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Open Clients, select the client, then choose Compliance › Payroll. Owners see the tab for every client; Managers and Preparers see it only for clients they are assigned to. Connector admins and Client portal seats do not see it. Owners (any client) and Managers (assigned clients) can finalise a month, reopen it, and send payslips. Preparers can do everything else: maintain employees, start, recompute and discard a draft month, and record pay dates and challans. Payroll produces working papers and upload files for your team. Pragma does not file or deposit anything on the client’s behalf. If the client is archived, the tab shows This client is archived: its payroll is read-only. and none of the actions below are available.

Keep the employee list

Each monthly payroll is computed from these records. When a month is computed, payroll saves a copy of each employee’s record. A finalised month keeps that copy even if the record is changed later.
1

Find or add the employee

With View set to Employees, search by Name, code or PAN and use Show (Current, Left or All) to narrow the list. Select a row to open that employee, or select Add employee for a new one.
2

Complete the record

Fill in the Identity, Monthly salary (₹), Provident fund and Income tax sections (see the table below), then select Add employee or Save employee. If the save is refused, the reason appears at the foot of the form. The History list on an existing employee shows who changed which fields and when.
3

Record a leaver, or delete a mistake

When someone leaves, enter Date of leaving (their last working day) rather than deleting them; the leaving month is their final settlement. Delete… › Delete employee is only for a record entered by mistake. Someone who has already been paid in a month’s payroll cannot be deleted.

Run a month

1

Start the month

Set View to Monthly payroll and select Start a month. Choose the Wage month, then select Compute payslips. Start months in order: each month’s TDS builds on the months before it. You cannot start a month while an earlier month of the same financial year is still a draft, or after a later month already has a payroll.
2

Enter this month's inputs

Select an employee’s row to open their payslip. Under This month’s inputs, enter Loss of pay (days) and use Add a line for Arrears, one-off earnings and recoveries. For an Earning, tick PF wages, ESI wages and Taxable as they apply. For PF arrears, enter the wage month under Arrear of. Only override Professional tax (by hand), TDS (by hand) or the LWF shares when the computed amount is wrong; leave them blank otherwise. Select Save and recompute.
3

Clear warnings and blockers

If an employee’s record or the client’s EPF, ESI, professional tax or LWF registration changed after computation, the draft is marked out of date. Select Recompute before finalising. Rows marked to resolve block finalising; open each one and fix the listed issues. Also check the warnings for employees left out of the ECR because they have no UAN, or out of the ESIC upload because they have no IP number, and the warning that the client has no TAN.
4

Finalise the month

An Owner or assigned Manager selects Finalise… › Finalise month. The month is then locked, and the payslips, statutory files and salary TDS return are prepared from it as it stands.
5

Export files and send payslips

From Export, you can download the Payroll register (CSV) or Payroll register (Excel) at any time. EPFO ECR (text), EPFO arrear ECR (text, one per month), ESIC monthly contribution (.xls), Professional tax by state (CSV), Labour welfare fund by state (CSV) and Payslips (print or save as PDF) become available after the month is finalised. ECR files also need EPF registered on the client’s profile, and the ESIC file needs ESI registered. On a finalised month, Send payslips… sends each employee’s payslip from the firm’s WhatsApp number to employees whose record has a WhatsApp number. A payslip already sent for that finalisation is not sent again. The result shows how many were queued and who was skipped.
To change a finalised month, an Owner or assigned Manager selects Reopen…, enters a Reason for reopening of 3 to 500 characters, and confirms with Reopen month. The reason is kept on the audit trail. To throw away a draft and every input entered on it, select Discard… › Discard draft.

Record pay dates and salary challans

Set View to Salary TDS return, choose the Quarter, and set Show to Months and deposits. Each finalised month is listed with its TDS, pay date and challan.
1

Record the pay date

Select the month’s row. Under Salary paid and tax deducted on, enter a date between the first day of the wage month and the end of the following month. This date decides which quarter’s return reports the month. If no pay date is recorded, the month’s last day is used.
2

Link the challan

Under Challan that deposited the TDS, choose a salary challan from that quarter. Choose Not deposited yet if the tax has not been deposited. A challan that does not have enough tax free cannot take the month. If the challan is not recorded yet, select Record a new salary challan; for the challan fields, see Prepare a client’s TDS return. Select Save. Clear removes the recorded pay date and challan.
You can only record pay dates and challans when the client has a TAN on its profile. Without one, the month panel is read-only and Record salary challan is hidden.

Export the quarter’s working papers

With View set to Salary TDS return, Show has three options. Annexure I rows lists each employee’s TDS for each finalised month. Months and deposits lists each month’s pay date and challan. Salary challans lists the quarter’s challans; use Record salary challan to add one. Only finalised months are included. Notices list months that are still drafts or have no payroll, months not yet linked to a challan, and months reported in a different quarter because of their pay date. Export downloads Annexure I, the Challan annexure and, in the fourth quarter only, Annexure II, as CSV or Excel. These are working papers for your team’s filing; Pragma does not file the return.

If an action is refused

The error is shown above the payroll table or in the open panel. Read it before trying again.
  • This client is archived, so its payroll is read-only. Restore the client to change employees or runs.
  • …is still a draft. Finalise it first: each month’s TDS builds on the months before it. Finalise the earlier month first.
  • A later month (…) already has a payroll in this financial year. Work back from the latest month: discard it if it is a draft, or reopen it if it is finalised.
  • …already has a payroll. Open it from the month list. Use Month instead of starting the month again.
  • No employee is on the rolls in…. Add employees, or check their joining and leaving dates.
  • Pragma has no verified income-tax rates for the financial year of… Salary TDS cannot be computed for that month.
  • This draft is out of date… Select Recompute, check the payslips, then finalise.
  • This payroll cannot be finalised yet:… Fix the listed issues on the payslips marked to resolve.
  • …is finalised and cannot be changed. Reopen it with a reason first.
  • …has a pay date or salary challan recorded… Select Clear under Months and deposits before reopening the month.
  • This employee was paid in the … payroll, so the record cannot be deleted. Record a leaving date instead.
  • Someone else changed this item while you were editing it… Reload before finalising again.
  • …is still a draft. Finalise it before recording its pay date and challan…
  • No tax was deducted in …‘s payroll, so there is nothing for a challan to deposit. Record the pay date alone.
  • That challan is a 26Q or 27Q challan for non-salary deductions…, Salary paid on that date is reported in… or The challan deposited ₹… of tax, but these deductions need ₹…. Pick a different salary challan, or correct the challan’s amounts.
  • Your role does not allow this action. Ask a firm owner or manager. Finalising, reopening and sending payslips are limited to Owners and assigned Managers.
  • An employee field such as PAN, UAN or Date of joining is named with the reason, for example that the value is already used by another employee. Correct the field and save again.

Still stuck?

Open a case from Help & support in Pragma, or book a walkthrough and the team will show you around on a call. Can’t sign in? Contact support.