[GNC] Accounting Modules

[Stephen M. Butler]

On 11/27/18 6:47 AM, David Cousens wrote:
>
> Robert, Geert,
>
> On Tue, 2018-11-27 at 07:46 -0500, Robert Heller wrote:
>> At Tue, 27 Nov 2018 10:13:37 +0100 Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
>>
>>> Op dinsdag 27 november 2018 00:17:06 CET schreef John Ralls:
>>>
>>> Payroll on the other hand is not my cup of tea and likely more targeted at
>>> larger businesses.
>> Yes, a full fledged Payroll module would likely to be major bit of coding, but
>> maybe a simplified small scale Payroll module *might* be of use to smaller
>> businesses (say < 5 employees).
> With a payroll system, the number of employess is not really a factor in the coding effort
> as you have to have the same basic facilities in place to deal with a single employee. I don't
> think that there is such a thing as a simple payroll system in most juridictions.
>
> The most difficult part is setting up a system for deductions of income tax, superannuation etc.
> dealing with the different conditions for casual, part -time and full time staff is a hassle.
> You also have to track employee benefits like annual leave, sick leave, parental leave, etc,
> where these often accumulate on the basis of total hours worked.
>
> WHen I used MYOB for calculating my staff salaries I entered the appropriate hourly rates for
> each individual and whether casual/part-time/fulltime. Most of my staff were casual or part time.
> Our tax office provided online calculators based on the total weekly wage for
> tax eduction. There were also additions to the tax based on an income threshold for basic medicare
> coverage which had an additional levy which cut in for higher income earners or those who did not
> have private hospital insurance.
>
> Also, sometimes union fees, health insurance and compulsory superannuation which was a fixed percentage
> of the gross wage also had to be deducted and paid to specifc payees. A lot of these calculations were based on a table
> of thresholds and % rates which applied between each threshold. On top of that employees could specify
> deductions for compulsory workplace insurance and private life, income insurance etc payable to a specified accounts. To
> calculate  the payroll, you entered the hours worked and the rest was calculated.
>
> A payroll system also has to deal with overtime rates and in our case penalty rates which applied for work on Saturdays,
> Sundays and public holidays. A further complication is that these penalty rates were part of industrial awards for
> specific occupations and sometimes varied between specific occupations so all this was all employee specific and had to
> be tied to each employee's record. They also had Time off in lieu provisions This will not be not to implement in a way
> that can deal with differences in the rules and types of calculations used in different jurisdictions. Some payments
> were to our federal government and others wer to state governments depending on which administered a particular aspect.
>
> Some calculations depended totally on gross income but some were based on taxable income. The latter is difficult if the
> employee has more than one employer. Often one was specified as the main employer and all other employers were required
> to extract income tax at the maximum marginal rate.
>
> I am sure most other jurisdictions have similar but differnet complications to deal with
>
> Underpaying the tax office their share where it was collectable by the employer is of course a punishable civil offence
> should you be caught doing it in an audit.
>
> David Cousens


You might be able to built an abstract engine upon which other (local) 
configurators could build specific rules for their areas. Trying to do 
something to handle all cases out of the box is a recipe for early death 
by a thousand cuts.

-- 
Stephen M Butler, PMP, PSM
Stephen.M.Butler51 at gmail.com
kg7je at arrl.net
253-350-0166
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