One of the biggest risks employers face with executing payroll in China is not fully complying with the country’s labour laws. Employees are generally required to have proof of residence in the city in which they apply for employment, and employers must file the appropriate social insurance paperwork.

Employees may be hired on a permanent or temporary basis; a temporary contract can be for a fixed period of time or until the occurrence of a certain event. Workers from abroad can be employed only with special permission from the local authorities and after obtaining an employment certificate for the employee.

Minimum wages are set by local government agencies across China, and the country’s labour bureaus set standard minimum wages for certain types of jobs. China has an eight-hour work day with an average working week no more than 44 hours long and (generally) two days off per week. Salaries and payroll-run in China are generally paid monthly.

An employee may terminate employment with 30 days’ written notice. Employers must provide 30-day advance notice to an employee to part ways with mutual consent and must pay severance unless the employee failed to satisfy the conditions of his or her employment contract and/or violated any laws or company policies.

Required tax deductions vary from region to region (and even city to city) across China, but they usually total around 40 percent of an employee’s salary. Since all employees pay income tax, China mandates that employers withhold around 15 percent of employees’ wages for individual income taxes and pay, paying them to China’s tax bureau before the 15th of each month. Employers are also required to withhold and pay a shares tax, bonus tax, or severance tax when applicable.

Employers and employees are required to contribute to China’s mandatory social insurance schemes – pension insurance, medical insurance, industrial injury insurance, unemployment insurance, and maternity insurance – as well as to its Housing Fund which allows the employees to save money towards purchasing their own home.

The amount of social insurance and Housing Fund contributions are adjusted each year for every city or region, with the amount determined using the average salary in each city. Respective government officials often implement the changes at different times, placing an important administrative burden on employers to stay abreast of all required payroll compliance guidelines.

The required withholdings must also be paid to the Bureau of Labour Insurance, National Health Insurance Council, and the Employee Pension Board before the 15th of the following month.

As in most other Asian countries, workers in China receive about 10 paid holidays per year. These generally include the first three days of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, three days for International Labour Day on May 1-3, and three days for National Day from October 1-3. They also receive a paid holiday for January First on the Western calendar and China’s government occasionally establishes special holidays on short notice.

Employees are entitled to between 5 and 15 days of paid annual leave at a sliding scale based on their length of service to the employer. Employees can also apply for sick leave, marriage leave, and funeral leave, when applicable.

Women are generally entitled to 98 days of maternity leave, paid by the employer, though certain provincial regulations extend the amount of leave available (in some instances, by as many as three months). Fathers are entitled to 7-20 days of paternity leave, with some extensions permissible.

Most companies operating in China have engaged a regional payroll services provider to take care of China’s complex payroll considerations and tax requirements. To ensure all employer’s liabilities are complied with according to the local regulations, consider outsourcing your payroll operations in China to a trusted managed services provider like BoardRoom.

BoardRoom has extensive experience operating in China with a local team and a new cloud-based HRMS solution, Ignite, that delivers a superior user interface and an intuitive mobile application.

Am I a growing SME under ten employees? Or maybe I have a bigger regional business with branches spread across Asia-Pacific.

While every company requires mandatory payroll management services that include the computation of gross to net salary, statutory deductions as well as the preparation of year-end forms, a regional company will require these across multiple countries as well as additional services to stay organised and compliant.

A suitable payroll firm for bigger companies will have the ability to provide centralised payroll coordination through their network of local offices, allowing your organisation to stay compliant under the local jurisdiction you are in as well as in your local Country.

Technology is ever changing and you will need a firm that keeps up with the trends.

From the issuing of confidential payslips through electronic means to the easy access of payslips and data, a good payroll provider will provide a flexible and central platform for the administration of payroll.

Many payroll services today will allow employees to access a secure site to view their individual payroll history as well as providing an avenue for the submissions of claims and leave applications.

Most employers are becoming more and more aware of providing the same customer experience to their employees regardless of which Country they are based in or managed from. Having access to a solution that has the ability to provide this across multiple Countries is a key consideration.

Ensuring your payroll provider is tech savvy is vital not only for the convenience of your employees but also if you decide to scale your company to the next level without payroll becoming an issue.

Outsourcing to a payroll provider can be scary but it doesn’t have to be so. Conducting adequate research on your payroll service is a good way to gauge the level of security they will provide.

Look for a company that has a strong IT team coupled with secure hardware and redundant backups together with a disaster recovery system in place, should the unforeseen happen.

No matter how smooth sailing your business might seem, unforeseen issues could arise at any time.

What you would need is a partner that offers superior support during such moments of crisis.

This can come in the form of an account manager or a single-point-of-contact executive that will grow with your company as the years go by, intimately understanding your organisation and how it functions.

This will allow a smooth resolution of any potential issues that might spring up without the need for you to re-educate a new representative every time you decide to reach out.

Ask your payroll service provider if there will be a dedicated manager tasked to service your account. If they say yes, you will be in good hands.

Your service provider should also be able to offer you guaranteed levels of service through a Service Level Agreement with Key Performance Indicators that are reportable on a monthly basis.

When it comes to running a business, payroll is just a facet of many services that can be outsourced.

While there are merits to choosing a specialist company that only handles payroll, a more sensible choice would be selecting a payroll provider that offers a spectrum of services that can handle your non-core business functions. These can include corporate secretarial services, bookkeeping services as well as tax advisory.

Selecting a single provider that can handle a whole suite of related services will not only help you save time but also synergise the various aspects of your business that can lead to additional benefits such as tax savings.

At Boardroom, we are experts in helping companies, from corporations to fast-growing SMEs, with their payroll needs, allowing them to focus on what matters – growth and profitability.

From local payroll services handling to managing substantial payroll obligations for bigger companies spread across the Asia-Pacific region, we help companies take care of their people while increasing productivity.

Contact us today and empower your organisation with greater freedom through our payroll solutions.

Or you can also learn more about our payroll solutions here.

Whether your firm has five employees or fifty, processing payroll will demand a substantial amount of time and keen attention to detail.

When you outsource your payroll processing, you not only save money that might have been spent hiring a payroll administrator, you will be saving time by hiring an expert.

Professional payroll firms also have the experience of handling a myriad of situations from their years helping a variety of companies with their payroll. By outsourcing your payroll needs, you will save valuable time that might have been used to train up your in-house hire to get up to speed.

Depending on your business needs, a professional payroll service can provide basic payroll administration or customise a more complex solution that involves regional and online pay advices to employees across the entire organisation spread over different countries.

In addition, a good payroll company will also have its own platform that will allow for better reporting and generating more comprehensive reports to cater to any analysis required.

The key “mantra” with payroll is accuracy and timeliness. In some cases, this is the only contact your employees have with the Corporate Organisation and so their customer experience is paramount to their view of you as an employer. Your employees expect and deserve nothing less.

The data held for payroll is sensitive and the investments required to protect that data are a must.

The security of payroll data is also an essential factor to be considered. With the introduction of EU’s GDPR laws, an increasing number of organisations are assessing the impact of them becoming the new global standard, subsequently two questions must be asked:

How safe and secure are your company servers?

How do I protect my employee’s data?

Using a credible Payroll Outsourcing Company is key to you and your employee’s peace of mind that their data is not at risk and is dealt with by a professionally qualified organisation.

When handling payroll, there are many statutory regulations and standards that have to be met.

From the accurate computation of gross to net salary and statutory deductions, there is also a need for the preparation of the year-end reporting.

The intricacies of these reporting standards will have to be timely and mistake-free to avoid potential time-consuming audits and penalties – definitely situations that every business wants to avoid!

A professional Payroll Outsourcing Company will ensure you always remain a compliant employer.

While your first reaction might be to either task your finance team with payroll or hire a payroll specialist, both these options can actually cost more money for your company in the long run.

Routine tasks such as calculating payroll, the distribution of paychecks (both physically or electronically) as well as the preparation of payroll taxes to the government can take a toll on an in-house team that isn’t trained to do it accurately and swiftly.

Hiring a specialist might be a solution, but you would be better off spending your revenue on hiring more profit-generating roles for your business.

When you outsource to a professional payroll processing company, you will also gain access to a team of experts that can help answer your immediate questions and handle any situations that might arise with pin-point solutions.

Payroll processing companies such as Boardroom have a wealth of complementary services such as corporate secretarial and accounting services that are just a phone call or email away.

At Boardroom we also offer consulting and advisory services to solve any challenge your company might face when it comes to running the non-core business functions – these include employee plan services to expatriation services.

At Boardroom, we are experts in helping companies, from corporations to fast-growing SMEs, with their payroll, allowing them to focus on what matters – growth and profitability.

From local payroll services handling to managing substantial payroll obligations for bigger companies spread across Asia-Pacific, we help companies comply with local statutory regulations while ensuring their most valuable asset, the employees, are paid on time.

Contact us today and empower your organisation with greater freedom through our payroll solutions.

Or you can also learn more about our payroll solutions here.