You can manage recurring additions and deductions for an individual employee directly from their employee record. Additions cover items such as allowances, reimbursements, or accrual-based entitlements. Deductions cover items such as salary sacrifice arrangements, union fees, or additional tax withholdings. Each entry links to a configured Pay Item in your organisation and feeds directly into pay run calculations.

📌Note: You need the View Employee Additions & Deductions permission to see this tab, and the Edit Employee Additions & Deductions permission to add, edit, or delete entries.

Add a new addition or deduction

To add a new recurring entry to an employee's record, follow these steps.

Navigate to the top menu Employees, select the employee, then select the Additions and Deductions tab.
Click Add Additions/Deductions. A new editable row appears at the bottom of the table.
Select a Type from the dropdown: Addition or Deduction.
Select a Pay Item from the dropdown. The list is filtered based on the selected type.
Enter the Units value. For percentage pay items, enter the percentage (for example, enter 10 for 10%).
Enter the Rate. For standard pay items, enter the dollar amount per unit. For percentage pay items, the rate is set automatically.
Optionally set a Commencement Date. Leave blank to default to the employee's hired date.
Optionally set a Cease Date. Leave blank for an ongoing entry.
Optionally enter any Comments.
Click Save to submit the new entry.

🤓Tip: You can add multiple entries before saving. Each click of Add Additions/Deductions creates an additional row.

⚠️Important: If you change the Type after selecting a Pay Item, the Pay Item selection will be cleared, and you must reselect.

Edit existing entries

You can edit any existing addition or deduction entry directly in the table.

Navigate to the employee's Additions and Deductions tab.
Click Edit. All existing rows become editable.
Modify the desired fields (Type, Pay Item, Units, Rate, dates, or Comments).
Click Save to apply your changes or Cancel to discard them.

⚠️Warning: Changing the Commencement Date or Cease Date of an existing entry to cover a period that has already been processed in a pay run may trigger backpay calculations in the next pay run. Review date changes carefully before saving.

Delete an entry

You can mark one or more entries for deletion while in edit mode, then confirm with a single save.

Click Edit to enter edit mode (or click Add to enter edit mode if adding simultaneously).
Click the Delete button (trash icon) on the row you wish to remove. The row is visually marked for deletion.
If you change your mind, click the Undo button on the same row to reverse the deletion mark.
Click Save to confirm the deletion or Cancel to discard all changes including deletions.

⚠️Important: Deleting an active entry that has been processed in previous pay runs may cause backpay adjustments in the next pay run.

View current or all entries

You can filter the table to show only active entries or view the full history of all entries.

Select the Show Current radio button (the default) to display only entries that are active as of today.
Select the Show All radio button to display all entries, including those with a past cease date or a future commencement date.

📌Note: The Show Current and Show All options are disabled while the page is in edit mode. Click Save or Cancel to exit edit mode before changing the filter.

How additions and deductions affect pay runs

Understanding how entries are processed helps you avoid unintended backpay and ensures accurate payslips.

Pay run calculations

During a pay run, the system evaluates each employee's entries as follows:

Date filtering: Only entries whose date range overlaps the pay period are included — the commencement date must be on or before the period end, and the cease date on or after the period start.
Pro-rata calculation: If an entry's commencement or cease date falls within the pay period, the system calculates a pro-rata ratio based on the pay calendar's configured Pro Rata Mode:
- Calendar Days — ratio of applicable calendar days to total period days.
- Scheduled Days — ratio of applicable scheduled working days to total scheduled days. If no work schedule exists, this falls back to Calendar Days.
Percentage pay items: Pro-rata is not applied to units for percentage-based pay items, as the percentage is implicitly pro-rated through the target earnings it is calculated against.
Additions: Create expense line items in the pay run. Costing (project, role, location, department) is determined by the employee's primary assignments as of the costing date, unless the pay item uses a Proportion Costing Across Period strategy.
Deductions: Create deduction line items. For percentage deductions, the amount is calculated as a percentage of the target pay items' total. For taxation-category deductions, the resulting amount is rounded down to whole dollars.
Conditional processing: Some pay items are configured to only process when other earnings exist. If the employee has no other payment line items in the pay run (for example, a full month of leave without pay), these entries are skipped.

Backpay implications

Changes to additions and deductions can trigger backpay calculations in subsequent pay runs. The following actions may result in backpay:

Backdating a commencement date to an already-processed pay period.
Backdating a cease date to a previously processed pay period.
Changing the units or rate of an entry where previous pay runs used the old values.
Deleting an entry that was included in a previous pay run calculation.
Adding a new entry with a commencement date in the past that covers already-processed pay periods.

🤓Tip: To avoid unintended backpay, set the commencement date of new entries to the start of the next unprocessed pay period. When ceasing an entry, set the cease date to the end of the last pay period you wish the entry to apply to.

Employer vs. employee treatment

Additions (type: Expense) are costs borne by the employer and appear as payment line items on the employee's payslip.
Deductions (type: Liability) are amounts withheld from the employee's gross pay and reduce their net pay.

Other downstream effects

STP Reporting: Changes to additions and deductions are reported in STP (Single Touch Payroll) lodgements as part of the employee's gross and net pay figures.
Batch Payments: Deductions configured as third-party payments (for example, union fees) will flow through to batch payment processing.
Employee Notifications: When additions or deductions are updated, the employee receives a feed notification if they have a linked user account.

Manage employee additions and deductions