Payroll software in Pakistan: a guide for small firms

Most small businesses in Pakistan start payroll the same way: a register for attendance, a notebook for advances, and a long evening at month end with a calculator. It works with five people. At fifteen, someone is always unhappy with their salary, and at thirty you are spending two days a month on it.

Payroll software fixes that, but only if it does the parts that are actually hard here. This is the checklist we would use if we were buying.

1. Attendance that feeds salary by itself

Salary is only as right as the attendance under it. Look for:

• A way to mark attendance your staff will actually use. A fingerprint machine, a QR card scanned on a phone at the gate, or a manager marking it. If it is a hassle, people skip it and you are back to the register.
• Shifts and late rules. A night shift that ends at 6 am belongs to the day before. Three lates becoming one day's cut is a common rule; the software should let you set it, not hard-code it.
• Leave that is approved, not just written down. Paid leave should not cut salary; unpaid leave should.

If you have to copy attendance into payroll by hand, it is not payroll software, it is a calculator with a login.

2. The way you really pay people

Every business pays a little differently. Good software lets you choose:

• Per-day rate: divide by the days in the month, by working days, or by a fixed 30. (We explain the difference in how to calculate per-day salary.)
• Allowances: house rent, conveyance, food, mobile. Some count for tax, some do not.
• Overtime: at 1.5× or 2× the hourly rate, on basic or on gross.
• Advances and loans: an advance taken on the 12th comes off this month; a loan of Rs 60,000 comes off at Rs 5,000 a month until it is cleared.

3. Deductions that are law

• EOBI: the employer's and the employee's share, every month. See EOBI for employers.
• Income tax: only for staff above the taxable limit, worked out on the yearly salary and taken monthly. The slabs change every budget, so the software must let you update them rather than ship old ones.
• Provident fund, if you run one.

4. Slips, bank file, and books

At the end, three things should come out without extra work: a salary slip for each person (on paper, in an app, or on WhatsApp), a bank salary file you can upload to HBL, MCB, Meezan, UBL or your own bank, and an entry in your books so salaries show in your profit and loss.

5. Questions to ask before you pay

• Does it work on a phone? Most owners in Pakistan check things on the phone, not a laptop.
• Can staff see their own slip and leave balance, so they stop asking you?
• Is there an Urdu or Roman Urdu screen for the person who runs it?
• Can you leave? Ask how you get your data out in Excel.
• What does it cost when you go from 10 to 40 people?

Where Munshi fits

Munshi's HR and payroll software does the list above: QR cards or a ZKTeco fingerprint machine for attendance, shifts and leave, payroll with advances, loans, EOBI and tax slabs you can edit, slips in the staff app and on WhatsApp, and a bank salary file. If you only have a few staff at a shop, the simpler staff attendance app inside the shop app may be all you need. You can start free and run one month side by side with your register before you trust it.