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!

PayrollHero Security

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Nix Eniego

We value our customer’s security and work hard to ensure that our platform and procedures are focused on security of our clients data. A PayrollHero account contains all employee information and confidential material. For that reason, we take security, encryption, and system permissions very seriously.

Below we have listed a complete guide of our security processes for your reference.

User Security

Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement

At the onset of our business relationship, we sign a mutual non-disclosure agreement as part of our commitment to your company confidentiality.

Password Strength Policy

We have a Password Strength Policy which ensures that a PayrollHero user will be able to log in with high security measures.

We require all passwords to use the following:

– One lowercase letter
– One uppercase letter
– One number
– 8 characters in total for password length

Two Factor Authentication Log In

As an added layer of security for users, we have implemented a Two Factor Authentication (2FA) log-in, which makes logging in more safe and secure.

With 2FA, users are blocked from sharing passwords – giving the user complete ownership and responsibility for his or her personal account.

Every time a user logs in, they get a time-based, one-time password to authenticate the log in process. This password changes every time you log in, and only you, the user, will be able to know this generated password.

To enable 2FA, you would need a device, usually a smartphone, and an app to generate these one-time use passwords. Here are some of our recommended apps:

Google Authenticator
Authy (recommended if you want to use multiple devices e.g iPad, desktop)

Click here for a complete guide on how to set up Two Factor Authentication for your PayrollHero account.

Platform Security

Encryption at Rest

All data within PayrollHero is encrypted in transit and at rest, meaning that it is not only encrypted when moving from application to application but it is also encrypted when idle.

HTTPS

All communication in and out of the PayrollHero platform is done through HTTPS. “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a communications protocol for secure communication over a computer network, with especially wide deployment on the Internet”.

** For both security and non-security incidents, we have employ an urgent and critical process that brings a certain priority level to the team. There is an incident commander appointed during any of these incidents and is responsible for involving the necessary resources.

Architecture

The PayrollHero System is designed to only expose access to customer facing services. All other access requires an encrypted administrator connection.

Only vetted senior staff members have access to production data.
All access requires encrypted access to the system.
All access to the system requires either an encrypted VPN connection or two factor authentication to access anything.
All access to production data is logged.
All systems are isolated from each other, regularly replaced, and security patches are applied as soon as they are available.

Customer data is stored on a multi-tenant environment, as such it does exist within the same databases. Extreme care is taken to never allow customer data to get mixed up.

The PayrollHero system is designed to deal with server failures. We perform offsite backups, and frequent onsite backups. We also have an offline mode for the clock in/out feature.

If you want to learn how to use TeamClock while offline, click here for a quick tutorial.

Servers

In an effort to ensure that all your data is kept secure, we only use one of the best names in server and cloud computing – Amazon.

Technically speaking, we secure our data with the following services.

PayrollHero utilizes AWS Services that are ISO 27001 and PCI DSS L1 Certified:

Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (S3)
Amazon Web Services Relational Database Service (RDS)
Amazon Web Services Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
Amazon Web Services Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Amazon Web Services Elastic Block Storage (EBS)

PayrollHero will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the PayrollHero platform available with a monthly uptime percentage of at least 99%, in each case during any monthly billing cycle (the “Service Commitment”). In the event PayrollHero does not meet the Service Commitment, You will be eligible to receive a Service Credit as described below.

Service Level Agreement

Service Credits are calculated as a percentage of the total charges paid by you (excluding one-time payments such as upfront payments) for the monthly billing cycle in which the platform was unavailable.

If the monthly uptime percentage drops below: 99%
Service Credit Percentage: 20%
Service Credits are applied to Your next months invoice.
To receive a Service Credit, You must submit a claim by opening a support case (support@payrollhero.com).

To be eligible, the credit request must be received by us by the end of the second billing cycle after which the incident occurred and must include:

the words “SLA Credit Request” in the subject line;
the dates and times of each unavailability incident in respect of which You are claiming;
the affected PayrollHero account;
and your request logs that document the errors and corroborate Your claimed outage (any confidential or sensitive information in these logs should be removed or replaced with asterisks).

Our most up to date Terms of Service.

If you have any other questions about our confidentiality, data security, or encryption, please feel free to contact us at support@payrollhero.com.

Top Work Benefits Millennials Actually Want

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Nix Eniego

Millennials are taking over.

Sure, there are countless of articles about how millennials are “entitled”. A quick Google Search will yield a handful of results. But it’s not a secret that millennials are rapidly taking over the workforce.

By 2030, millennials will be making over 75% of the entire workforce. I’m not good at math, but I know that’s A LOT.

So if you’re a hiring manager, or a business owner, it’s important to take note of exactly what millennials value in terms of work benefits.

You will find more statistics at Statista

This shows that majority of millennials actually care more about two things over monetary bonuses.

Most managers assume that in order to keep millennials happy or attract them to join the company, money should be dangled like a big slab of steak. While cash bonuses are very much appreciated, training and development and flexible working hours are valued higher by millennials.

When you think about it, the top two work benefits that millennials value the most actually will cost you LESS than cash bonuses.

Flexible Working Hours

Flexible working hours are becoming more and more popular these days. 77% of millennials actually prefer flexible working hours. They feel that they are more productive and have more freedom in the workplace. This, as studies and millennials claim, boost their productivity.

Photo from http://www.bentley.edu/

Millennials hate the regular 9 to 5 cycle, so it’s understandable why they value a “flexi schedule” over cash bonuses.

But what’s more surprising is the top benefit millennials value the most…

Training and Development

And they said millennials were lazy?

This stat is the most alarming, yet also the most encouraging.

This means that millennials value being trained and learning more to become better at their craft. The best part about this is that training and development can actually cost less than giving a performance bonus (not saying you shouldn’t give your employees one though!).

The more you actually invest in training your employees, the more they’re likely to stay and produce better results.

Conclusion

You don’t need a gargantuan budget to give your millennial employees killer benefits. Invest on their training and development, or even consider implementing a flexible working schedule.

Millennial or not, all employees will surely enjoy these benefits. So if you consider some of these, you might just have hacked into boosting work productivity in your company.

Tweet us and let us know what you think!

How to Keep Your Employees Happy at Work

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Nix Eniego

One of the best kept secrets of the top companies in the world is also the most obvious.

Keeping employees happy is very important to the overall success of a company. The simple formula is “Happy Employees = Good Business”.

So what exactly makes employees happy?

Is it bigger pay? Unlimited vacation leaves? Big bonuses? Free lunch?

To get a better idea, take a look at this infographic from Manila Recruitment and find out what the best companies in the Philippines are doing to keep their employees happy.

Based on this infographic, money isn’t the only thing that motivates and makes employees happy. Employees value education, travel, fitness, and career growth just as much as they care about monetary bonuses.

You don’t need a HUGE budget to make employees happy. Sure, bonuses are great and will make employees happy, but if you don’t have the budget for it, don’t force the issue. Instead, you can focus on other low cost employee benefits such as additional vacation leaves or hosting sporting activities.

Are you doing some of the items mentioned above? Do share your company’s benefits and perks in the comments section below!

3 Reasons Why Employees Get Bored

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Nix Eniego

Happy, engaged, and hard-working employees are important for any business to succeed. That’s why business owners do their best to implement awesome employee benefits to make everybody happy.

But sometimes, despite the company’s efforts, employees are still disengaged and lackadaisical. Yes… employees do get bored.

In this post, we’ll drill down 3 reasons why employees get bored. So if you’re a business owner or CEO, you better take notes!

Repetitive Tasks

Sure, employees signed the contract completely aware of their job description and role… But doing the same thing over and over again will take a toll on ANYONE.

If an employee keeps doing tasks every single day, it’s expected that boredom will soon strike.

How to counter this? MIX IT UP.

As an employee:

If you’re an employee who’s starting to get bored, you should be upfront with your manager. Let him/her know that you feel like you can do more than what you’re currently doing.

Ask to be involved in other tasks. Have the initiative! Your manager won’t know you want to do more if you don’t say a thing.

As a manager:

Don’t be afraid to mix it up. Give your employees new tasks to do. You hired that person because you believe in him as an individual, so it wouldn’t hurt to try and entrust him with a new task.

By letting your employee do something new, you’ll likely give a jolt of excitement and a strong sense of responsibility to your employee – which is a good thing to boost productivity.

Lack of Compliments / Words of Encouragement

This may sound strange, but it’s a real issue. A recent study show that 65% of employees feel unappreciated at work.

When employees feel that they’re not appreciated in the office, they eventually get bored.

Employees VALUE their manager’s compliments and words of encouragement. An immediate boost in morale happens when an employee hears simple compliments like “Good job!” or “Nice work!”

As a manager, you can even take it up a notch and give your employee a reward or a token of your appreciation for a job well done.

These little things will go a long way.

Work-Life Imbalance

Working hard should always be top priority, but play time shouldn’t be neglected as well.

Employees who work too hard end up drained eventually. It’s not sustainable to render overtime every single night.

If you’re an employee who stays at work for 2-3 hours more than your required shift 90% of the time, you’ll eventually run out of gas and get bored at work.

The answer? Find a better work-life balance.

As an employee:

Your job provides for your family’s needs, but it is not your entire life. Don’t spend all of your time at the office. Leave some time for yourself and for your family.

Come home and have dinner with your family. Hang out with your friends on Friday nights. You have a life outside of work, so make the most out of it.

You can work hard without having to kill yourself with stress. Not only is it not good for your company, it’s also dangerous to your health.

As a manager:

Don’t put too much pressure on your employees. Giving unrealistic deadlines will leave your employee with no choice but to work overtime every day. That’s something that is proven to be unproductive in the long run.

If you notice that your employee is working too much or rendering too many OTs, talk to him and encourage him to take a vacation leave. Advise him that he doesn’t need to spend every working day on overtime. Not only will your employee become more productive, it will also be good for his health — which is something you should also prioritize.

Conclusion

Employees get bored because they don’t feel empowered. As a manager, it’s also your responsibility to make sure that your employees feel happy and valued at work.

As an employee… If you feel bored all the time, then you have to re-evaluate yourself. Discuss it with your manager and work on fixing the issue together.

Tweet us what you think!

Improve Your Restaurant Performance with HR Analytics – FREE Webinar from PayrollHero

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Nix Eniego

webinar-screenshot-payrollhero

Whoever said that nothing in this world is free was lying!

Because on December 8, 2015. At exactly 11 AM (UTC +8), Singapore Standard Time, we’ll be hosting an epic webinar that talks about leveraging HR Analytics to improve restaurant performance.

In this webinar, restaurant owners will learn about the following:

Learn how to respond to business in advance using predictive analytics for HR
Improving organizational performance
Optimizing talent supply chain
Benefits of HR Analytics to your restaurant’s sales performance
Data-driven decision making

And many more!

We don’t want to spill too much info, but we’d really love it if you could join our webinar.

If you’re a restaurant owner, or an HR director / manager of a restaurant, this is a webinar that you definitely shouldn’t miss.

We’re going to provide content that you can implement and leverage right after the webinar.

The best part about this webinar is that you will have instant learning in just 27 minutes of content!

^ It’s really that simple. You’ll be able to implement your learnings immediately and make a direct impact to your restaurant’s positive performance.

So to all restaurant owners / HR personnel, do spread the word and save the date:

December 8, 2015 (Tuesday), 11:00 AM (UTC +8) Singapore Standard Time

This webinar will surely be worth your while. Save your seat below!

We’ll see you there!

Best Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Nix Eniego

If you’re reading this article, I’m pretty sure you’re not hoping to find out what the next Candy Crush app is. If you are, we’ll have a different blog post for that soon!

For now though, I’m assuming that you are an entrepreneur on-the-go. Or a busy CEO juggling through multiple hats at work.

You can also be a high level executive who’s embracing tech and the convenience it brings.

The good news? PayrollHero rounds up a few of the best apps for busy CEOs this 2015. This is part 1, and we’ll feature more apps real soon.

Let’s dig in!

Best Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs

Evernote

We’re not saying classic notebooks are useless at this day and age, but leaving home without one is more and more common these days.

But you know what you never forget when you leave home? Your mobile phone.

And this is where Evernote shines.

An app that you can use in the comfort of your own phone, Evernote takes note-taking to a whole new level.

Whether you need to jot down quick notes during a meeting, or you’re attending a conference and you’re trying to take note of key points, Evernote gets the job done perfectly.

You can literally take note of anything you want. Even writing a new campaign strategy, or projections for the coming quarter can be done with this productivity app.

Not only does it sport a user-friendly interface, it also syncs smoothly with your other devices. You can access Evernote in your laptop, PC, or tablet as well. So whatever progress you’ve made on your mobile phone, you can see it updated and syncing in real-time with your laptop.

Pretty fun stuff, huh?

Evernote is FREE, but if you like it so much and you want all your employees using it as well, you can consider their premium or business plan.

Pocket

Now this is a personal favorite of mine (author). Imagine your browser’s bookmark tool… on STEROIDS.

That’s how Pocket functions! Any article or content you read from your favorite websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or even YouTube can easily be saved to your pocket.

It’s a bookmarking tool that saves any form of content (webpages, articles, videos, tweets, etc.) so that you can read it later, OFFLINE.

Anything you save to your Pocket, you can read later on even without internet.

The best part is that Pocket integrates with so many other apps you use such as Twitter, and even via Email.

Now, how awesome is that?

I’ve been using Pocket for almost a year now, and it’s one of the apps I can’t live without. It’s free, and syncs with all your devices. You can “pocket’ an article using your mobile phone, then finish reading it later on your laptop – or vice versa.

I’m having a hard time convincing people that I’m not being paid by Pocket to promote them, because I find myself tweeting about how awesome they are every once in awhile.

@nixeniego Thanks for the major shoutout, Nico!

— Pocket Support (@pocketsupport) November 4, 2015

Try it out and see for yourself.

HINT: Pocket this blog post for future reference. 😀

Uber

Need to rush to a business meeting? Or are you just too tired to drive back home after a long day at work? Well, thank your lucky stars for Uber.

One of the top apps in 2014, Uber has disrupted the transportation scene in the Philippines. For a very affordable price, you get to enjoy a comfortable ride, with your own private driver, to literally anywhere you want.

If you’ve been living in Manila for a while, you’ll know how difficult it is to hail a cab or get around the metro through public transportation vehicles. But with Uber, all you need is a few clicks on your mobile phone and your vehicle will be arriving in just a few minutes.

Driving to your preferred destination isn’t always an ideal choice, so Uber proves to be a convenient way to go anywhere you prefer.

The PayrollHero team loves Uber, and I personally use Uber at least 2-4 times a week.

With courteous drivers, affordable rates, and very friendly customer support, Uber is definitely one of the top apps for ANYONE, entrepreneur or not.

If for some reason you haven’t tried Uber yet, now’s the time. Go for it, and tweet us how your first ride goes.

Google Docs

Transitioning from Microsoft Word to Google Docs isn’t always easy, but it’s a jump I’m more than happy I made a few years ago.

With Google Docs, you can write any document and it auto-saves instantly. You literally never have to press “Save” again.

As you’re usually always on the go, it’s inevitable that you do forget to save your document from time to time. This won’t be an issue anymore with Google Docs.

What makes it awesome though is that it syncs with your entire Google account (Google Drive). So all you really need is a Gmail account, and you can use Google Docs (as well as Google Sheets), anytime.

Google Docs is free, in the cloud, and very easy to use. Give it a go today!

Spotify

Of course you need to unwind somehow! Spotify is a great way to just relax and enjoy good music.

Spotify is FREE, although there’s a premium plan if you don’t want to be bothered with ads. You can also use the offline mode if you avail of the premium plan.

With Spotify, you get access to a boatload of music, from almost any genre you can think of. Unless you’re a Swifty, there’s no way for you not to enjoy Spotify.

Even busy entrepreneurs deserve some good music!

CONCLUSION

That rounds up our top apps for busy entrepreneurs list. I hope you make good use of some (if not all!) of the apps listed here. Become more productive, and more awesome with these must-download apps!

Keep checking our blog for more of these as we’ll come up with part two of the best apps for busy entrepreneurs in the coming weeks!

MUST-TRY Halloween Themed Restaurants 2015

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Nix Eniego

Ah… Pumpkins, lanterns, cute kids running around wearing superhero or monster costumes… That’s your queue that Halloween is right around the corner.

And this year, we @ PayrollHero feel that it’s going to be extra fun and exciting!

Why you might ask?

CASE IN POINT: Restaurants with Halloween Specials!

We’re featuring 2 of our favourite restaurants in this post: Que Pasa Naga and Krispy Kreme Philippines

These two have extra awesome Halloween themed gimmicks which aims to excite and bring a mixture of joy and FEAR (okay, not really) to Filipinos this time of the year.

So… anyone ready for a spooky-sensational dining experience

¿Que Pasa?

If you find yourself in Naga City, there’s absolutely no reason not to drop by and enjoy a mouth-watering meal at ¿Que Pasa?.

¿Que Pasa? is a food joint in Barlin Street, 4400 Naga City which serves delicious Bicolano Colonial Cuisine which is a mix of Bicolano and Spanish flavors.

What they are most famous for though are their BARBECUES.

Here’s an excerpt from their Facebook page:

O-kay! Now we got that out of the way, here’s what they are doing this Halloween:

#DiaDeLosMuertos

If ever you’re in town on October 31st (2015), you can drop by to ¿Que Pasa? wearing your best Halloween costume and dine for FREE. This promo is only available for the first 155 customers so you better get ready!

They will also be giving away prizes during the #DiaDeLosMuertos.

P2,000!? That’s one Happy Halloween indeed!

If you’re wondering what will be served… Aside from their must-try barbecues of course, they will also be unveiling 2 NEW dishes on the 31st.

There’s absolutely no reason to miss this event if you’re anywhere near Naga City.

But if don’t happen to be in Naga, and you still want to experience some awesome Halloween dining experience, you’re in luck because Krispy Kreme Philippines wants to SPOOKIFY (if that’s a real word) your dessert!

DDDooouughhhnnuttss ooouutt!! Needd #MadForMonsters trreeatsss… ooohh yeeaah! Krispy Kreme hassss theem! pic.twitter.com/vW3OlKDFts

— Krispy Kreme PH (@hotlightgirl) October 26, 2015

Yep, Krispy Kreme brings your favorite monsters to life, such as Frankenstein above. Who btw, somehow managed to take over the Twitter account of Krispy Kreme PH!

Take a look at some of their Halloween-themed donuts!

Heeree #MadforMonsters doughhnuttt. Geeet at Krispy Kreme iff yuoo #MadForFrankie tooooo! Yummmm. pic.twitter.com/7CYlaod5EJ

— Krispy Kreme PH (@hotlightgirl) October 17, 2015

They have the Scarecrow donut, Mummy, Worms, Fangs, and the very iconic Pumpkin-themed donuts.

And here’s my personal favorite, the Frankie donut – hiding inside my paperbag! Not only is it really cute (ironically!), It tastes really good. You should definitely try it!

Oh, and YOU CAN WIN A FREE Frankie donut (or any other Halloween donut of your choice) too!

Just join Krispy Kreme’s “Magic Money” promo to enjoy their Halloween donut for FREE.

Here’s how:

Krispy Kreme Philippines sure know how to celebrate Halloween, and they want you to join in on the fun. Give them a visit while these Halloween-themed donuts are still available! They might not be in stores for long!

Enjoy Your Halloween!

Aside from Que Pasa Naga and Krispy Kreme Philippines, there are other restaurants and food joints celebrating the Halloween vibes. Rest assured, you’re going to have an extra awesome Halloween this 2015, thanks to these cool Philippine restaurants who knows how to have some fun and celebrate Halloween.

The PayrollHero team wishes you an exciting Halloween! Tweet us and let us know how it goes!