HR & Payroll in Tracksales helps you manage employees, run payroll, issue payslips, track leave, and handle salary advances from one workspace. This guide explains how to get started, what each area does, and the typical workflow from setup through payment.

1. Opening HR & Payroll

From the main sidebar, open HR & Payroll. You land on the HR dashboard, which shows active employees, recent payroll activity, outstanding salary advances, and quick actions.

The HR sidebar includes:

  • Dashboard — overview and quick actions
  • Employees — employee profiles and payroll details
  • Salary advances — advances, approvals, and recoveries
  • Leave — leave requests, calendar, and approvals
  • Payroll runs — create and process payroll for a period
  • Payslips — view, print, and email issued payslips
  • Settings — payroll configuration (if you have permission)

2. Permissions and access

HR actions are controlled through Settings → Team roles. Each role can be granted granular HR & Payroll permissions, including:

  • View HR & Payroll
  • Create and edit employees, leave, salary advances, and payroll runs
  • Approve payroll runs, leave requests, and salary advances
  • Mark payroll and advances as paid
  • Print and email payslips and salary advance documents
  • Exit employees and manage HR settings

Users only see menu items and buttons they are allowed to use. If something is missing, ask an administrator to update the role under Team roles.

3. Recommended setup order

Before your first payroll run, configure HR settings in this order:

  1. General — payroll country and organization defaults.
  2. Departments and Job titles — structure for reporting and employee records.
  3. Pay components — earnings and deductions (including statutory items for Kenya such as PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, and housing levy when applicable).
  4. Pay periods — how often you pay (e.g. monthly).
  5. Leave policies — annual leave rules, balances, and approval behaviour.
  6. Employees — add staff with salary, pay components, and employment details.

4. Employees

Go to HR & Payroll → Employees to manage your workforce.

  • Add employee — capture personal details, employment info, department, job title, and pay structure.
  • Employee files — attach documents (contracts, IDs, etc.) to the employee record.
  • Search and filters — find employees quickly in list view.
  • Exit employee — record exit date, reason, and options for final pay and recovering outstanding advances. Exited employees remain in history but are excluded from new payroll runs.

You cannot delete an employee who already has a payslip. This protects payroll history.

5. Salary advances

Salary advances let employees receive money before payday, with recovery through payroll or manual entries.

  1. Create a New salary advance for an employee with amount and notes.
  2. Approve the advance when ready.
  3. Mark as paid when the money has been disbursed.
  4. Record recovery as amounts are deducted from salary or repaid manually.

You can print and email salary advance documents from the details panel. Cancelling or deleting follows your permissions and the advance status.

6. Leave

Under Leave, you can:

  • Create leave requests for employees with dates, policy, and paid/unpaid type where applicable.
  • Approve or reject pending requests.
  • Cancel requests when plans change.
  • Use the Calendar view to see who is away and when.

Leave balances follow the policies you define in HR Settings. Approved leave may affect payroll depending on policy and pay type.

7. Payroll runs

A payroll run calculates pay for all active employees in a selected pay period.

  1. Go to Payroll runs and start a New payroll run.
  2. Choose the pay period and confirm which employees are included.
  3. Review each employee line — gross pay, deductions, and net pay. Edit lines if your role allows.
  4. Approve the run when calculations are correct.
  5. Mark as paid for the full run or per employee line after payment.

Statutory deductions (for supported countries such as Kenya) are calculated according to your enabled pay components and employee data. Salary advance recoveries can be applied during the run when configured.

You can print a payroll run summary. Draft runs can be deleted if no longer needed; approved or paid runs should be handled carefully to preserve records.

8. Payslips

After a payroll run is processed, Payslips are available for each employee.

  • Open the payslips list to search and filter by employee or period.
  • View breakdown of earnings, deductions, and net pay.
  • Print classic-format payslips.
  • Email payslips directly to employees.

9. HR Settings

Administrators with settings access can configure:

  • General — payroll defaults for the organization.
  • Departments and Job titles — organizational structure.
  • Pay components — sync and enable catalog components; toggle active components used in calculations.
  • Pay periods — define recurring payroll periods.
  • Leave policies — entitlements, accrual, minimum service, and pay rules.

10. Typical monthly workflow

  1. Add or update employee records and pay details.
  2. Process leave and salary advances for the month.
  3. Create and review the payroll run for the period.
  4. Approve the run, pay employees, and mark as paid.
  5. Distribute payslips (print or email).
  6. Record any manual salary advance recoveries if needed.

Need help?

If you do not see HR & Payroll in your menu, your role may not include access — contact your administrator. For payroll calculation questions, verify pay components, employee salaries, and pay period dates before opening a support ticket.