Re: An Actual Payroll Module - When?

[Chris Travers <..hidden..>]

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 12:38 PM, ERACC Subscriptions <..hidden..> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I have had several inquiries about LedgerSMB over the past two years
> from SOHO and SMB companies that have seen our web page here:
>
> http://www.eracc.com/content/accounting-and-point-sale-linux-unix
>
> To date I have not been able to implement more than one installation.
> Why? No Payroll module that does all the calculations for one. That one
> installation I did was for a one person business that did not need
> Payroll.

Coming up with something that does basic US federal tax witholding is
not a problem.  I could add an add-on to track this with only modest
effort. There are three major issues however:

1)  Doing state tax witholding, since this can be different in every
state in the US
2)  Doing pre-tax benefits tracking since the rules for this can vary
considerably between jurisdictions, and
3)  Non-US income tax witholding is a bear because every nation has
its own rules.

Some work has been done on a database schema to track tax, benefits,
etc. for withholding calculation purposes, but even at the most
optimistic projections it is unlikely that we will be able to add
supported jurisdictions without customers taking the lead here.

> Most of these people do not have any need for an accounting
> application that requires them to do all the Payroll work by hand.
> "Might as well use a spread sheet." was one comment I got. I am no
> programmer so I cannot implement a Payroll module. But, I can donate a
> small amount of money to a bounty to get it done. Does LedgerSMB have a
> bounty system? If so, where do I donate and who can work on this? If
> not, why no bounty system? Thanks.

There is some discussion of a bounty system to be managed through
Command Prompt.  I will have to go back and check the archives to find
out the status.

Most likely however, the major issues at this point are going to be
jurisdiction-specific and hence bounties may not be the best option
for this specific feature.

If it would be of interest, I could come up with a skeleton module
perhaps in the next week or two based on all the past discussions on
the issue and we could talk about what's necessary to add the
jurisdictions your customers need.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers