The Social Security Office has again announced changes to contribution rates to the Social Security Fund. The new contribution rates are 3% employer contribution and 3% employee contribution for the first three months of 2021 (January – March 2021).
Your copy of Totem has already been updated with new SSF Contribution rates for your company and is ready for January 2021 payroll. The ability to make changes to SS rates is available in Settings under Social Security Rates. Please check that the updates match your expectations.
For those of you who are responsible for payroll preparation, 2020 has introduced some changes to Social Security contributions which have caused some confusion!
As a result of the covid-19 pandemic, the Social Security Office made changes to the amounts to the contributions of both employee and employers. Briefly, as per the following
Month
Employee Rate
Company Rate
Jan
5%
5%
Feb
5%
5%
Mar
1%
4%
Apr
1%
4%
May
1%
4%
Jun
5%
5%
Jul
5%
5%
Aug
5%
5%
Sep
2%
2%
Oct
2%
2%
Nov
2%
2%
Dec
5%
5%
There was also a deferral of payment possible in the Mar-May extending the payment of the amounts due for these months by 3 months.
Some companies ended up overpaying the SSO amounts in the first reduced period due to the on-line system not accepting contributions based on the new rates. We are advised that companies that have overpaid amounts can claim those overpayments from the SSO, and, the company having the overpayment can claim both employer and employee overpayment. Companies affected should contact the SSO for details on how to claim. SPS 1-23/1.
Within the GainPlus payroll reports, there is a report named Social Security annual payments, and if this report is run, all payments for SSO contributions will be reported for the year-to-date of the year selected, with overpayment months highlighted.
Important: the Revenue Department has advised us that the taxable deduction allowable for taxpayers is limited to the published figure for SSO deductions, therefore any overpayments of SSO amounts will not be able to be used when calculating the deduction for SSO that the employee is eligible for. We have been referred to Section 47 of the Revenue Code amended by Section 3 of the Revenue Act (Act 27/2533). Also see PND 90 and 91 section 1.4 in explanatory notes. If in doubt make sure you consult either the Revenue Department or your Auditor / Tax Specialist.
So to summarise the amount taxpayers are eligible to deduct from their tax will be different in 2020. How does this affect companies using Totem payroll? In December, Totem will notify payroll users to update the maximum deductible allowable for SSO deductions (ie taxable income deduction from THB 9,000 to THB 5,850). We plan to leave it until December in case there is a further change notified for December (currently December stands at 5% for both employee and employer). After updating the official allowance, Companies making the change to the maximum allowance will have any discrepancies in tax made accurate by the December tax calculation.
The Social Security Office has announced changes to contribution rates to the Social Security Fund. The new contribution rates are 2% employer contribution and 2% employee contribution for the next three months. (September– November 2020)
For any enquires relating to the Social Security, contact your Social Security Office, but for help with making changes to Totem, call me if you have questions after viewing our FAQ.
We’ve put together a short video that shows HR Managers how to make the change to the Public Holidays section of the Totem Leave Management. Click on below image to view the video.
One thing HR Managers should check if any staff have already been granted leave which covers the period of the new holiday. If this has occurred the manager should, after the new day has been added to the Public Holiday list, advise the leave taker to cancel their original request for leave and then reapply for that leave. The new leave will not include the new holiday when calculating the number of leave days.
The Social Security Office has announced changes to contribution rates to the Social Security Fund. The new contribution rates are 4% employer contribution and 1% employee contribution for the next three months (March – May 2020) with a possibility of further adjustments to the rates depending on how the Covid-19 situation develops.
In addition to the change in rates, the Social Security Office has postponed the payment submission deadline from the 15 April to 15 July 2020.
At this point these changes have yet to be gazetted and the Social Security Office has advised contributors to follow the existing 5% contribution rate for both employers and employees. They advise that if there are any overpaid contributions these will be eligible for refund.
GainPlus Totem users should be aware of this situation and that after the changes are gazetted, GainPlus will globally update these changes immediately in the Totem Payroll program.
If you wish to apply the new rates immediately the Totem Payroll program has been updated and will allow you to adjust rates. Here are the instructions.
We’re expanding our payroll software to assist companies needing to manage their Employee Benefits Package as part of the company payroll process.
What’s this all about? Employers of choice provide a comprehensive employee benefits package to attract and retain employees. In addition to a competitive salary, an employee benefits package is a standard, and expected, part of an employee total compensation package. For a benefit scheme to be successful it should be seen by both parties to be an investment in the employee by the company which is designed to improve the employee’s development and as a result to deliver an advantage to the company.
Approaches may vary, but often an employer provides a framework for employees to claim expenses against specific benefit items. This is where Totem comes in. How do we do it?
Staff are assigned to receive Benefits by belonging to a Totem Benefit profile. Totem supports unlimited number of profiles.
Totem Benefit profiles provide different templates for sets of benefits per employee as part of the onboarding process (at time of joining or later, when required).
Once configured, the employee can review those details on their mobile phone (via the Totem Payroll App) and this ensures that all staff members are aware of their benefits.
The setup process also identifies the manager or staff member who can approve the benefits.
Totem provides a claim process for the employee to claim an individual benefit.
This form is available either through the employee’s Payroll Mobile App and the dashboard of their Payroll website.
Once the claim form is completed, it is sent by Totem to the nominated manager for approval.
Supporting documents, receipts, or a photo, can be attached to the claim.
Once the benefit is claimed and approved, Totem includes the approved amount in the employee’s next pay run.
Benefit balances are then updated and displayed.
Committed expenses for the pay period are included in the payroll summary and are allocated to General Ledger accounts identified when benefits are created.
Managers and HR staff can review staff balances and expenditure through dashboard charts and tables on their Payroll web site.
We’ve recently added some improvements to the way we display payroll information at the detail level. This improvement should make it easier for both payroll creators and checkers to identify where changes occur in the payroll run. The following graphic is illustrative of the changes:
click on picture to enlarge
On the LHS of the display next to the user name any changes occurring in the pay period that relate to:
LWOP
Change of employee’s bank account (also shows verified or unverified)
New Joiner
Resigned or terminated staff
If manual adjustments in tax or provident fund
On the RHS of the display, changes from the previous months are highlighted. Increases in values from the previous month show in Green. Reductions show in Blue. The threshold level for the display can be changed in settings. The default change value to show is 1,000 Baht. We think these changes are important in that they now allow involved staff to more clearly view changes that have occurred in payrolls to allow better focus and checking. Let us know what you think.
We’ve also improved the communication of the approval process steps. With Totem Payroll, approval of payrolls can be a multi step process. For example, a typical scenario may be:
Preparer
Checker
1st approver
2nd Approver
These steps are created in settings, and then every step is identified and a record is kept of the involved staff with date and time and individual details. These become part of the auditable record. Once a sign off occurs at one level, the next person in the chain is notified by mail, with complete details showing of the process.
The graphic below is a sample of the mail sent to the next processor on the list when the current process is marked as completed.
click on picture to enlarge
When changes have been made to an employee bank account the change and the verification details are stored with the employee record. See below:
Thai Labour law states clearly that for companies with more than 10 employees leave policies must be available in the Thai language, in writing and be part of published Work Rules. Work Rules must be generally available to all staff.
On May 5 2019 the Labour Protection Act (No 7) was published in the Royal Gazette and is now applicable to all companies in Thailand. The Act updated several aspects of leave and some other Labour related provisions. Key amendments include:
Our policy document is provided below at no charge, and can be downloaded in both Microsoft Word format and Adobe Portable Document Format.
If you don’t yet have a leave policy for your company we suggest that you consider creating one, and what better way to manage it all than to use Totem Leave Management software, the best leave system suitable available in Thailand, capable of handling from the smallest to the largest of companies.
As we’ve had some questions regarding our process for calculation of tax for Thai payroll, we decided to publish an infographic which covers the calculation process.
Recently our hardworking team completed a number of updates to all of our GainPlus applications – TaBS; Totem Leave; and Totem Payroll, to allow Single Sign On using Microsoft Azure Active Directory credentials and OKTA Identity Cloud.
Our integrations provide for seamless authentication using existing Microsoft passwords from Active Directory (and any changes to them) or by using centralized password management from OKTA.
Contact us if you would like further information on implementation for your GainPlus application.
Download PDF
Download Word version
