Singapore Payroll Software Show & Tell

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Singapore Payroll Event We are holding another event at our office in the Ocean Financial Centre at Raffles Place in Singapore on May 14th 2015. At this free event you will learn about the pitfalls of manual time and attendance systems, how PayrollHero can help and the amazing business intelligence that can be delivered to your iPhone in real time.

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, RedMart, BGC and many others are happy clients… come learn why they and many others subscribe to PayrollHero for their time, attendance, scheduling, HR and payroll needs.

3 Dissatisfactions With Traditional Retail Punch Clock Systems

Posted on May 4, 2015 by

Getting Ridiculously Client Focused!

As part of getting to know PayrollHero and our clients we decided that it was time for me get out of the office and do some “hallway testing” with Singapore retailers. At PayrollHero the team is constantly talking about “getting out of the office”, “hallway testing” and “being ridiculously client focused”. Today, it was my turn.

Getting to know our customer segment in Singapore is important as we continue to get our product out there. We want to know what these retail businesses do for time, attendance, scheduling and payroll. And we really want to get to the bottom of the pains store managers have with their current system.

I set out to speak to outlet or store managers of F&B businesses around the Ocean Financial Center @ Raffles Place.

A lot of Pain!

Indeed! My conversations revealed that out of 6 outlet managers I spoke with today, all of them mentioned dissatisfaction with their current time clock systems for time and attendance.

Here’s why:

The Biometric System (Thumbprint Scanners)

Using this system to clock in and out at the workplace seem to be the most common with majority (4 of 6) of the outlet managers I spoke with today. They revealed that they have been using the biometric systems for employees clocking in and out at work, and are not happy about it. A manager at a salad outlet says that it is an ‘imperfect system’ because the system itself is inaccurate. This comment is also shared with a manager of a bakery chain; who complained that the system sometimes don’t read the thumbprint accurately and records the time down for the wrong employee.Frustrating? Yes! The same outlet manager adds on saying that at times system reads as ‘absent’ as the employee clocks in.
The Punch Card Machine
The major problem one manager at a sushi outlet has with the attendance system is that the punch machine always broken down. In the days it takes for the machine to get fixed, he has to make time to manually clocking in and out his workers on an excel spreadsheet.Security is another concern with punch card machines. The time sheets are collected, then sent to the HR department for payroll processing via post or using a delivery person. What happens if the mail goes missing? All the data on the time sheets is not backed up on a system.
Point-of-Sale (POS) System
This POS system gives employees a 4-digit code to use over the register to clock in and out of work. So what’s the issue? Well, for an outlet manager of a smoothie chain store here at Raffles Place, she is unhappy that she has to do double work – where she will manually keys in the clock in and out data of each employee again on a different system at the end of each week for payroll.She hopes she has a system that connects the time and attendance with payroll to save time!

The Take- Away

This test has revealed to me that plenty of time can be saved if redundancies and “double-work” for the purpose of verification are eliminated. Managers are delighted to work more productively if they had a system that could shorten the process for time and attendance at the outlet and worry less about payroll.

Want to learn more about PayrollHero?

Check out our Singapore Payroll Software website or attend our next event on May 14th 2015.

Singapore Payroll Software | PayrollHero

Posted on May 4, 2015 by

If you have ever worked in human resources and admin, you would know what a pain payroll management can be!

Inflated time sheets, overtime and time-off.

How do you calculate the 43 odd minutes an employee has been showing up for work late for the past 2 weeks? Or the minutes they left work too early? How do you add up the tax on commissions earned for the past week? These are just the beginning of your troubles.

What about tracking down which employees have had their teammate clock in for them? And the hassle of going after those who do not submit their time sheets at all!

No More Timesheets!

The days where you would spend hours racking your brain computing payroll into an outdated software or excel spreadsheets are gone. This is where PayrollHero saves the day!

PayrollHero is a cloud-based HR and payroll management software that tracks time, attendance and scheduling for businesses of any size. #payrollhero_sg

And you would be so grateful: employees are happy to clock in and out of work in seconds. The Selfie TeamClock uses the employee’s face as the biometric for clocking in and out. Say goodbye to misaligned timestamps and impossible-to-read handwriting.

The system ensures that employees are really at their workstation or desks on time as the software computes, tracks and reports to optimise payroll management. Just enter all the information you need, like: employee records, roster schedule, hourly rate, per diems, benefits, CPF and other tax calculations. PayrollHero will assist you with set up from start to finish.

Eliminate Fraud!

PayrollHero takes care of annoying time-in problems with a nifty innovation: facial recognition technology.

To clock in and out at work, employees just need to take a picture of themselves at their workstation. They can use this on their laptop or desktop, iOS and Android devices.

PayrollHero system will match the photo to the employee records and track their time against the correct schedule and GPS location, to make sure that the person is at the right place and the right time.

Sure, you’re thinking that any thumbprint and other biometric systems can achieve the same results. But that requires additional employee information and thumb/ palm scanners. Here, all you need is a camera.

Share the Load!

Each employee is responsible for their own hours, and the app is designed to inform them if they are late, early, undertime or over. They can view their schedule and record using the WebApp or #MyClock app on iOS.

All the information is stored in the cloud and updated in real time, anywhere. So, the manager getting to an offsite meeting can still check-in to see what’s happening at the office at any time on the phone.

When it’s time to run the payroll, the system computes everything down to the last minute. All the payroll administrator needs to do is review and approve the payroll.

Runs On Any Device

PayrollHero does not require you to purchase any new hardware or expensive licenses. The system works great on your existing hardware: desktop, laptop, iOS and Android devices.

PayrollHero for Singapore Businesses

The PayrollHero Team has made the app awesome for Singapore businesses. The app is now localised and updated to fit Singapore payroll requirements including: Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) taxes on employee remuneration, CPF employer contributions and deductions, bonuses, contributions to community funds (MDMF, SINDA, CDAC), Foreign Worker Levy and others.

We Are Doing It Right!

We are excited to launch our amazing product in Singapore. Having enjoyed success in the Philippines, the market here poses as a friendly challenge.

“ We are much more than just payroll. We are what we like to call ‘ridiculously client focused,’ and that means working to ensure HR and payroll professionals have the tools they need to do their jobs better […] Our focus is on the much bigger picture of helping clients utilize our platform to run their businesses better.” -Steve Jagger, Co-Founder PayrollHero.com

Happy clients in Singapore!

We are off to a great start with a few big brand names already using PayrollHero.

singapore payroll clients

Check Us Out!

Click to Register!

Did you know PayrollHero can qualify for Singapore’s Spring Innovation & Capability Voucher (ICV) – Integrated Solutions (IS). (Read More)

5 Reasons Why Smiling Increases Productivity

Quote

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

At PayrollHero, we help cultivate a happy working culture by having employees start and end each day with a SMILE!

How?

Our selfie TeamClock captures your amazing smiley faces as you clock in and out of your office or work station. Gone are the mundane punch cards! We can uplift your mood by having you coming to and leaving work feeling much more invigorated, motivated and Happier!

Smile Every Mile…

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Did you know smiling from real emotions or even faking it has been scientifically proven to lower heart rate levels and decrease stress? (Source)

Here’s 5 reasons why smiling contributes to higher productivity:

Happy people work better with others. People who have happy energy are a lot more fun to be around and consequently have better working relationships with others. In fact, researchers have found that happiness is contagious. Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Harvard Medical School explains that “Everyday interactions we have with other people are definitely contagious, in terms of happiness”. He says that when one person is happy, the social network effect can increase up to 3 degrees- meaning friends of friends.
Happy people are more creative. Productivity means being able to come up with new ideas. If your job depends on developing new ideas, then you have to be happy at work. Check out this study by Teresa Amabile for proof. She says that:“If people are in a good mood on a given day, they’re more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day.
There seems to be a cognitive process that gets set up when people are feeling good that leads to more flexible, fluent, and original thinking, and there’s actually a carryover, an incubation effect, to the next day.”At PayrollHero we keep customers on their toes as we keep coming up with fresh features to optimize time, attendance, scheduling and payroll for businesses.
Happy people fix problems better. No problem is a mountain too high for the engineering team at PayrollHero. We will gear up and fix any problems. A recent study has proved that “a way to improve software developers’ productivity and software quality is to focus on people and provide incentives to make developers satisfied and happy”. Happy programmers are better problem- solvers. Science says so!
Adventure Engineers in Danang, Vietnam
Happy people get sick less often. Getting sick is a productivity killer. If you don’t like your job, you’re more susceptible to have major diseases including ulcers, cancers and diabetes. This is especially so for women, where one study has assessed the impact of job strain on the health of 21,290 female nurses in US and found that those who are at health-risk are those who didn’t like their job (source). So, being happy with your job prevents you from being sick and burning out.
Happy people make better decisions. People who are happier make better, informed and consistent decisions. An article in the Journal of Consumer Research determined that mood influences the very basic element of decision making- whether we like something or not.

Curious about how PayrollHero can create happier work environment and improve productivity for your business. Come to our FREE in-house event!

PayrollHero In-House Event: Retail Hero, 14 May 2015

Click me! Get tickets on Eventbrite

ATM Withdrawal Limits for Philippine Banks

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Interested in PayrollHero? Sign up today and get 90 days free! – USE PROMO CODE 90ATMBP2018

Many foreigners come to the Philippines and ask the same question – what Philippine ATM bank machine should I use to take out money? The question comes up often as the banks charge a fee for foreign cards being used as well as the foreigner’s local bank will charge a fee. So finding a bank with the highest withdrawal limit is important so that the fees can be minimized as best as possible.

atm withdrawal limits for philippine banks

Here are the results for Philippine bank ATM withdrawal limits:

Bank	Max. Amount
BDO	₱10,000.00
PNB	₱20,000.00
BPI	₱20,000.00*
HSBC	₱50,000.00
UnionBank	₱20,000.00
EastWest Bank	Customizable
Maybank	₱20,000.00
ChinaBank	₱30,000.00

References:

BDO Philippine ATM Limit (reference)
PNB Philippine ATM Limit (reference)
BPI Philippine ATM Limit (reference)
HSBC Philippine ATM Limit (reference)
UnionBank Philippine ATM Limit (reference)
EastWest Philippine ATM Limit (reference)
Maybank Philippine ATM Limit (reference)
ChinaBank Philippine ATM Limit (reference)

Update: A commenter gave some feedback on BPI.
philippine atm limits

If this was helpful, you might like this:

– How To Get To Fort Bonifacio (From The 4th Worst Airport In The World)

– Why Start a Business in the Philippines?

Adventure Engineering in Da Nang, Vietnam

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Editors Note: Introducing Vincent Paca, Adventure Engineer at PayrollHero. He will be contributing to the PayrollHero blog from time to time.

Not so many months ago, a talkative fellow wandered in my small Cebu office by chance. Dressed in shorts, flip flops and a black shirt with a man in a red cape. Turned out that was Mike Stephenson, CEO of PayrollHero. He talked about adventure, learning, teamwork and improving one’s self and the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Manila two days later to pair with a few of their engineers. A little under a year and here I am, in Singapore, busting out a blog post about the adventures and misadventures of Adventure Engineering.

Adventure engineers often travel depending on the client’s need. We go wherever we can be more effective at our job. Being ridiculously client focused, as we always say. (yes, we are hiring)

One of the things that we wanted to try out this year was to partner up with 3rd party engineering teams to help us increase our velocity. In comes AgilityIO, a 150-strong engineering team based in Da Nang, Vietnam. We believe that a lot of problems can easily be solved when you’re in the same room together with your team. Making the communication loop so much shorter meant making things move faster.

At the beginning of April, Adam, Mike, Piotr and I decided to meet up in Da Nang, Vietnam to personally meet and work with team Agility. Adam, and Mike flew in from Singapore, Piotr arrived from Whistler and I catapulted all the way from Manila.

Getting to Da Nang is no simple task. Flying from the Philippines meant that I had to take a flight to either Hanoi or Saigon, then take another domestic flight to central Vietnam. I landed in Saigon around 12am bags in hand waiting for my next flight at 5am. DO NOT fly at these hours. Saigon domestic airport closes at night and the earliest they open is at four in the morning. I had to stay outside of the building and wait for it to open. Fun times indeed. I arrived in Da Nang around 6:30am. Being in Vietnam also meant that we had to wake up an hour earlier. Our daily huddle always happens at 6:47am GMT+8 and no, it doesn’t matter where you are.

I downed a can of RedBull and a shot of Cà phê sữa đá and headed to AgilityIO’s office with Piotr. Agility has a HUGE office in Da Nang, 5 floors of mobile and backend developers, it seemed like they had it all. We knew from the start that this wasn’t going to be a breeze. Communication and getting your thoughts across was definitely a challenge, but we didn’t let that wall stop us from where we’re going. We’re now two weeks into the project that we’re working with Agility and we’re almost near completion.

piotr, vince and agility team in da nang

A selfie with some of the Agility team in the background

Da Nang wasn’t all work and no play. We went for a food tour around Da Nang at lunch time. Summer from Funtastic Food Tour took us around Da Nang to its secret foodie gems scattered all around the city.

The next day we hopped in a cab and ventured to Hoi An. Our first stop was the Marble Mountains. The Marble Mountains is a cluster of mountains made of, you guessed it, marble. Going up one of the mountains wasn’t that difficult. Partly because the local government attached a modern elevator to the side of the mountain that takes you up halfway of the mountain.

(Adam, Piotr, Mike and myself)

Scaling the peak wasn’t all that bad either. All that marble makes for perfect steps when crawling up to the peak.

da hang, vietnam marble mountain stairs We just made it in time for lunch at our hotel and just enough time to prepare for our motorbike tour around the countryside of Hoi An. This was the very first time I learned how to ride a motorbike and surprisingly enough it wasn’t that bad. Vuong took us around the scenic countryside of Hoi An, we rode on floating bridges, elevated bamboo bridges and along the rice fields. Exhilarating and enjoyable, the whole 5 hour ride was quite the experience.

bike tour around da nang

Finishing at 7pm left me little time to prepare for my 9pm domestic flight to Hanoi to get to Manila. Even though I left Vietnam a bit exhausted with mud on my shoes and a little bit of dirt here and there, I had a really great time. 10/10 would definitely do again.

Want to read more about our Adventure Engineers? Check out Nico’s story from when he left Manila to work from the Whistler office while getting his Canadian residency.

Interested in joining our team? We are always hiring!

What is an Adventure Engineer?

Life At PayrollHero From Our Newest Team Member Maita Ocampo

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Editors Note: Introducing Maita Ocampo, Business Development at PayrollHero. She will be contributing to the PayrollHero blog from time to time.

Wait What?

Overwhelmed, confused, and highly emotional – these are not the end of day emotions that I’ve imagined my first day with PayrollHero to be like. Apparently, I found myself having dinner alone in a restaurant after my first day and my thought bubble said something like: WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.

Looking back, I think it was just “info overload” on my end. Haha! Well, to be honest, technology is not really my area of expertise. However, one of the reasons why I took the job at PayrollHero is because I knew that I was ready and up for the challenge. Getting sent to visit the team in Singapore after a month and working directly with the co-founder is of course, a plus. Boom! The opportunities are endless.

(Myself with Steve Jagger, Michael Stephenson and Adam Baechler in Singapore checking out the view of the Marina Bay Sands.)

First Three Months

My first three months were more of getting accustomed to the tools, getting to know the product, and catching up with the company and our timelines. Now that three months have passed, I couldn’t be thankful enough for PayrollHero and its founders for giving me the opportunity to be part of a platform that aims to make the lives of employees and their respective companies better. This is something that really excites me!

Non-Stop Learning

Let me share with you 3 key learnings from my first three months with PayrollHero:

Ask, ask, ask – Never assume anything. If you’re not certain about something, it is better to ask. Asking questions will not make you look lame, ignorant, or unsure. In fact, asking questions is a sign of strength and intelligence. It can also give way to deeper insights and better answers.
Waking up early rocks – I wake up at 6AM every day and work usually ends at 4PM. Crazy, right? These past few months, I’ve learned that you actually get to do more work when you wake up early. At the same time, you get to spend quality time with people you love. According to Forbes and Harvard biologist Christoph Randler, “morning people” are more proactive and are more likely to agree with statements like “I feel in charge of making things happen.” His research also revealed that they are more likely to anticipate problems and minimize them efficiently.
Productivity tools – I remember telling Steve, our co-founder, on my first day that I haven’t downloaded so many apps in one day! Haha. Yes, PayrollHero embraces technology (a lot). It helps us in our open communication mandate. We love PipelineDeals, Asana, Google Docs (Google white paper on PayrollHero), LinkedIn, Slack, Sqwiggle, Appear and Zopim to name a few. It may seem hard to take it all in, but these apps are just a matter of getting used to. Not only does it make learning everyday more fun, it’s definitely helping us work efficiently as well.

Exciting Times Ahead

I guess, no matter what your job is, your first couple of days at work could really be a nerve-racking experience so it’s important for one to focus and have the proper mindset for it.

What I enjoy the most about working for PayrollHero is that everyone’s contributing and thinking of ways to achieve better results for our clients while enjoying the process. We get to learn a lot from each other too!

(Myself with Cristian Guerrero, Kieran Peppiatt, Stephen Jagger, Adam Baechler and Mike Stephenson at the Hyatt in the City of Dreams Manila)

As we’re expanding rapidly in the Philippines and have soft launched in Singapore, I am looking forward for the next countries that we’re targeting this year to become payroll live and the adventures that come along with it. Exciting times, indeed!

Want to read more about our Adventure Engineering lifestyle?

– You might like Nico’s story about his first few days in the Whistler office after leaving the Philippines.

– Adventure Engineers scatter

– Looking to join us? Check out our hiring page or how our work from home program works.

Draft Gastropub Philippines Launches PayrollHero

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

PayrollHero continues to grow. We are expanding rapidly in the Philippines, have soft launched into Singapore with our official launch only days way and are prepping for our next country.

It is exciting to announce that the FeastBev Group has joined PayrollHero. FeastBev includes the Draft Gastropubs, Black Olive Restaurant, Imperial Ice Bar, The Distillery, Beso and others.
draft pub philippines PayrollHero’s time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS, Philippine payroll and business intelligence platform helps restaurant owners manage their multi-location businesses. Not only does our platform reduce payroll processing time, but it is engaging for the employees, streamlines communication and helps bring transparency to the workplace.

(image from www.asia-bars.com)

Are you interested in learning more about how PayrollHero can help your restaurant, retail, bpo, office or business? Reach out and one of our team would be pleased to speak further.

Private Polymer Workshop in Singapore

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

polymer google singapore We were fortunate to have Unbug join us today in Singapore for a private Polymer Workshop. Unbug is a front-end engineer at NetEase, the Creator of #MIHTool (iOS Web Debugger Pro) and a contributor to Polymer. His work gets recognized all over the world and it was great learning from him.

Our #AdventureEngineers have rotated and some of our Whistler team arrived in Singapore as well as some of the Manila team so it was a perfect opportunity to take some time on a Saturday to learn.

We are big on learning and are always looking for opportunities to expand our knowledge. A big thanks to Unbug for taking the time out to come chat with our team.

If your interested in joining our team, reach out.

polymer_workshop_1024 polymer workshop singapore

Attention Singapore Restaurants | Singapore Payroll Software

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Our next event is coming up. On April 14th at 1:30pm we are holding a free event in our Singapore office for restaurant owners and managers who want to learn more about how PayrollHero works within the restaurant industry.

Come learn about PayrollHero’s time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS, business intelligence and Singapore payroll platform and how it can work within your restaurant.

This free event is a perfect way to learn more about PayrollHero and see if there is a fit for your business!

Plus, PayrollHero qualifies for Spring’s Innovation & Capability Voucher (ICV) – Integrated Solutions (IS) – fill in your information here to see if your qualified.

Why should you attend?

1. Learn how PayrollHero’s time/attendance platform eliminates fraud
2. See the platform in action
3. Learn why Krispy Kreme, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and others use PayrollHero
4. Get your questions answered
5. Understand the costs of not having a proper platform in place
6. Plus much more…

Singapore Payroll Software by PayrollHero

Here is what Earl Chua has to say about PayrollHero for his restaurant chain: