HR: staff, hours, leave and pay runs
Published and maintained by Adtro Media
The staff work lives in the HR assistant: Assistants > HR > Dashboard. It has eight workspaces in the rail on the left.
Starting out (a brand with nobody on the payroll yet): Today shows a Getting started checklist. In order —
- People > Hire someone (one person) or Import a staff list (a spreadsheet). The form says what their record is still missing — a date of birth for CPF, the overtime category, an NRIC or FIN for the IR8A.
- People > Key Employment Terms > Fill in the terms. MOM requires written terms within 14 days of somebody's first day.
- People > Staff access on WhatsApp > Manage > Give access, so staff can read their own payslips and apply for leave from their phone (see the "Staff on WhatsApp" topic).
- Pay: everyone needs a monthly salary or an hourly rate on their profile. Hourly staff are paid from the hours you enter.
- Run the first month from Today — the checklist disappears once a pay run has been posted.
The eight workspaces:
- Today — what is owed, due or late, then the month's pay in the order it has to happen: hours, leave decisions, post the run, send the money, give out payslips, pay the CPF. Each step opens the screen that clears it. Use the month arrows to catch up on an earlier month.
- People — everyone on the payroll; click a name for their profile (pay, leave, documents, letters, access). Search by name, code, job, department, phone or email; filter by location, department, employment type or salaried/hourly; sort by name, newest hire or location (which also groups the list by location). "Needs attention" lists only the people with something to fix — a work pass expiring or expired, no bank details, no location, or a last day coming up. Long lists come in pages of 25, 50 or 100. Joining and leaving (pick someone by typing their name or code), the written terms register (KET, with an Outstanding filter) and staff WhatsApp access (with a No access filter) also live here. Export people, pay runs or pay lines as CSV, Excel or PDF from the Export menu.
- Hours — attendance (clock-ins staff sent on WhatsApp), the roster and the hours grid. Add shifts as drafts, Publish them, then Fill hours from the roster — only published shifts are copied. Type hours or days worked straight into the grid and use Save all.
- Leave — each person's balances with the rule behind every figure, carry-forward, what unused leave is worth, and Your leave policy (give more than the law, never less). Record leave for somebody here: pick the dates and Adtro suggests the working days (their working week, skipping public holidays) — change it if they work a different pattern. A leave year runs from each person's start date, not January.
- Pay — the month's figures (gross, CPF, skills levy, net pay, cost to employ), Post this pay run, then payslips and payday: download the Payments file, pay from your bank, and press I've paid this. Expense claims owed to staff are repaid with the next run, never as wages. Commission and incentives and Targets (KPI) are also here — see the "Commission, incentives and targets" topic.
- Requests — one queue: leave applications, letter requests and expense claims to approve or decline, then what staff sent in by form (clock-ins, takings, updated details). Forms staff can send in is where you create your own keyword forms.
- Hiring — see the "Hiring" topic.
- Compliance — the CPF deadline for every posted month until you mark it I've done this, written terms that are overdue, probation ending, and the year-end IR8A figures.
Things that trip people up:
- A pay run will not post while somebody is missing a statutory detail — a self-help group fund (or None), the monthly foreign worker levy for an S Pass or Work Permit holder, or which work pass a foreigner holds. The Pay screen lists who and links to their profile; tick Post anyway only if you will settle it separately.
- Approved no-pay leave is deducted from a monthly salary at MOM's daily rate; leave that crosses two months is split between them.
- CPF is due on the LAST day of the month the wages were paid. Adtro works it out but cannot pay it — pay on CPF EZPay, then record it on Today or Compliance.
- Posting makes the run final and produces the payslips. If you also have the books (FinBot), it writes the journal there; without them, download the journal figures for your accountant. A mistake is corrected with a reversal and a fresh run, never a second run for the same month.
- The Manager / Owner switch under the rail is a VIEW, not a permission: Manager hides Pay and Compliance to keep the screen simple. What someone can actually see and change is set by their role in Settings > Team (HR read or write).
Ask the HR assistant (the Chat tab) in words: "who is on this week?", "how much leave does Siti have left?", "run payroll for March", "add a new employee starting Monday" — each change comes back as a card somebody confirms.
Never type an NRIC or FIN into a chat. It is entered on the employee's own profile; Singapore employers must remove NRIC from authentication entirely by 31 December 2026.
If your plan does not include the HR assistant, upload a payroll summary in FinBot's Documents workspace and post it as a staff cost instead.
Faster: iBot inside your dashboard can walk you through this — or do it for you. Open Assistants and just ask.