THE PAYROLL ADVISOR JOURNAL
Understand the details that shape every payday. Practical guides for employers, HR teams and the people they support.
52 practical guides · India-focused · Sources linked for further reading
Statutory updates
A missing PF enrolment can sit unnoticed for years. Then an employee asks about a passbook entry, the old attendance file is opened, and the issue becomes much larger than creating a UAN today.
Read articlePayroll calculations
A business may collect attendance from the twenty-first of one month to the twentieth of the next so it has time to review inputs before salary processing.
Read articleLabour Codes
The statement that every employee’s basic salary must equal half of CTC is an unreliable shortcut. The Labour Codes define wages and place limits on specified exclusions.
Read articleStatutory compliance
Paying a contractor’s invoice does not explain whether the people deployed at your site received their wages or were reported correctly for relevant social-security requirements.
Read articleSalary structure
An offer letter, salary structure and payslip can show different amounts without any one of them being wrong.
Read articlePayroll outsourcing
Outsourcing payroll changes who performs agreed processing work. It does not make attendance decisions, salary policy or employer funding disappear.
Read articleEPF and social security
An employer may have uploaded an ECR without completing payment. Those are different events.
Read articleEPF and social security
EPF, EPS and EDLI serve different social-security purposes: provident-fund savings, pension and deposit-linked insurance. They may appear within the same compliance working, but payroll should not treat them as one undifferentiated deduction or assume every member has the same eligibility position.
Read articleEPF and social security
An employee’s current salary is not a complete EPF membership record. When payroll is set up, changed or migrated, the team needs to know whether the person already has membership history and which rules apply to that history.
Read articleEPF and social security
Official PIB releases report that the statutory EPF wage ceiling increased from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 per month with effect from 17 September 2026.
Read articleESI and social security
A small rounding difference can become a recurring payroll-reconciliation problem when the calculation is applied at the wrong level.
Read articleESI and social security
ESIC eligibility is not answered by looking only at basic salary. The employer must first establish whether the establishment is covered, then assess the employee using the relevant notified wage limit and the effective legal definition of wages.
Read articleESI and social security
An overtime payment can raise more than one payroll question. Does it affect an employee’s coverage test?
Read articleESI and social security
A salary increase can take an employee above an ESI coverage threshold without making an immediate stop to contribution the correct response.
Read articlePayroll operations
A salary can be correctly calculated and approved while the bank payment fails. Missing or incorrect bank details create a payment exception, not a reason to assume that the employee’s earned amount has disappeared.
Read articleGratuity and employee exits
A direct fixed-term employee can have a different gratuity position from an ordinary open-ended employee. The Social Security Central Rules, 2026 address eligibility after at least one year under the contract and the subsequent period.
Read articleSalary tax
A salary certificate, payslip total and tax-information statement can differ for several reasons. The useful response is to identify which records and periods are being compared, then trace the mismatch to its source.
Read articleGratuity and employee exits
The familiar gratuity formula is only one part of the calculation. Payroll must first establish eligibility, the correct service measure and the legally relevant wage base.
Read articleGratuity and employee exits
An automatic gratuity rule based on 1,701 days is not a reliable national eligibility test. Gratuity depends on the applicable framework, employment type, continuous service and the event ending employment.
Read articlePayroll outsourcing
The decision to outsource payroll should start with the work your business performs each month. Company size matters, but it does not tell the whole story.
Read articleSalary tax
An investment declaration is an employee’s statement of expected claims. Supporting proof helps the employer review whether those claims can be recognised in salary-TDS working.
Read articleState payroll compliance
Labour Welfare Fund is not a single national payroll deduction with one amount and one payment calendar. Where a state framework applies, the employer needs to check the establishment, covered employee categories, relevant period, employee share, employer share and payment requirements.
Read articlePayroll calculations
An employee can join in one month and first appear in a payroll run in the next. The later processing date does not change the actual joining date or prove that the earlier earning period was already paid.
Read articleEmployee exits
Leave encashment has two separate questions: what leave amount the employee is entitled to receive, and how the payment is taxed.
Read articlePayroll calculations
A loss-of-pay reversal corrects an earlier unpaid-absence deduction. It should be tied to the original employee, absence date, payroll period and amount.
Read articleEmployee benefits
Maternity leave should not be processed as ordinary unpaid absence while HR works out who pays the benefit.
Read articlePayroll calculations
An employee who joins halfway through a month needs a clear explanation of the period being paid and the method used to value it.
Read articleLabour Codes
Minimum-wage compliance starts with finding the correct notification for the employee and establishment. A rate copied from another employer or another state may look plausible while applying to the wrong category, location or period.
Read articleEmployee exits
An exit can leave two different questions unresolved: what the employer owes the employee, and what the employer believes the employee owes the business.
Read articleSalary tax
Choosing a tax regime from one deduction or an old salary example can give an employee the wrong expectation about take-home pay.
Read articleLabour Codes
Overtime eligibility should not be decided by job title alone. A payroll team needs to identify the applicable law, the establishment, the employee’s position within that framework and the hours actually worked.
Read articlePayroll reporting
The salary register, payroll journal and bank payment file should reconcile, but they should not always show the same total.
Read articlePayroll outsourcing
Payroll outsourcing prices are easier to compare when you separate the monthly service fee from salary payments, statutory dues, government charges and optional modules.
Read articlePayroll outsourcing
Payroll outsourcing means appointing a provider to perform agreed payroll activities for your business. It can cover input validation, salary calculations, draft review, payslips, reporting and specified compliance work.
Read articleSalary tax
The Income-tax Act, 2025 transition changes the references payroll teams use, including familiar form numbers. A correct implementation needs a map tied to the applicable period, not a global find-and-replace across every historical document.
Read articlePayroll operations
A payroll variance report explains why this month differs from the last. It should help an approver understand the movement in pay, not simply highlight every cell that changed.
Read articleStatutory compliance
A payslip explains an employee’s pay for a period. A payroll register supports the employer’s calculation and recordkeeping.
Read articleStatutory compliance
A registration certificate establishes an important starting point. It does not show that this month’s employees were included correctly, that the return was accepted or that the required contribution was paid.
Read articleSalary tax
A change of employer does not start a fresh tax year. If the new payroll forecast ignores salary already earned and tax already deducted elsewhere, the employee may receive an unrealistic take-home estimate and face a larger adjustment later.
Read articleState payroll compliance
Professional tax is not a single national payroll rate. It arises under the relevant state or local framework, with its own applicability, categories, exemptions, slabs and administrative requirements.
Read articlePayroll outsourcing
A payroll proposal should be clear enough for HR, finance and the provider to use during a difficult month.
Read articleSalary tax
Calling a payment reimbursement does not automatically make it tax free. Payroll needs to understand what the payment represents, whether it repays an actual business expense, what evidence supports it and which tax provision applies for the relevant year and employee circumstances.
Read articleSalary tax
Receiving several months of salary arrears in one payment can change the employee’s tax working. That does not mean the arrears are automatically tax free.
Read articleLabour Codes
A payroll deduction needs a lawful basis before anyone checks whether the employee can afford it. The fact that money is recoverable under an internal policy does not automatically establish that the entire amount may be taken from the current wage payment.
Read articleLabour Codes
Full and final settlement is an administrative label for several exit-related items. It can include final wages, leave encashment, reimbursements, recoveries, gratuity and other amounts.
Read articleLabour Codes
The word bonus can describe different payments. A statutory bonus follows the relevant legal framework, while a performance bonus or sales incentive may arise from an employment arrangement or business scheme.
Read articlePayroll outsourcing
Changing payroll providers during the year is possible, but the new processor needs more than the latest employee master.
Read articleEPF and social security
A correct PF calculation can still lead to employee problems when identity or service dates are wrong. UAN, member references, joining dates and exit dates connect payroll to the employee’s wider social-security record.
Read articlePayroll Advisor services
Payroll Advisor’s managed service brings the agreed payroll activities into a monthly process with clear inputs, review and employer approval.
Read articleAttendance and employee data
Face recognition and a workplace-location check can support an attendance process, but they do not independently decide an employee’s final salary.
Read articleEmployee lifecycle
Follow the handoff from an employer-recorded personal email to settlement review, approvals and final slip delivery.
Read articlePayroll operations
A good payroll input pack answers four questions for every change: which employee, what changed, when it takes effect and who approved it.
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