If you have problems in getting a payroll service Singapore has a lot to offer when it comes to that field. So you have weighed the pros and cons already and have decided in getting one for your business. You have come to realize that not only it is convenient, cost effective and time saving. Now what do you need to look for in hiring payroll services Singapore has to offer?

Here Are Basic Payroll Services Singapore Should Have:

1. Tax Processing: Most basic payroll processing packages will include the computation, filing and payment of employment taxes. Payroll services Singapore typically also compute withholding amounts based on employee salaries and status and accomplished forms.

2. Cost Reporting: Reporting services can help you determine how employee costs (wages, benefits, commissions, etc.) contribute to total business expenses. They can help you determine if the incentives and bonuses to employees are working as intended.

3. Direct Deposit: Depositing employee wages directly into bank accounts is a highly valued feature. It is a MUST. Most banks actually require direct deposit as a condition of offering “free” checking accounts. Direct deposit is especially convenient for companies who hire seasonal employees or employees that work on a shift-it saves the workers or employees the extra trip just to pick up their check.

4. Online Account Access: Both business owners and employees can opt for an online access payroll package, which allows you access to pay information at any time. With the fast paced business environment, this is a feature that is necessary especially for fast tracking payroll information from a different location and implement changes immediately.

Finding The Right Payroll Services Singapore

Choosing the right service provider is important. Not only will they have access to very confidential company information, but they are also responsible for employee wages and deposits- a miscalculation can result in angry employees or even tax penalties and fees. Discuss these matters beforehand and see how they would handle this situation if it happens. Make sure you check references, investigate the company history, and compare at least 3-5 different vendors before making your decision.

Payroll Singapore: Funds

Your employees’ payroll can easily be determined and processed with the help of computer software that have optimization for leaves, absences, attendance, incentives and bonuses for each and every employee. These types of software can process the figures on time or fast tracked, as soon as data is entered in the computer. And it makes data collection for summary reports, payment reports and tax collection reports easier, and faster.

Payroll Singapore: Funds That Are Mandatory

As per Singaporean labor laws, employees or workers are required to pay certain funds or fees that depends on their salary. Payroll softwares are designed to easily compute or determine the amount each employee or worker has to pay from their gross salary and may execute direct payment to the respective government agencies or offices. Most Singaporean workers must pay the Central Provident Fund and the amount that has to be paid is relative to a person’s age and salary.

Payroll Singapore: Skill Development Levy (SDL)

Singaporean employees or workers must pay for Skills Development Fund (SDF) with the institution of the Skills Development Levy (SDL) Act with the primary objective of encouraging employers to invest in skills upgrading of the workforce. The SDF does this by giving assistance as an incentive to companies to mount training programs for their employees or workers.

Incentives are offered on the basis of a cost-sharing principle and the training must be relevant to the economic development of Singapore. The amount of incentives that a company can obtain is not tied to the levy contribution.

SDL contribution is payable by employers to all employees up to the first $4500 of gross monthly wage. Casual, part-timers, temporary and foreign workers rendering services wholly or partly in Singapore are also required to pay SDL contribution. It is best to know everything you need to know before getting the services of a payroll specialist. Nevertheless, your company still deserves to have the best service available in town.

What You Should Know About Payroll Services In Singapore

Processing the paychecks of your employees can be time consuming and tedious task. Computations, transfers of funds to individual bank accounts, setting up bank accounts for employees and different government agencies can be a maze of paperwork. There are issues to deal with like paying employees taxes, submitting a year end tax report and this is not a simple task since tax amounts vary if an employee gets married, have children or if there are new regulations to be implemented. Compliance should always be immediate to avoid late filing fees or penalties. This is where independent payroll service in Singapore should come in.

Here Are The Benefits In Outsourcing Payroll Services In Singapore

Concerns in Staffing. You would not need to hire or set up an entire department for payroll. It is more cost effective than hiring an in-office payroll bookkeeper. Smaller businesses can not afford to get a full time bookkeeper. An outsourced payroll service in Singapore performs all of these duties: one: preparing employee paychecks, two: depositing tax amounts, and three: administering employee benefits.

They are the experts. They have the knowledge, they know the ins and outs and are updated with current tax laws and regulations and accounting principles. And of course, they make sure their computations are reliable and always correctly done.

Save time and money. By not doing the payroll functions yourself, you save a large amount of time and a lot of cash. By being able to focus on more important and pressing matters in your business, you’ll be able to get more revenue for the company. Hiring payroll services in Singapore allows you to leave the administrative tasks and paperwork to an expert, freeing up more time for business owners and managers or officers to perform other tasks that are essential to the running of the business or company.

Good reputation of the business or company. Since you will be paying employees on time and with what is really due to them, you would gain positive feedback from them. And since you are up to date with constantly changing regulations, withholding rates, and government forms, you file and pay on time which reflects how well managed your business is and how you adhere into following the law.

Types Of Secretarial Services In Singapore

Almost all companies need secretarial services in Singapore. From attorneys, to corporations, doctors and financial advisers, they all need secretarial services. They are in need of professionals who specialize in document processing, database management, newsletters, reports, and even transcriptionists for medical records. They need efficient people who will help them be more organized, structured and smoothly run.

Virtual assistance is another form of secretarial service. They are what you call outsourcing administrative or clerical work to service providers. Complicated and multiple sets of work are being handled professionally through the use of technology. Some of administrative jobs that are often outsourced to virtual assistants are technical documentation, general office and internet support, database creation and management and even professional design and layout services. There are a lot of administrative jobs that can be covered by a virtual assistant, and this can also be within your budget.

Outsourcing Secretarial Services In Singapore

Many companies are into outsourcing. One of this is outsourcing secretarial services. It can be offshore or from another company in Singapore that offers secretarial services. It is better to outsource secretarial services off shore because the labor cost is much cheaper. And with the development in technology, like fast file transfer and uploading and faster internet services; it is not impossible for outsourced companies to deliver what is expected of them.

Companies are outsourcing this kind of service in Singapore because of the high cost in hiring full time employees. Outsourcing no longer goes through the expensive process of choosing, interviewing and hiring an applicant to become your secretary or administrative assistant. Companies who outsource secretarial services in Singapore also do not need to pay the benefits of the employee.

In all cases, the success of outsourcing falls greatly on the shoulder of the service provider. They must provide customer and client satisfaction and deliver a quality work that will provide steady stream of work in the future.

The rank and file employees of a company make sure that the operations of the business are smooth. Thus, those who are part of the secretarial team are considered as the backbone of the business. Though it is often perceived that their job is small and unimportant, their functions are integral to the success of the organization.

The difference between secretarial services and virtual assistants

Though they both support managers in business operations, secretarial employees are not the same with virtual assistants. More often, secretarial services are limited to the clerical functions in the office while virtual assistants can be skilled in graphic design, website design and SEO writing to name a few. More secretarial workers are confined in the office while virtual assistants can work anywhere.

Despite the differences, both positions can be used as a springboard to go up the corporate ladder. For secretarial services, the ability of secretarial personnel to perform several tasks at once is a vital skill that will propel to higher positions. Companies that are hiring would love to have an employee that cannot be rattled by the pressure of overlapping workloads.

What do secretarial services need for work?

Aside from taking down notes during meetings, they are also asked to transcribe the proceedings of the meeting and send the transcription through e-mail to all parties involved. They are also responsible for managing company databases and performing bookkeeping functions at times. The making of credit cards, flyers, hand-outs and important company documents is part of their duties as well.

For all of these functions, secretarial services would need a computer that has a word processing software and access to the Internet to send e-mails. If the meetings were recorded using an audio device, they should also have a transcription software. Meanwhile, desktop publishing programs can help them prepare for calling cards and print-outs.

Once they are done with their tasks, a printer would come in handy so that the document can be disseminated faster. A fax machine is also necessary especially if a client or a manager prefers receiving documents using this option. Finally, secretarial personnel should have their own telephone line for easier relaying of requests.

No business would function without people who work in the background. While executives plan the direction of the company, more employees aid them with clerical functions. These workers are deemed important in any business for they are responsible to making the daily operations go smoothly. Due to its importance, there are college courses that train student for this line of duty.

Secretarial courses

Secretarial Services offer various courses depending on specialization. There is a general course, a course for aspiring students that would like to be a dental secretary, a medical secretary, a legal secretary or a general secretary in the future. Though there are differences in the subjects of each thrust, basic skills such as touch typing, transcribing and speed typing are taught to all students.

Aside from typing and transcribing, students are also taught to operate computer programs for data processing and desktop publishing. These skills are important for proper organization of company documents and the production of office print-outs such as hand-outs, manuals and calling cards. Business communication is also being taught for them to practice relating to other people.

Specializations and length of secretarial courses

Those who aspire to be a legal secretary must take an Introduction to legal secretary course. Aside from that, they have to take subjects on law terminologies, family law, wills, company law and civil litigation. Meanwhile, those who want to be a medical secretary have to learn medical transcription. Students who aim to be a dental secretary should take an introductory course.

The shortest course that they can take is a certificate program which lasts for three to six months. Then, a diploma course takes six to 12 months to complete while an associate degree is good for two years. Aside from their duties, associate students learn more about office management, administrative duty and more special terminologies.

The bachelor’s degree in Secretarial Sciences is the longest among all courses and it takes four to five years to complete. Here, students also learn about English research, business writing, communication studies, mathematics and even foreign languages. All of the courses mentioned can be taken in a school set-up or an online set-up wherein students learn through modules and virtual classrooms.

Payroll in Singapore is easily processed with the help of computer software that optimizes the attendance, leaves, bonuses, incentives and deductions for every employee. The payroll system can process these figures quickly and it makes data collection for payment reports, taxation reports and summary reports easier.

Payroll Singapore mandatory funds

As per Singaporean labor laws, each employee is required to pay certain funds and the fee depends on their salary. The payroll Singapore software can calculate the amount for each fund from a worker’s gross salary and they can pay directly to the respective governing bodies. The most general fund that Singaporean workers must pay is the Central Provident Fund and the payment amount is relative to a person’s age and salary.

All employees in Singapore, local or foreign, are required to contribute to the CPF. The funds that are collected through it can be used for worker loans and pension funds. Aside from the CPF, there are also ethnic funds for non-Singaporean personnel. Chinese employees have to pay to the CDAC while Malaysians have to remit to the MBMF. Workers from India must pay the ethnic fund to SINDA while European and Asia employees can course their contributions to the ECF.

Singaporeans and permanent residents are also obliged to contribute to the National Service Fund. When the need arises, able workers will be called to national service and their salaries will be paid by the Defense Ministry. However, the CPF will continually be paid by the employee.

Payroll Singapore levies and leaves

All Singapore employees must pay for the Skill Development Levy which is used for training programs. The levy can is worth 0.25% of the worker’s income if his salary is at most S$4500. Companies can get up to 90 percent of subsidies for employee training through the SDL. Also, foreign workers have to pay the pro-rated Foreign Workers Levy.

Singapore employees are entitled to seven days of personal leave annually. They can also get up to 14 days of medical leave and six days of child care leave. Female employees can get up to 60 days of maternity leave.

Employees work hard to earn money and to get promoted. But before they receive their monthly salaries, the assigned personnel make sure that each worker gets the right compensation. As payday nears, these workers work with accountants to make error-free calculations on employee wages.

How is payroll calculated?

Before tabulating the figures that would be included in the salary, the cut-off for payments is determined first. Most companies have two cut-off periods per month and worker incomes would only reflect the days within the time frame. Though an employee is entitled to a monthly payment, their salary is still calculated according to the number of hours that they have worked as shown in their attendance.

For each hour that they have worked, they will be compensated according to the salary that was agreed upon in the employee contract. However, deductions are due for the hours that he did not work if the employee did not file a paid leave for it. Deductions are also done when an employee is late for work or when he works for less than the hours that is stipulated in the contract.

After the salary based on the number of working hours have been plotted, the payroll staff will check if the employee is entitled to overtime pays, bonuses or incentives. There are bonuses that are required by labor laws but additional incentives can be given based on a worker’s performance. Also, overtime work must be approved by a supervisory employee and an overtime report must be filed by the employee.

Fixing the payroll list and disbursement of salaries

Once all working hours, overtime pays, bonuses and incentives have been factored in, a list of payable salaries for all the employees of the company is created and the corresponding salary will be allotted for each worker.

When payday comes, the employees can receive the salary in an envelope or through a payroll bank account. Employees should also be given a payslip that shows the breakdown of the received income. From the payslip, workers can contest miscalculations on their salary.

Being one of the most progressive countries in Asia, Singapore is home to various foreign workers. Practically in every field you will be able to find an employee of a different nationality. Because of this, it is important to be knowledgeable about Singapore Taxation. Although this is taken care of by the employer, it is best to be aware where your hard earned Singapore dollar goes. Below are some of the tax basics that you need to know.

Residence As One Factor Singapore Taxation Depends On

The two main factors that your taxes may depend on are your residence status and the amount of income you earn. If you are a non resident staying or working in the country for less than sixty days or exactly sixty days you are exempted from tax. However, it should be remembered that this does not apply for those whose employment are of being a director or an entertainer among others.

If you are working for more than sixty days but less than 183 days, while maintaining a non-residence status, your tax will be at 15% or resident rates. This will still depend on which will yield a higher tax. The resident rate is for those who will be employed for 183 days or more. In this case, income tax will be from 0% to 22% based on the Year of Assessment 2003.

Other Concerns On Singapore Taxation

Should your country of origin have a treaty with Singapore then you may be able to enjoy some privilege such as not being taxed two times on the same income. Remember to send the tax form on or before the 15th of April of every year. You will receive these forms a month prior to this submission date.

In case your employment ends, your employer bears the responsibility of informing the IRAS a month before or at least a month before leaving the country. There is a tax clearance that will be given to you thirty days after notification from your employment has been submitted. These reminders are important as any problem regarding your taxes may result in preventing you from leaving the country among other things.

When starting a business it is best if you could get all the help that you can get. One example is hiring a secretary. This is in conjunction with Singapore Companies Act that requires a company to hire a local secretary company. With this person on hand, a great many things can be done and achieved successfully, not to mention, relatively more quickly than doing everything yourself. So how do you get a secretary? Search online and you are sure to find many secretary services.

Importance Of A Singapore Secretary Service

The many things that a secretary can do for your company range from filing of pertinent requirements to making sure you are complying with the mandated laws. Having this professional by your side is like having a guarantee that you will not go wrong and be neglectful of your duties. Such a person is a great help in doing the things that need to be done but you cannot attend to anymore.

For example, if you are having a meeting, a secretary is your best go-to when asking for minutes. This is the exact same reason that the minutes of annual general meetings are usually handled by the secretary. The filing of documents, also, is a very important task that cannot be neglected. With the secretary being present, there can be less problems.

Duties Of Singapore Secretary Service

Among the many responsibilities of a secretary, the ones that are worthy of mention are maintaining of statutory registers and minute books, submission of annual returns, monitoring the filing deadlines, taking care of company’s liquidation, preparing the minutes and resolutions for every annual general meeting.

Other tasks of the company secretary are advising on corporate secretarial compliance issues, giving updates on any development with regards to compliance regulations, to oversee routine secretarial filing and to give general advisory. These are only a few of what we can expect from getting the services of a secretary.