minutes. I don’t know about you, but that’s A LOT of time saved.

Walden-Chu-PayrollHero-Testimonial

And that’s not all… The time that our ridiculously efficient product saves results into a world of other benefits for businesses.

Time Saved Results to Happier Employees

Because time, attendance, and payroll becomes easier to do, employees who act as primary stewards of these processes are taken a huge load off of their shoulders.

It’s not a secret that HR staff, payroll administrators, and accounting / finance employees are the ones that are most affected by the hassles of traditional payroll processes.

With PayrollHero, these employees can relax and focus on other important aspects of their work such as recruiting and employee engagement (for HR), and internal audit / accounting for those in Finance.

The system was not made to replace these employees, but rather, to help them become more efficient and less stressed with the rigours of traditional payroll. A more streamlined, easy, and hassle-free payroll solution can make these employees less stressed and happier at work.

Happy Employees are Good for Business

It has long been proven that happy employees are the best brand ambassadors you can ever have.

The happier your employees are, the more energized and motivated they are to work; and those little things eventually add up. Your customers will notice how happy and engaged your employees are, and this in return, causes them to love your brand even more.

Word of mouth referral goes a long way in growing your business. So the happier your employees are, the more customers you will attract. It’s a domino effect that you can take advantage of.

Beyond Business

Of course, making employees happy isn’t just done to boost your profits. As an employer, it’s important to always put a premium to your employees’ happiness.

With PayrollHero’s selfie clock in, we are able to help your employees start the work day with a smile.

Check out this video of how employees clock in and out of work using PayrollHero’s TeamClock App:

Not only do employees start the work day with a smile, they also clock out happily as they get ready to come home to their loved ones.

The overall mood of employees skyrocket, and because of this, their personal lives improve as well.

Right Person. Right Place. Right Time.

Not only does PayrollHero save you time; we also save you money.

Biometrics and time cards for time and attendance can be tricky. For one, it can easily be gamed by dishonest employees. There’s the case of buddy punching and ghost employees that is pretty much prevalent in the Philippines.

Take a look at how much money you can lose just because of buddy punching:

buddy-punching-PayrollHero

Even if you only have 1 buddy punching employee (which is very unlikely), you’ll be losing P4,000 a year! Now, in most cases, for companies with a very unreliable time and attendance process, buddy punching is more common.

If you had 500 employees, and 10 of them are regular buddy punchers, you could lose as much as P40,000 a year.

With PayrollHero, you are LITERALLY free from buddy punchers because our system makes sure that the right person clocks in at the right place, at the right time.

You can learn more about Selfies vs Biometrics in this post.

Time to Make a Change

If you’ve made it this far down, then I can only assume that you are considering PayrollHero for your business. Whether you are running a restaurant in the Philippines, or a retail store in Singapore; or even any business in Asia, there’s just so much PayrollHero can offer for you.

Handling time, attendance, and payroll for your business will never be the same once you go for PayrollHero.

It’s time to make a positive change for your business. Let us help you save money, and most importantly, save precious time for you and your employees.

If this is something that you’re interested in, we’d love to chat with you. You can contact us at sales@payrollhero.com or visit any of our websites: Philippines, Singapore, Global, to learn more.

How to Grow Your Business in 2016 with Social Media Marketing

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Nix Eniego

Growing your business in 2016 won’t be a walk in the park. After all, more and more businesses are popping out literally every second. Make that 3 startups born every second!

Competition will surely be stiffer this year. You’re going to have to exert a lot more effort just to get noticed by potential customers.

It’s going to be an uphill climb just to increase foot traffic to your restaurant. After all, what’s stopping your target customer from checking out your competitor’s profile on Zomato (for restaurants) and choosing them instead?

But today, we’ll do our best to help you learn how you can beat out your competition and drive more sales with ZERO marketing budget.

Yes, you read that right! We’ll be teaching you tips and tricks to boost your sales this 2016 without having to spend a dime on ads.

Let’s begin!

Social Media Marketing

What You Need:

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Account
Time
Canva account (it’s free!)

How it Works:

Assuming you already have an account on these social media platforms, (if not, go ahead and make one now!), the first thing you have to do is optimize your profile.

Fill in the important details such as company info, a short bio, Operating Hours (for Facebook), and a link to your website.

Here’s a look at well-optimized Social Media pages of restaurants in the Philippines:

Niner Ichi Nana’s Facebook page has everything filled up right: Profile Picture, Cover Photo, Contact Number, and official website.

Consumers nowadays want to know EVERYTHING about what you offer before they buy, so it’s best to have a link to your website so your potential customer can view your menu beforehand and get a better feel of what you have to offer.

It also helps that they know your operating hours and contact details.

Here’s a look at Chili’s Philippines Instagram Account:

Nice looking posts, and as you can see up top, they have a link back to their website.

On Instagram, the Bio / Profile Description is the only place where you can place a link, so it’s a must to have a link back to your website in that section.

Once you’ve fixed up your Social Media Accounts, you can now post updates, and engage with your followers.

It doesn’t matter if you have 30 followers or 30,000; answering questions and providing valuable updates to your followers will go a long way.

Make sure you are posting good quality content on your Social Media pages. Invest on creating nice visuals as it has been proven that posts with images convert higher on Social Media than ones without. Humans are naturally visual creatures, so take advantage of that.

But of course, we did tell you at the start of this post that this guide will allow you to grow your business in 2016 without having to spend. Yet producing great social media posts with nice visuals will require hiring a Graphic Designer…

Not quite!

Thanks to Canva, you don’t need elite photoshop skills or a Graphic Designer on your payroll to produce high quality and visually appealing images.

Canva in action.

As you can see in the image above, there are lots of free templates to choose from. You can also upload your own image, and add your own caption with tons of fonts to choose from.

Here’s me adding a caption to an image I uploaded. It’s simple and easy, you can do it in less than 5 minutes!

And the best part is that all of that is 100% FREE. Canva does offer a paid business version if you want to take things up a notch, so do check out their website for more details.

Now that you have your Social Media Accounts ready, and an awesome tool to do your visuals, now what?

Next step would be to post consistently, and keep growing your following. A good way to do this is to cross-promote your other Social Media profiles.

Here’s how Philippine fashion retail giant Penshoppe does it:

On Facebook:

and Twitter:

The brand is consistently cross-promoting their Social Media profiles which allows them to target and market to different kind of consumers. Do the same and you will be able to grow your fanbase faster.

Pro-Tip: Eventually, as you continue to post, you’ll be able to see when your customers are most active on Social Media. By using Facebook and Twitter’s in-house analytics system and your own experiments and tests, you’ll be able to maximize the reach of your posts even without spending on Social Media ads!

What’s the ROI?

So what’s the ROI of Social Media Marketing?

While there’s no concrete answer to that, it’s not a secret that consumers love to do background checks before they even spend a single peso on your product.

This means that interested customers will be checking your website, Facebook, Instagram, and maybe even your Twitter account. And whatever impression they get from your online presence will dictate whether they want to buy from you.

So you may not be able to circle in a concrete number in terms of ROI, but social media marketing is crucial to growing your business.

You can literally gain customers or lose them just because of your online / social media presence.

By taking these important measures, you can grow your restaurant or retail business in the Philippines this 2016 easily. Now start opening your accounts and get to work! 🙂

P.S. Watch out for our upcoming post on how you can use Zomato to market and drive customers to your restaurant in the Philippines.

9 Ways to Promote Your Restaurant in the Philippines 2016 Edition

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Nix Eniego

Promoting and growing a restaurant business is easier said than done.

On top of the day-to-day operations of running a restaurant, the actual marketing and getting the word out is also a crucial part of growing the business.

PayrollHero understands the challenges and pain points of restaurant owners. Managing an entire restaurant and keeping not just customers, but also employees, is a lot of work to do. So we’re doing our best to help out and give something back for restaurant owners in the Philippines.

We’ve prepared an infographic on how to promote your restaurant in the Philippines. It’s easy to do, and most importantly, you can take action today!

9 Ways to Promote Your Restaurant in the Philippines

These tips may be just what you need to put your restaurant over the top this 2016.

If you’re a restaurant owner in the Philippines, you can share this with your marketing team or do the dirty work yourself. Eventually, your marketing efforts will pay off and you’ll see an increase in foot traffic to your restaurant.

BONUS: Here’s one restaurant in the Philippines who is nailing it on Social Media. Try and implement the same things to your business and sooner or later you’ll see results.

Keep it locked in on our blog as we offer more and more business tips for your growing your restaurant in 2016. So if you still haven’t, sign up below to be part of our weekly newsletter to get awesome updates delivered straight to your inbox!

If you want to chat about how else you can improve your restaurant processes, such as your HR and payroll, feel free to get in touch with us here: www.payrollhero.ph.

Say Goodbye to your Old Philippine Peso Bills

Posted on December 31, 2015 by Nix Eniego

Better check your wallet and piggy banks right now, because according to the Philippine government, December 31, 2015 will be the last time you can make use of your old bills.

So if you still have some old bills from your last payroll, you better spend it NOW or turn it over to any bank for exchange.

Here’s the full image of the guidelines for your reference:

The government is giving Filipinos one last chance to get rid of these old Philippine peso bills. By 2017, all old paper bills will be rendered useless so don’t forget to turn them over to the nearest bank this coming 2016.

PayrollHero’s Top 10 Posts of 2015

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Nix Eniego

Time flies by so fast! 2015 is already coming to a close.

In just a few days, we’re waving goodbye to the year that was, as we say Hello to 2016.

We’re excited for the coming year since YOU have tons of stuff to watch out for! We’ll be making more exciting content for you to read, watch, and listen to.

But for now, let’s take a quick look back at PayrollHero’s Top 10 Posts of 2015.

1.) ATM Withdrawal Limits for Philippine Banks

Our most viewed post of 2015 is this quick guide on the ATM Withdrawal Limits for Philippine Banks.

There are a lot of banks in the Philippines and they all have their respective ATM withdrawal limits. On top of that, the banks also charge fees per transaction, so this article gives people a better understanding of which bank to use so that fees can be minimized as much as possible.

2.) How To Prepare An Alphalist for the Philippines

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has issued certain guidelines and basic information requirements in preparing a company’s alphalist… But not everyone knows exactly how to do it.

PayrollHero gives you a quick overview on how to prepare an Alphalist in the Philippines.

3.) 8 Restaurant Recommendations In Fort Bonifacio, Philippines

Because we love you, we’ve listed some of our favorite restaurants in Fort Bonifacio (BGC). Check out our blog post and maybe you can even spend your New Year Celebration in one of these restaurants!

4.) Visit to Manila’s White Cross Children’s Home

Although the team’s trips to White Cross happened in 2014, this story was still one of our top performing blog posts in 2015.

The team documented their journey to White Cross Children’s Home in San Juan, Philippines with lots of pictures. You can see them all in this post.

5.) What is the SSS? (Philippines)

There are thousands of people everyday who search about SSS (Social Security System). And this short blog post gives you an overview of what SSS in the Philippines is all about.

BONUS: For a detailed guide on how to compute your SSS deductions and other payroll concerns, you can download our FREE Payroll Kit here.

6.) Employer Contributions in the Philippines: Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG)

Employers also benefit from the wealth of information we share on our blog. In this case, we wrote about PAG-IBIG and how employers (and employees) should handle it.

7.) The Philippines Restaurant Industry at a Glance #infographic

We created an infographic on the Restaurant Industry in the Philippines. It gives you a quick glance on key stats on the restaurant landscape in the Philippines.

Feel free to share this infographic on your own website or social media pages.

8.) Employee Contributions in the Philippines: BIR and SSS

Yet another top performing post about SSS in the Philippines! Check out this blog post, which is more detailed than the one mentioned above.

In this article, we’ve also provided a link to all the necessary BIR forms.

9.) Employer Contributions in the Philippines: PhilHealth

As you may have noticed, PayrollHero blog readers are really loving our quick guides on information about government deductions/benefits.

This one covers everything you need to know about PhilHealth. (Get our FREE PayrollHero Kit here)

10. An Introduction to Domain Driven Design

And lastly, the PayrollHero team was able to enjoy two days of intense training on Domain Driven Design with Kiro Harada.

In this blog post, we shared what we learned from Kiro, so you too can be part of the experience. This learning retreat was attended by team members from Manila, Whistler, and Singapore.

Conclusion

It was an amazing experience for us this 2015. We enjoyed writing and creating awesome content for you guys!

Rest assured that we’ll keep delivering only the best this coming 2016! So don’t forget to visit our blog regularly, okay?

Happy New Year, everyone!

FREE Payroll Kit for All Employees

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Nix Eniego

If you’re an employee and you’re reading this, then you’re in luck!

The PayrollHero team prepared the Ultimate Payroll Kit that answers all your questions and concerns regarding the following topics:

How to Compute 13th Month Pay
How to Compute Holiday Pay & Rest Day Pay
How to Compute your BIR Taxes
How to Compute your Government Deductions (SSS, PAG-IBIG, PhilHealth)
How to Compute Night Differential Pay
How to Compute Your OT Pay

All these and more for FREE! Click here to download your FREE Payroll Guide in the Philippines.

Aside from providing smooth and efficient HR, Time, Attendance, and Payroll processes to businesses, we also provide a wealth of information for employees regarding matters concerning their payroll.

So if you always found yourself making a Google search on “How to Compute 13th Month Pay” or “How much is my SSS deduction”, then our free PayrollHero Kit will do wonders for you.

You won’t have to Google about these payroll concerns in the Philippines ever again. Simply get the guide, keep it in a folder (It’s in PDF format), and consult it whenever you want to know something that concerns your payroll.

Not only do you get a more clear and defined answer to your questions; you also won’t have to bug your company HR with trivial questions anymore. You will be well-equipped with all the basic and necessary info about your payroll. Sounds awesome, right?

So download the free PayrollHero Kit now and learn everything you need to know about your payroll today!

Video Tour of Philippine Payroll on PayrollHero

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Below is a video explainer for how PayrollHero can work within your Philippine business. From setting up schedules, to clocking in and out, resolving attendance and generating payroll.

1. Creating employee schedules on PayrollHero
It is quick and easy to setup schedules for your employees. Depending on your business will depend which scheduling tool you use. Our onboarding team will help setup the processes so that your managers can quickly and easily manage their teams schedules.

Clocking in/out via PayrollHero
Clocking in and out on PayrollHero is a breeze. We have TeamClock for iOS and Android as well as the MyClock Web and TeamClock Chrome. We can setup your account to based on your needs.

Clock in/out details are run through thresholds
We automate your time and attendance policy using our thresholds functionality. All clock in and outs are run through the thresholds to make enforcement of your policies easier. We have thresholds for In early, in late, out early, out late, undertime, unscheduled work, duplicate clock in and duplicate clock out.

Resolving employee attendance infractions
Our resolve attendance functionality enables your managers to quickly and easily resolve infractions that fall outside of the thresholds. Most common is missing clock in and overtime. Each click is recorded as to who resolved what infraction and why.

Enroll employee in Government deductions

Add allowances on PayrollHero

Generate payroll
Generating payroll is simple and rules based. Once the time and attendance has been resolved running the payroll is quick. Below is an example of a Philippine payroll being run.

Other questions that you might have?

Have more questions? Feel free to consult our knowledge-base or reach out and our team would be pleased to speak further about your companies specific needs.

Top Industries with the Highest 13th Month Pay Bonus

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Nix Eniego

In just a few days, you’re going to be receiving your hard-earned 13th month pay from your employer. Although some have already received theirs as early as November, majority of the Filipino workforce regularly receives their 13th month pay during December.

Yes… Just in time for your Christmas shopping! (Check out our Top 5 Christmas Shopping Hacks for 2015 here).

But not all 13th month pay in the Philippines were created equal.

Some industries generally offer higher bonuses than the rest. Check out this infographic from MoneyMax.ph to find out which industry is the most generous when it comes to 13th month pay.

If you want to know how to easily compute your 13th month pay, you can check out our quick guide here.

So what can you say about this? Are you happy with your bonus?

Let us know in the comments section below!

Year End Update – Philippines: Alphalist, BIR DAT Files and 2316 Forms

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Nix Eniego

This is one of PayrollHero’s biggest releases this year. You can view the original post here:

In a nutshell:

Updated 2015 Alphalist
Alphalist DAT Files
Updated Multi-Inserts for Previous Employer and Additional Dependents
BIR 2316 Forms (New)

What’s new this release?

For 2015, the BIR Exemption amount has been increased to Php 82,000.00 of the total amount of exclusion from gross income for 13th month pay and other benefits. This change was effective from Jan 1, 2015.

You can now download DAT Files. These files are the upload-version of BIR’s Alphalist.

You can now add previous employer details so you can generate accurate 7.1 and 7.5 Alphalists. This can be added through the Previous Employer Multi-insert form.

You can now add additional dependent information to be used in your 2316 forms. Additional dependent information can be added through the BIR Update Multi-insert Tool.

2316 forms can now be downloaded individually through the employee profile.

Where can I download these forms?

You can download the Alphalist and the DAT files by going to “Payrolls > Reports > Forms (click view)”. You can allow the employee access or download their 2316 form by going to their “Employee Profile > Documents > BIR 2316”.

What do I need to do?

Accounts that have complete payrolls for 2015 shouldn’t have any issues downloading the Alphalist.

To setup your account for Alphalist and the 2316, please contact our Client Success Team, they would be happy to help!

If you have any questions please let us know by clicking here.

Top 5 Christmas Shopping Hacks for 2015

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Nix Eniego

It’s December, and everyone’s rushing off to the nearest malls to buy Christmas gifts. It’s not a very pleasant picture — especially if you’ve been stuck in traffic for nearly 2 hours and you’ve yet to buy anything for your family and friends.

Unfortunately, traffic in Manila during Christmas season is inevitable (even on a regular day traffic in Manila is horrendous, but that’s another story). The best way to make your 2015 Christmas shopping a much better experience is to hack your way around it.

With that said, we’ve listed 5 Christmas Shopping Hacks for 2015 to ensure that your shopping experience is better than most.

Start Early

Okay, as of this writing, it’s already the 2nd week of December, and this doesn’t really qualify under “Starting Early” since malls are ALREADY packed and crazy traffic has begun. But shopping as early as now is still better than joining the crowd on the last week before Christmas.

You can try going during non-peak hours. If there’s a nearby mall in your office, you could try to go for a quick shopping trip so you could avoid the crowded malls and horrible traffic during after-office hours.

Book an Uber / GrabCar

One way to get around the Christmas rush traffic and hassle is by booking an Uber or a GrabCar in advance.

With their Waze integration, you at least have a shot to avoid traffic (as much as possible) with an Uber. You could also drive your own car, but again, it would be better to relax and let the friendly Uber / GrabCar partners drive you to your destination.

Be mindful of Uber’s rate “surge” though, as you might end up biting more than you can chew. Try to book when there’s no surge so you don’t get shocked with your total bill.

Organize and Prioritize

If you’re like 99% of our blog readers, you must have countless family and friends to give gifts to. An awesome way to make your Christmas shopping experience smoother is if you actually know what you’re going to buy.

Prepare a list in advance. Just pop out your smartphone, open an app like Evernote or Google Docs, and type in the name of the people you’ll buy gifts for and what you’re getting them.

Here’s a look at my personal checklist (done through Evernote).

Still a long way to go.

If you prepare a list before you go to the mall, you’ll be able to save a lot of time and energy.

Shop Online

Avoid the traffic mayhem COMPLETELY by doing your Christmas shopping online.

With Zalora, Lazada, OLX, Shopee, and other online stores, you can easily find gifts for your loved ones without leaving the house.

Order as early as possible and have the products delivered at your doorstep. All you have to do is wrap these gifts, and you’re all set. I’m personally buying some of my gifts online this year.

BONUS TIP: You can also check out independent online stores that sell awesome T-shirts (like The Perfect White Shirt). Rather than going to the mall and falling in line, you can save a lot of time and hassle by ordering online.

Make or Bake

Or… you can forego Christmas shopping altogether and just make personalized gifts for your loved ones.

If you’re not artsy, you can give baking a try. You can easily bake cookies or delicious cupcakes like this:

Not only can you save time and money, you’re also going to be making a lot of your family and friends happy. After all, effort trumps material gifts 10 times out of 10.

Enjoy your Christmas Shopping!

Category Archives: Philippines

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