Hello everyone!

It's been a great few months for all of us since 2024 began, and we are excited to present a brief summary of all the updates we've released in the product. Consistent and continuous innovations that make life easier for our customers, partners, and all other stakeholders lie at the heart of everything we do. So, it is with this spirit that we wanted to tell you about all the work we've done for you inside Zoho Payroll so you can further refine your existing payroll processes.

Zoho Payroll-Zoho SalesIQ integration 

You could read our detailed blog post about this, but to summarize things, this integration lets your employees talk directly to their payroll admin from inside their portal.

This was brought in to ease the load on the payroll team that is usually bombarded around payday with endless questions like, "It's 12:01, why hasn't my salary been deposited yet?" or "Why is my salary low this month?", "What is this professional tax and why is it being deducted this month and not the previous one? I didn't have it in my previous company!"

For these and more FAQs, this integration has been a godsend because HR executives get tired of repeating the same answer a million times but chatbots don't. Those asking also feel happier because they get their doubts cleared immediately as opposed to the old-fashioned way of emailing or calling someone from the team and waiting for a reply.

Ohio State support (US edition)

Home of the presidents, and now to Zoho Payroll too; we're beyond thrilled to roll out our product for the Buckeye State. Every business operating out of Ohio can now use Zoho Payroll, as state-specific compliances are enabled by design into the product.

So, if you're a business based out of Ohio, please contact us and get early access enabled for you right away.

Editing the FUTA amount (US edition)

Changing your business's financial planning and budget or staying compliant with the ever-changing unemployment laws is now easier with the option to edit the FUTA rate in Zoho Payroll.

Say there's been a change in the law reducing the minimum FUTA amount to $2,000, you can easily edit it in the software and put that excess amount to better use.

Importing/Exporting tax regime preference of employees 

Diverse bunch of employees choosing between the old and new regimes causing you confusion? Not anymore!

You can just import your employees' preferences in bulk as a CSV or XLS file and then let Zoho Payroll do the rest.

View pre-tax deductions and benefits in the employee portal 

Be it your health insurance premiums or your flexible benefit plan components like your fuel reimbursement or internet allowance, your employees can now see all the pre-tax components in their salary structure clearly. This way, they can plan their tax saving scheme better and maximize their take-home pay.

Enhanced filtering options for advanced payroll functions

Say you have multiple branches all across the country and there happen to be floods in one state alone, for example, Kerala. All of your offices there are affected in one way or another, and you want to help those employees a little by giving them a one-time payment to cover damages caused by this natural disaster.

With our brand-new filtering options, you could just go to the Employee module in Zoho Payroll, filter out all the employees by work location, and process that one-time payment easily.

This is just an example of how you could use this new and improved filter. You could also filter employees in the Employees module by department and designation or even old and new regime in the Approvals module.

Annual CTC projections 

Earlier in our employee portal, employees would be able to see what their gross and net pay was on their payslips, but could never see the CTC figure. Now they can.

In today's corporate lingo, since CTC is the only unit in which salaries are measured, this update helps your employees find out a crucial piece of information about their pay package. In this way, they are spared a lot of unnecessary confusion, clearly understanding where they stand in terms of the industry standard, what percentage hike they have received over the previous year, and more.

Petty cash account for employee payments 

Did you help out an employee in need by giving them cash from your register? Record it digitally in no time with Zoho Payroll. Through the Zoho Books-Zoho Payroll integration, record even the minutest of cash outflows from your business and have it automatically sent to your journal entries.

Cost of goods sold account for payroll earnings 

Let's say your employees use their 10% employee discount and buy some of your stock right inside your premises. You can calculate their bill amount and have it deducted from their payslip while having all of these transactions noted in the right ledgers automatically. Not only does this simplify your work, but it also declutters your journal entries easily. This is just one more way the Zoho Books-Zoho Payroll integration makes your life easier.

Customizable headers and footers for payslips 

Acquired by a bigger group and need to mention that company's name in your payslip's header? Not a problem at all. Now you can edit and customize the headers and footers in payslips to your preference without any fuss.
 

You're only as new as the latest update to your product, and to keep up with this dynamic product landscape, we have to constantly keep innovating and push out newer improvements. Seeing our customers derive utility from every one of these enhancements is what gives us the motivation to keep at it day in and day out and elevate the whole payroll SaaS game. So, cheers to a great quarter and let's all look forward to a greater Q2 with tremendous business, experiences, and more!