Welcoming Nikki Ashfield to the team…..

Nikki joined our team in late June to process our client’s payrolls and provide assistance with payroll related queries.  Nikki has many years experience working in the primary meat industry, electrical services and hospitality.  She will ensure that your payroll is processed accurately and your payroll related legal obligations are met.  I’m sure some of you have already spoken to Nikki, but for those who haven’t, you are more than welcome to call her on 03 211 2589.  We will miss Lyn and wish her all the best.

Revised Minimum Wage Order came into effect 26 June 2014

The Minimum Wage Order changed on 26 June 2014 to include a fortnightly minimum wage rate. The weekly calculation of wages under previous policy was particularly detrimental to dairy farmers who tend to average out wage payments over long periods of time to reflect busier and quieter times.  The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s labour inspectorate found widespread breaches of minimum employment rights by dairy farmers.

Under the new Minimum Wage Order, a move to fortnightly calculation allows an employer to offset payments for work in one week against payments due to the worker in the following week.

The change allows employers to average this fortnightly so that workers would be paid $1,140 per fortnight plus the minimum hourly rate for each hour above 80 hours per fortnight.

If you would like to discuss this in more detail or need some advise, please call Nikki or Eric on

 03  211 2589.

The Effect of Different Work Patterns on Sick Leave

Most employees are entitled to sick leave whether they are full or part-time, permanent or fixed-term employees, providing that they have completed six months’ continuous service.  The Holidays Act also provides sick leave entitlements after six months to employees whose employment is not continuous if, during those six months, they have worked for the employer:

• ·  For an average of at least 10 hours per week, including
• · At least one hour per week or 40 hours per month.

People on a series of fixed-term agreements, or employees sometimes described as “casual”, would become entitled to sick leave if they met this test.

The payment for sick leave would be made where it is a day that the employee would otherwise have worked and would be made at the employee’s relevant daily pay or average daily pay (if it is not practicable or possible to work out what an employee would have earned on the day, or if the employee’s pay varies within the pay period). The entitlement to sick leave is subject to the same test each 12 months.

If in any year the work pattern does not meet the above test, then no new sick leave entitlement arises. However, the employee may requalify for sick leave on the basis of six months’ service.

Keyboard Shortcuts

This section briefly describes the keyboard shortcuts available in IMS Payroll Partner.

Data Entry

New Record                      Ctrl+N

Save Changes                   Enter

Cancel Changes                Esc

Next Field                          Tab

Previous Field                  Shift+Tab

Delete Record                   Ctrl+Del

Days Worked                    Ctrl + Plus

Navigation

Find Record                       Ctrl+F

First                                    Ctrl+Home

Previous                             Page Up

Next                                   Page Down

Last                                    Ctrl+End

Company Controls         Ctrl+1

Employee Information  Ctrl+2

Payroll Processing            Ctrl+3

Miscellaneous

Print Sundry Reports       Ctrl+P

Open Company                 Ctrl+O

Tax Reckoner                    Ctrl+T

New technology is always exciting and whilst some new gadgets are a fad for a while and then are quickly replaced by another we see much of the new technology having the potential to improve service and efficiency. The direction of development for ABM is to take advantage of this potential to deliver real benefits for ABM clients.

There is so much we can use our phones for and ABM already have apps for service and sales on phones, iPads and tablets which directly link to ABM saving many steps in the processes of a business.

Further development of these apps for use are exciting and will deliver exciting potential for ABM clients.

ABM is also focussing on improving work flow in our software which will bring productivity improvements and more intuitive processing.  Many businesses are asking for greater use of scanners and other devices which all save time and improve accuracy and this we are responding to.

The ABM Cloud is now a reality and can provide a hosted solution for clients. There is a lot of talk about the Cloud and the advantages it provides. The point of difference with the ABM Cloud is that you will know where your data is, which data centre in Australia or New Zealand it resides in and what the upgrade and back-up procedures are so that ABM clients can feel confident their vital information is secure.

ABM version 8 will be released this year after many months of development which has moved ABM into a new development environment enabling us to take full advantage of the new technologies. When you start using ABM 8 you will notice a difference with the modern interface but more importantly under the bonnet there are the improvements which provide the base for many changes which make possible the advances needed. There will of course also be some smart new features to improve the daily operation of your business.

We will hold user group training sessions with all the details after ABM8 is released.