This screen is where you will enter most of the employee’s details such as their name, address, identification numbers and relevant dates. It is the second step in adding a new employee but can also be accessed at any time by going to the employee’s profile and clicking on Edit Info > Basic Info.
Most of the fields in the Essentials section are compulsory for the setup process and are explained briefly below:
The Pay Frequency is how often they are paid e.g. weekly / monthly etc. You would have set up at least one pay frequency as part of adding the company and all available pay frequencies will appear in the drop-down menu. If the frequency you need isn’t there – for example, if you’ve always had weekly-paid employees and are now adding someone who is paid monthly – you will need to add this new pay frequency first. This process is explained in the following related article:
Company Setup > Pay Frequencies
The employee’s First Names (including all middle names) and Last Name should be entered in full and as they appear on their identification documents.
You will need to enter a PPSN for the employee if you have it. Employees without a PPSN will be taxed on the Emergency basis by default. More information on the various tax bases is available in the following section:
Payroll Concepts > Statutory Deductions and Contributions
You will also not be able to upload P2C information for them until you have entered it as the system uses this number to match the employee with their information in the file.
The employee’s Date of Birth and Date of Appointment can be captured by selecting them from the calendar or by typing them in. Please ensure that the Date of Appointment is the date the employee was first employed, or leave cycles will be incorrect.
PRSI Class will be set to “A” by default and can be changed using the drop-down menu if necessary. Please ensure that this is correct as it will impact the calculation of PRSI contributions.
The PRSI Exempt checkbox indicates whether the employee is exempt from paying PRSI. Please note: There is a difference between employees who are PRSI Exempt and employees who do not contribute PRSI as they are in PRSI Class M. Do not mark an employee as PRSI Exempt if they have been assigned a PRSI class. An employee cannot belong to a PRSI class and also be PRSI Exempt. Please refer to the following article for more information:
Payroll Concepts > Statutory Deductions and Contributions > PRSI
The PRSI Exemption reason field will appear if the PRSI Exempt checkbox is selected. As part of PAYE Modernisation, it is mandatory to provide a reason if an employee is set as PRSI Exempt.
The Director field is used to provide information to Revenue on the employee’s directorship status. For PAYE Modernisation, all employees must be set as either a “Non-director”, “Non-proprietary director” or “Proprietary director”.
Prior to this dropdown field, a checkbox was used on SimplePay to indicate an employee’s directorship, in order to populate the relevant field on the employee’s P60:
- If this checkbox was not selected previously, the employee’s Basic Info screen indicates them as a “Non-director” in the Director field.
- If this checkbox was set for the employee, the Director field is set to “Old director flag (invalid from 2019)” in the new Director dropdown menu:
- If this option is selected at the time of finalising the last payslip of 2018, a “D” will show in the field for directors on the employee’s P60.
- If this option is not selected at the time of finalising the last payslip of 2018, it will not be displayed on the P60 for that tax year, even if it was set in any other prior or subsequent period.
As from 1 January 2019, no employees should be on the old director flag option.
Where “EFT” is selected as the Payment Method, the employee’s bank details must be entered. If you are going to be paying the employee by EFT but do not have their bank details yet, you can select “Cash”. You will, however, need to ensure that their bank details have been entered before creating your first pay run in order to use our EFT export file to pay this employee.
The employee’s Address(es) and Income Tax Number are not compulsory during setup but are required for filing with Revenue, so we recommend entering them at the outset where possible.
Certain information, such as a Pay Point or Job Grade, requires additional setup before it can be entered. Please see the following articles on these aspects:
If you are adding a new employee and have captured all of the necessary information in this section, you can move on to the final step – capturing their Regular Hours.