Payroll manages the portion of accounting that is related to salaries, wages, and bonuses for employees. The software must be able to support the following set of functionality: payroll profile for the employees, benefits and deductions, eligibility controls, user’s balances, tax deductions, as well as payroll calculations, processing of payments, check printing, check distribution, tax documentation, security and auditing, and automated timesheets.

The employee payroll profile allows administrators to add, change, or delete information regarding an employee (including their personal, wage, tax , deductions at source, and direct deposit information).

Earnings and deductions include all monies payable to and deducted from an employee for services rendered. Earnings may include wages, commissions, and bonuses. Deductions may include taxes, benefits, etc.

Eligibility parameters (or eligibility rules) are those fields of information which directly affect an employee's benefits. These rules are used to determine whether the employee is eligible for a specific benefits plan or not.

This user balances functionality allows administrators to define opening balances for earnings, deductions, and tax deductions for each employee within the enterprise. User balances can be defined in various units of measure such as, currency, hours, or integers. In deductions where there is a cap amount, the system will automatically stop the deduction once it has reached the defined user balance.

Automatic time reporting devices such as bar code technology allows the system to generate an automated time sheet showing all the hours worked by any given employee. Automation helps to streamline the time reporting process and removes the need for manual time entry (such as sign in sheets or punch cards).

Security and audit trails help ensure that confidential data is processed accurately and efficiently. Security and audit trails provide a complete record of every function performed by a system user, including the date, time, and the function that was performed.