Payroll & compliance
Practical HR for Indian businesses — playbooks, formats and field lessons. No fluff.
The ESI mistake that turns into a shortfall notice
Eligibility is tested at the start of a contribution period, not every month. Employers who stop deducting the day wages...
Read more →The 50% rule: what the Code on Wages does to your salary structure
Excluded allowances may not exceed half of total remuneration. Structures built on a small basic and a large special all...
Read more →Why your PF ECR upload keeps failing on the 15th
The ECR is unforgiving of things that are invisible on screen: a byte-order mark, a trailing blank line, a name that doe...
Read more →Why your Form 16 does not match the payslips you already issued
Every June, employees compare Form 16 against twelve payslips and find a difference. The cause is almost never the certi...
Read more →Professional tax follows the workplace, not your head office
A company registered in Maharashtra with a branch in Karnataka deducts two different amounts from two employees on ident...
Read more →The gratuity mistake that inflates your liability by half
Gratuity is computed on basic plus dearness allowance. Companies that compute it on gross provision for a liability far...
Read more →Arrears belong to two months, and payroll usually records only one
An increment effective in April and processed in July produces arrears that relate to April, May and June but are paid i...
Read more →Basic or gross: the one word in your contract that decides a notice dispute
Recovering notice shortfall on gross when the contract says basic roughly doubles the amount — and it is a dispute the e...
Read more →Statutory bonus is payable even in a year you made no profit
The 8.33% minimum under the Payment of Bonus Act does not depend on profit or allocable surplus. It is called a bonus, w...
Read more →