Payroll (Türkiye): Payroll software that tracks the cumulative tax base from the pay record to net pay

Who is it for, and what problem does it solve?

The payroll module is for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) that calculate pay in-house or together with their certified public accountant (mali müşavir). The core problem it solves is that payroll is calculated by hand in spreadsheets every month: when pay changes, additional payments and the year-to-date cumulative tax base sit in separate files, finding out why an amount changed takes hours. Automatic feeds of attendance ledger and leave data into payroll are coming soon.

• HR and payroll specialists: at month end, bring pay records, additional payments and deductions together on one screen, and see problems such as employees without a pay record before finalizing.
• Certified public accountant or accounting staff: review the draft payroll and payroll summary; they can sign in with a custom role, assigned by the company owner, that carries payroll read permission.
• General manager and finance manager: see employer cost in the payroll summary, and the breakdown by period and department in Reporting & People Analytics, with pay permission.

A consultancy service in which payroll is prepared on your behalf is not offered yet; it is planned, and the current status is on the pricing page.

What does the payroll module do?

The payroll module manages the monthly payroll cycle, from the pay record to the payslip, in one place. The scope covers employees insured under 4/1-a (employees under a service contract) on a standard monthly salary.

• Pay record: gross or net monthly pay with an effective date, and the disability degree. Pay fields are visible to the company owner and HR; by default the system administrator does not see pay, and viewing someone else's pay history is written to the audit log.
• Additional payment and deduction items: for each period, additional payments (added to gross and included in the tax and premium bases) and deductions from net are entered per employee. Items belong to that period; recurring items repeated every month are not available yet and are coming soon.
• Period parameters: the minimum wage, the lower and upper limits of earnings subject to premiums, employee and employer premium rates, the income tax schedule, the stamp tax rate and the disability allowance are kept with their effective dates and official sources; Sora İK enters the values centrally.
• Gross-to-net and net-to-gross calculation: the SGK (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu, Türkiye's Social Security Institution) premium and unemployment insurance, the year-to-date cumulative income tax base, the minimum wage income tax and stamp tax exemption, the disability allowance and employer shares are calculated with a legislation-based calculation framework. The employer share reduction (the Treasury reduction) is switched on in company settings and is off by default.
• Payroll days: 30 in a full month; for employees who join or leave during the month, calendar days are counted from the start and leaving dates (at most 30).
• Coming soon: feeds from the attendance ledger and leave: the automatic flow of attendance ledger and leave records into payroll is coming soon. With it, unpaid leave, absence and sick leave days will become missing days; premium days will be taken from the attendance ledger and the missing-day reason code from SGK's official code list, and employees who joined or left during the month will be flagged. Today, these days are not reflected in payroll days automatically.
• Warnings: active employees with no pay record, gross pay below the minimum wage for a full month, gross pay above the upper limit of earnings subject to premiums (Sora İK does not carry the excess forward), employees without opening cumulatives and negative amounts payable are shown before finalizing.
• Draft and finalization: payroll is calculated as a draft and, if needed, recalculated with current inputs or deleted. A finalized payroll does not change and enters the following month's cumulative tax base; months are finalized in order.
• Calculator: for a single pay amount, it calculates the payslip items with the period, a manually entered number of days, the disability degree and employer reduction, without creating a record; it assumes there was no tax base in the earlier months of the year.
• Payslip and payroll summary: the payslip of a finalized payroll appears on the employee's self-service screen. The payroll summary is downloaded as CSV with columns for days, gross, SGK base, employee and employer shares, tax bases, exemptions, net, deductions, amount payable and employer cost. A department column in the summary is coming soon.

The “Scope of the calculation” box on the calculator and payroll screen lists the cases that are not calculated: earnings subject to premiums carried over from previous months, exempt additional payments (meals, transport), other amounts deducted from pay such as union dues and personal insurance premiums, automatic enrolment in private pension, pay from more than one employer, the employer share reduction specific to the manufacturing sector, and part-time work. If any of these apply, check the amounts with your certified public accountant. The social security support premium for retired employees, situations specific to foreign nationals, incentive analysis, and enforcement and alimony deductions are not calculated at present either; they are coming soon. There is no automatic submission to public authorities; Sora İK has no direct connection to public institutions. Severance and notice pay calculation, advance and instalment deduction management, R&D and technopark payroll, and accounting and ERP transfer are coming-soon modules; you can see their status on the Payroll & Compensation category page.

How does it work?

Payroll is a four-step cycle repeated in the same order every month.

1. Open the period. The system brings in the period's parameters and the employees working in the period, and lists those without a pay record. A new month cannot be opened while the previous month of the same year is still a draft.
2. Complete the inputs. Enter additional payments and deductions; payroll days come from the start and leaving dates. You clear the warnings at this step. Automatic transfer of the attendance ledger and leave at this step is coming soon.
3. Calculate and check. Review the draft payroll and its summary together with your certified public accountant; if an input has changed, recalculate the draft.
4. Finalize. The payroll is finalized and does not change; payslips open to employees. The CSV payroll summary can be used to prepare declarations; an official declaration file is not produced at present, and SGK e-Declaration and MUHSGK outputs are among the coming-soon modules.

Regulatory note

Because the rates, brackets, exemptions and ceiling/floor values that payroll is based on can change from period to period, no values are given on this page. For current values and rules, refer to the official sources:

• Revenue Administration (Gelir İdaresi Başkanlığı): income tax and stamp tax announcements
• Social Security Institution: insurance premium and employer announcements
• Income Tax Law No. 193
• Stamp Tax Law No. 488
• Law No. 5510 on Social Insurance and General Health Insurance
• Labour Law No. 4857

This page is not legal or financial advice; for situations specific to your business, consult your certified public accountant. How payroll data is protected is described on the security page.

What data should be prepared when switching payroll software?

Switching requires pay information per employee, the cumulative values built up since the start of the year and the results of the last closed month.

• Active employee list, start dates and pay records (gross or net)
• The income tax base and the exempted minimum wage base for the months of the year before Sora İK (opening cumulatives)
• For employees who joined during the year, whether the previous employer applied the minimum wage exemption in the month they joined
• The payroll results of the last closed month, to compare with the calculation in Sora İK

Differences found in the comparison usually come from parameters, opening cumulatives or item entries; entering the opening cumulatives and calculating a draft payroll for the same month makes it easier to find where a difference comes from, and the draft can be deleted and recalculated.