Benefit and Discount Concepts

What is it and what is it for?

Before AdmCloud can process a payroll run, it needs to know which concepts exist and how to calculate each one. This screen is that catalog: from here you manage both the employee's benefits/earnings (salary, commissions, bonuses, overtime, travel allowances, notice pay, severance...) and the discounts applied to them (income tax, health insurance, life insurance, pension fund, loan deductions, receivable deductions...), as well as the company's own contributions or provisions (the part the employer pays on top of salary, such as its share of health insurance or the pension fund).

The Type you pick for a concept automatically determines whether it's an earning, a discount or a company contribution, and the list groups them with a color-coded label accordingly (green for earnings, yellow for discounts, blue for company contributions, light blue for provisions).

The most important setting on each concept is its Calculation Method, because it defines how AdmCloud arrives at the amount to apply on each payroll run: a fixed amount, a percentage of salary, one-twelfth of the annual salary (typical of a 13th-month/Christmas bonus), a percentage of the salary stated on the labor contract, the DR Bonification, a percentage calculated over other concepts already computed on the same payroll, or a custom formula written in code.

The first time you open this screen, if your company has no concepts yet, AdmCloud automatically seeds a starter catalog of common concepts (salary, commission, bonus, overtime, loan, income tax, health insurance, pension fund, education contribution, and so on), adjusted to your country's rules where supported (for example, the Dominican Republic gets the current TSS and income-tax concepts and rates). From there you can edit them or add the ones you still need.

How to use it step by step

1. Create a new concept with the "New" button and set its Name and, if you want your own identifier, a Code.
2. Pick the Type of concept (for example Salary, Bonus, Overtime, Income Tax, Health Insurance, Pension Fund...). This determines whether the concept is an earning, a discount or, if you also check Company Paid, a company contribution/provision.
3. Choose the Calculation Method and fill in whatever that method needs: a Percent (with optional Maximum and Minimum) for the percentage-based methods, a Formula on the Formula tab for the Formula method, or a list of Concepts on the Concepts tab for the % of Concepts method.
4. Check "Includes All Employees" if this concept should apply automatically to every employee's payroll (for example mandatory income tax or health insurance), without having to assign it employee by employee.
5. Set the Debit and Credit Accounts on the Accounting tab so the payroll's accounting entry hits the correct expense and liability/payment accounts.
6. Save the concept. From then on it's available to use on labor contracts, on payroll runs, and on every screen that depends on this catalog (for example Batch Hour Entry or Payroll Preferences).

Key capabilities

• Seven distinct calculation methods: fixed amount, percent of salary, one-twelfth of the annual salary, percent of the contract salary, DR Bonification, percent of other concepts and a custom formula, covering practically any payroll rule.
• Code formulas with AI explanations: the Formula method gives you a code editor (with a sample and the list of available variables, such as Salary, Bonus, Commission or other already-calculated concepts), and viewing a formula-based concept's detail adds an Explain with AI button that describes, in plain language, what that formula does.
• Linking concepts together (Concepts tab): with the % of Concepts method you can define a concept as a percentage of the sum of other already-calculated concepts (for example, for TSS self-determination reports that require linking a payroll concept to one or more labor-file concepts).
• Automatic color classification: the list visually groups and distinguishes earnings, discounts, company contributions and provisions based on the Type and whether the concept is company-paid.
• Christmas and bonus payroll flags: you can mark whether a concept counts toward the annual income used to calculate the Christmas or bonus payroll, and whether that same concept should itself be added to those special payroll runs.
• Billing payroll costs to customers: if your company bills payroll costs to its customers (Payroll Billing add-on), each concept can carry a default service, percent or flat fee to bill.

Validations when saving

• Name is required and cannot match another concept's name.
• Code, if provided, also cannot match another concept's code.
• The "Health Insurance" Type requires the "% of Concepts" calculation method, needed to correctly calculate the Contributable Salary column on TSS self-determination reports.
• Percent cannot be negative. Maximum and Minimum can intentionally be negative, to handle cases where an employee leaves before completing a pay period.
• "Fixed Amount" method: Percent, Maximum and Minimum must be zero, and Formula must be blank.
• "% of Salary" or "% of Contract Salary" method: Percent is required (cannot be zero) and Formula must be blank.
• "One-Twelfth of Annual Salary" method: Percent must be zero and Formula must be blank.
• "Formula" method: Formula is required and Percent must be zero. The Formula has the same execution limits and security rules as Server Scripts: if it uses something that isn't allowed, saving is rejected, showing which element and on which line, and payroll calculation stops it if it takes more than 5 seconds for an employee.
• "% of Concepts" method: at least one valid concept must be selected on the Concepts tab, and Percent is required.
• Concepts can only be entered on the Concepts tab when the calculation method is "% of Concepts" or "Formula"; with any other method the list must stay empty.
• If the Accounting module is active and "Includes All Employees" is checked, the Debit Account and Credit Account are required.
• Whether a concept is "Company Paid" cannot be changed once it already has authorized payroll runs using it.
• A concept cannot be deleted while it's referenced on already-generated payroll runs or hour entries, on another concept that uses it as a sub-concept, in Payroll Preferences (Christmas, 14th-month, Bonus or Lunch concept), on a subsidiary's configuration, or on an Hour Type.

Key fields

Availability

• Requires the Enterprise plan with the Payroll module active for your company.
• The Service, Bill %, Fee Amount and Fee % fields only appear if you also have the Payroll Billing add-on active.
• The Contemplate All Subsidiaries field only appears if your plan has subsidiaries enabled and your account has this special feature turned on.
• The Include in Severance Calculation field and the Include on Bonus Payroll field only appear if your account has those special features turned on; if you don't see them and need them, ask support.

Tips and common mistakes