HR and payroll: from the first contract to the payslip

The first employment contract changes a company more than the first large invoice does. A second calendar appears — the HR one — in which deadlines are rigid and being late costs money regardless of whether the customer has paid.

Before the employee arrives on day one

1. Decide the form of engagement and check whether the work has the features of employment: subordination, plus a place and time set by the employer.
2. Send the candidate for a pre-employment medical examination — without the certificate they cannot be allowed to start.
3. Conclude the contract in writing before work begins and hand over the statement of employment conditions.
4. Run the initial health and safety training: the general briefing and the workstation briefing.
5. Register the employee for insurance within the deadline counted from the day the employment relationship begins.
6. Collect the tax declarations, including the one that allows the advance to be reduced by the tax-free amount.

The order matters: medical checks and training before work starts, the contract before the first day, the insurance registration after the contract is signed. Reversing that order is the most frequent observation made during inspections of small companies.

Records that have to be kept as you go

• Personnel files divided into parts, kept either on paper or electronically, but consistently in one form.
• Working time records with start and finish times, overtime and night work.
• Leave records together with the leave plan and the use of on-demand leave.
• Absence documentation: sick notes arrive electronically, but benefits require additional paperwork.
• Confirmations of training, periodic medical checks and issued workwear where the role requires it.

Employee documentation is retained for the period set out in the rules, counted from the end of the employment. For contracts concluded in different years the periods can differ, so it is worth labelling the archive by employment dates from the outset rather than by surname alone.

The monthly rhythm: payroll and transfers

The cycle looks the same in a company with one employee and in one with ten. First you close the working time and absence records, then you calculate gross pay with any supplements, then contributions and the tax advance, and finally the amount to be paid out.

1. Close the records for the month and approve all absences.
2. Run the payroll and check the items that stand out against last month — the cheapest way to catch a mistake.
3. Pay the salary by the date set in your internal rules, and no later than the statutory deadline.
4. Submit the settlement declarations and pay the contributions.
5. Transfer the income tax advance to the competent tax office.

It is worth setting these steps up as a repeatable checklist with dates rather than relying on memory. The first three months usually run smoothly; the trouble arrives in the fourth, when a deadline falls on a day off or the person who runs the payroll happens to be ill.

Annual duties that are easy to forget

After the year ends the employer sends income statements to the tax office and to employees, files the annual declaration of advances collected, and settles contributions where the capital scheme applies. On top of that comes setting the leave entitlement for the new year and paying compensation to people who left with untaken leave.

• The deadline for the tax office and the deadline for the employee are different — the first one falls earlier.
• Automatic enrolment into the employee capital scheme repeats on a cycle and also covers people who previously opted out.
• The employment certificate is issued on the last day of employment, not after the final payroll is settled.

When a spreadsheet stops being enough

One contract can be handled by hand. At three people, working time records start to strain; at five, overlapping absences do; and with the first long sick leave you have to calculate the benefit base from several months back, taking variable pay components into account. That is the moment a spreadsheet stops being a tool and starts being a source of risk.

Księgowskaz Kadry keeps contracts, working time records, absences and payroll in one place, and the results of each run flow into the company's bookkeeping without retyping. An employee files a leave request in the app, their manager approves it, and the team calendar and the payroll update themselves.

There is no such thing as good improvisation in HR. There is documentation done on time, or documentation that is missing.