Here at Salsa we divide the concept of how we collect Pay into the collection of "Types" and "Policies". We'll explore these concepts more below.

It is not uncommon for an employee to have multiple different types of pay within a single pay period. Some common examples include; Hourly Pay, Salary, Commission, Tips, and Bonus.

We capture these different types via our Pay Type models and these can be collected at the Partner or Employer level.

When it comes to actually configuring how an employer processes pay and how a worker should be paid, we collect what we call Pay Policies. These policies allow configuration such as an employer being able to set whether pay should be a Fixed amount per period or Rate based (such as Hourly Pay). The employer can then set company-level default values for their policies so that when it comes to setting up a Worker Policy these values can be inherited for minimal configuration.

The last level of setup for pay is the Worker Pay Entry. This api is used in the case where you control pay data in your system that you need to bring over to Salsa so that workers are paid correctly. This would be relevant to you if your are planning to integrate with our Paystream api to publish pay data from your system to Salsa.

Pay Types

As covered earlier Pay Types are the definition of the different types of pay that a worker may receive during a pay period. We sub-divide this concept into Partner Pay Types and Employer Pay Types to allow finer-grain control for your needs.

Partner Pay Types

Salsa allows you as a partner to be in control of which types of pay are available to your employers. As part of account setup, we will collect and configure any pay types you may need for you. Once a pay type has been configured it will be available to be used by employers that you bring over to Salsa.

There is no limit to how many, or when partner pay types can be added. This makes managing pay types for a large number of employers incredibly quick and easy. For example, if one day support for a new pay type is needed, a new type can be added with just a few clicks, and all employers will automatically receive access to it.

You can check which pay types have been configured for you via our Retrieve all PartnerPayTypes api

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Example

As a partner you find that all your employers typically pay their workers "Hourly Pay" and "Tips". As part of account setup we can configure these pay types at the partner level for you so that all your employers have them immediately available for use.

Later, you find that employer's are requesting support for additional pay types such as "Cash Tips" (which are taxed differently to "Tips") or "Bonus". We can set this up so all your employers can start using it immediately.

Reference Id

Once your pay types are setup each one is configured with a unique referenceId. This is a unique identifier for that pay type which will remain consistent across Sandbox and Production environments so that you can build your integration thinking about the pay type as a concept you support and not the specific instance created in each environment.

Employer Pay Types

Once you have had set up the pay types that you as a partner want to make available to your employers. Salsa allows another level of optional customization where each of those pay types can be further configured into off-shoots specific to each employer's needs. These can be managed via Retrieve all EmployerPayTypes

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Example

As a partner you support "Hourly Pay" but Employer A pays different types of Hourly Pay to the same worker. They want to specifically divide hours into "Shop Hours" and "Storeroom Hours" which should appear separately in payroll run and have different defaults configured.

Using our api or via our embedded Employer profilecomponent. These can be configured as new employer pay types based on the "Hourly Pay" partner pay type. Once created it will be available to be set up as an employer pay policy, for all worker's of that employer and during payroll run.

Pay Policies

Now that we have all our pay types setup. We can allow employers to configure how they want that pay to appear for workers. This comes in the form of setting up Employer Pay Policies and Worker Pay Policies.

Employer Pay Policies

Employer pay policies are created in order for an employer to configure company-level defaults that can then be inherited when setting up all their workers.

These can be manage via the Employer profile UI component.

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Example

Employer A has configured their new "Hourly Pay" pay types called "Shop Hours" and "Storeroom Hours". For "Shop Hours" there are two types of worker that are paid differently, till workers and floor workers. Till workers typically earn $12.50 an hour whereas floor workers earn $9 an hour. Both should be paid "Shop Hours" but it would be handy to set up these rates once and not have to do it for each worker.

Employer A can be configured with two Employer Pay Policies. One can be given the display name "Till Workers" and configured with a default rate of $12.50 an hour. The other can be given the display name "Floor Workers" and configured with a default rate of $9 an hour.

Worker Pay Policies

Worker pay policies are created as means of attaching a worker to a specific type of pay. When a worker pay policy is created the pay type will begin to appear in the payroll run for that worker.

These can be managed via the Worker profile UI component.

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Example

Worker A is a "Till Worker" but isn't on the default hourly rate of $12.50. They actually get paid $14 an hour.

Employer A can create a Worker Pay Policy for Worker A based off of the "Till Worker" Employer Pay Policy. This effectively attaches Worker A to the "Shop Hours" pay type. Employer A can then override the default rate of $12.50 and change it to $14. This change only affects Worker A.

When it comes to run payroll the "Shop Hours" pay type will appear in payroll run and Employer A can input the hours for the pay period for Worker A.

Worker Pay Entries

Worker pay entries are a representation of a specific instance of a type of pay that a worker has earned. These are captured via Paystream as an integration between your system and Salsa (if needed).

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Example

Your system manages "Hourly Pay" for all your employers. As part of account setup we disable the "Hourly Pay" pay type from being available to your employers since your system will be the source of truth for this data.

Worker A works 8 hours at $14 per hour on the 1st January 2024. Your system records all this data and you send us a Worker Pay Entry for this data via Paystream so that it is stored in Salsa and appears in the payroll run and on the worker's earnings record.