Meaning of Wages and Salaries
Wages: It is a fixed regular payment, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis, made by an employer to an employee, especially to a manual or unskilled worker. It is a payment made by business organization for work done or service rendered.
Wage payment is always based on
- Piece rate: This is when a worker is paid based on the unit of output produced.
- Time rate: This is when a worker is paid based on the number of hours worked
Salary: A fixed regular payment, typically paid on a monthly or biweekly basis but often expressed as an annual sum, made by an employer to an employee, especially a professional or white-collar worker.
It is however mandatory that an employer must pay his employee an agreed sum of money as wages or salaries for work done at an agreed interval.
The roles of wages department in an office includes the following
- They prepare and pay wages and salaries to workers at agreed regular intervals
- They keep the documents, cards and all other things relating to workers wages and salaries
- They keep the information about all the workers income tax obligations
- They keep good accounting records of all wages and salaries
Basic documents in the wages office
The basic documents the wages offices are:
- The personal wage or salary record book
- Individual tax cards
- The payroll
- The payslip or pay advice
- The time card where necessary
The payslip or pay advice: A payslip or pay advice is given to every employee at the end of each month. It is a piece of paper usually included in the pay packet of each worker. It explains how the net salary or wages of each staff is arrived at. The payslip is prepared from the payroll…
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