How to Manage COVID-19 Payments

We understand dealing with Covid-19 is stressful for businesses. We have created a tool for our customers to deal with capturing Covid-19 Leave and relief payments. This function is for businesses with employees who are unable to work during the lockdown period. It allows employers to have the ability to track the wages paid out and employees can see the payment they received due to this event. It is important to note that if your employees are working as normal, or working from home, you still continue to process you payroll as you were prior to the lockdown even if you are receiving the wage subsidy.

Watch our video instructions.

Placing an Employee on Covid-19 Leave

Navigate to "Process a Pay", "Time & Income", and enter the employees' hours as per normal, but with the action “COVID-19 Leave” entered.

The “COVID-19 Leave” action functions similarly to “ACC Paid Leave”, because the pay rate is zero but the employee will still accrue annual leave.


Alternatively, you can enter multiple days at once and save time by selecting “Leave Periods” on the right-hand side of the page.

Selecting this option will open a menu where you may preload the COVID-19 Leave records between a date range. This option consequently means that you will not need to enter the employees' leave each pay period, as the system will auto-populate their present and future timesheets on you behalf.

 

The image below displays an example of what a leave record may look like.

Paying your Employee during Lockdown

Select "Other Income" under "More Income & Deductions".

You may need to setup the correct items first. You can use either “COVID-19 Relief Payment”, or "COVID-19 Relief Payment" and “COVID-19 Subsidy Top-up” if you wish to capture both items separately. Use the method that best suits your business. Select the items from the left-hand side and then select the arrow pointing over toward the right-hand side box.

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Select "Add". Select "Covid-19 Relief Payment" from the "Item" dropdown menu. Remember that you can split the subsidy amount from the top-up by selecting "Covid-19 Subsidy Top-up" after setting up the relief payment first.

 

If you receive a wage subsidy from the government, then you should aim to at least pay your employee 80% of their normal earnings. If the wage subsidy is more than the employee's full earnings, then you need to pay the employee 100% of their earnings instead.

An easy way to process this is by setting the "Quantity" field as the employee's leave hours, and then the "Pay Rate" field as the employee's pay rate or 80% of the employee's pay rate.

If you have an employee(s) that work irregular hours and are not sure what their normal earnings are, then you can view the employee's "Ordinary earnings based on the last 4 weeks to the Lockdown" or the employees' “Average earnings based on the last 12 months to the lockdown". View either option and choose to pay the employee based on what you believe is fair, or what you have discussed with your employee(s) through written agreement(s).

 

You can select "Express Input" to speed up the data entry, after using this option the first time.

The image below displays an example of what a timesheet may look like.

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Please note that the subsidy from the New Zealand Government is for helping businesses get through this difficult time, but it is not compensation that is intended to cover employees’ full wages. This option means that the amount paid to the employee may not be equal to the subsidy you receive.

Also, the pay the employee recieves over this period is still subject to normal income tax legislation.

Generate a Covid-19 Relevant Report

Navigate to "Report Centre", "Pay-run Reports", and then select "Other Income History". You can select a Covid-19 related item from a dropdown menu or generate a report for all items over a selected period. You can select to run the report by selecting "Pay Period" range or "Period End Date".

 

The image below displays an example of an Other Income History List.