Philippine Payroll Compliance Made Simple with PayZen

If you’ve ever processed payroll for a Philippine company, you know the complexity. SSS contribution tables change. PhilHealth premiums get updated. Holiday pay rules have multiple tiers depending on whether it’s a regular holiday, special non-working day, or a rest day that falls on a holiday. And getting any of these wrong means underpayment, overpayment, or a compliance issue waiting to happen.

Many Philippine businesses still compute payroll in Excel. It’s flexible, but it’s also fragile — one broken formula, one outdated contribution table, and the entire payroll run is wrong.

What Makes Philippine Payroll Complex

Government-Mandated Deductions

Every employee’s payroll involves three mandatory contributions:

• SSS (Social Security System) — contribution rates based on salary brackets, split between employer and employee
• PhilHealth — premium rates that change periodically, with an employer-employee split
• Pag-IBIG (Home Development Mutual Fund) — tiered contribution based on salary

Each agency publishes updated tables on their own schedule, and businesses are expected to implement changes immediately.

Holiday Pay Rules

The Philippines has one of the most complex holiday pay structures in the region:

• Regular holidays — 200% of daily rate for work performed
• Special non-working days — 130% of daily rate
• Rest day on a regular holiday — additional 30% premium
• Overtime on a holiday — yet another layer of computation

Miss one of these rules, and employees are underpaid.

Overtime and Night Differential

Standard overtime is 125% of the hourly rate. Night differential (10 PM to 6 AM) adds another 10%. When overtime falls during night hours, the rates compound.

How PayZen Handles This

PayZen was built specifically for Philippine payroll. It’s not a generic payroll system with PH settings bolted on — the computation engine understands Philippine labor law.

Built-In Contribution Tables

SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG contribution tables are built into the system. When rates change, the tables are updated — no manual formula adjustments needed. The system automatically applies the correct employer and employee shares based on each employee’s salary bracket.

Automated Computation Engine

For each payroll period, PayZen reads attendance data and automatically computes:

• Base pay adjusted for lates, absences, and undertime
• Overtime premiums based on day type (regular, rest day, holiday)
• Night differential at the correct rate
• Holiday pay at the appropriate tier
• All three government deductions
• Withholding tax

Flexible Attendance Input

Not every company has the same time-tracking setup. PayZen supports three ways to get attendance data in:

1. Manual entry via an editable grid — straightforward for small teams
2. Excel import — download a pre-filled template with your employee list, fill in the data, upload
3. HR system API — if you have PeopleCore or another HR system, push attendance data directly via REST API

All three paths feed into the same computation engine, ensuring consistency regardless of how data enters the system.

Period Locking

Once a payroll run is processed, the linked attendance period auto-locks. No one can go back and change attendance data after payroll has been computed. This prevents discrepancies and creates a clean audit trail.

Payslip PDF & BIR 2316

Every employee gets a PDF payslip generated — gross pay, each deduction line (SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, withholding tax), and net pay in a professional format. At year-end, generate BIR 2316 certificates of compensation payment and tax withheld for annual income tax reporting.

Custom Attendance Fields

Organizations can define custom attendance fields beyond the standard eight — specifying the field name, unit, and whether it affects earnings or deductions. This means PayZen adapts to your specific tracking needs without code changes.

Integration with PeopleCore and Integrated Accounting

PayZen doesn’t work in isolation. When paired with PeopleCore (HRMS), employee data and attendance flow automatically via REST API — no duplicate data entry. When paired with Integrated Accounting, payroll journal entries are generated automatically, keeping your books in sync with every payroll run.

Stop Wrestling with Spreadsheets

Philippine payroll is complex, but your payroll process doesn’t have to be. PayZen takes the rules that keep HR managers up at night and automates them — accurately, consistently, and with a complete audit trail.

If your team is still computing payroll in Excel, one question: how confident are you that last month’s SSS deductions used the correct table?