Folks Help Center

Folks offers an integrated payroll management solution for comprehensive HR centralization.

Manage all your HR processes on a single platform, save time on every payroll and every stage of an employee’s life cycle, and retrieve your information in just a few clicks, at any time.

Features and benefits

The payroll module is designed to make your life easier. Intuitive, seamless, and fully integrated, it transforms payroll management into a hassle-free process.

• One-click data synchronization and automated payroll calculations
• Automated pay statements, via secure emails and added directly to the employee profile
• Payroll analysis reports for a global view of your workforce

Implementation

Migrating to Folks Payroll is part of a structured customer journey designed to ensure a secure transition, efficient onboarding, and a fully operational payroll from the go-live date.

This section provides an overview of the journey, including key steps, responsibilities, and requirements for a successful migration.

In this article, we will guide you through the various configurations required for importing time into Folks Payroll.

• Creating Payroll Items
• Configuring Payroll Codes
• Time Import File Format
• Frequently Asked Question: Who Calculates What?

Enabling the feature

Time import is not available by default. Contact us to enable it.

Creating Payroll Items

If you have not already done so, go to the business settings to create your payroll items.

Payroll items are the building blocks of payroll: every earning paid to an employee goes through a payroll item that determines how it is processed, accounted for, and reported to tax authorities.

1. In Folks, go to Payroll > Dashboard > ☰ > Business Settings > Payroll Items.
2. Click on Create Preset.

3. In the window that opens, give the preset a name and select the type Earning and the sub-type. The type/sub-type pair determines how the earning is processed in payroll.

   For example, the calculation of overtime with its multiplier, or the specific tax treatment of a payment to a self-employed worker (box 48 on the T4A). A misclassified item will produce a valid payroll but one that is fiscally incorrect. For self-employed workers, only the type Earning with the subtype Invoice Payment is accepted.

4. If a value is set for a field on this preset, it will be synced from the preset to line items created from the preset, and that field will not be editable on those line items.
5. Click Create.

You can modify your payroll items as needed.

If you have multiple registration numbers, be sure to create your payroll items for each company. A dropdown menu allows you to select the desired company. Simply go to the payroll items for each company.

Configuring Pay Codes

When you use an external time system, that system identifies each type of earning by its own code (example: “REG” for regular hours). Folks needs to learn what each one means. Configuring pay codes creates the link between the codes in your import file and the presets that determine how each earning will be processed.

This configuration is done once and reused for every import. If you change your time system or add new earning types, simply update the mapping.

Go to Dashboard > gear icon (Configuration) > Presets tab. There you will find the list of your available presets. For each preset of type Earning, a field allows you to enter the pay code dedicated to import: this is the code expected in column E of the CSV file.

Time Import File Format

This section describes the expected CSV file format at step 1 of time import (File import). The file is based on a universal format, allowing most external time systems to generate it without special development.

An explanatory template of the file is available. Only 6 columns are read by the system. All others must be present but empty. Any value entered in an unsupported column will be ignored.

The file must be separated by semicolons. A comma-separated file is not rejected at step 1, but all its lines will return errors at step 2 (Data validation).

The column read depends on the payroll code:

If both columns are filled on the same line, only the column corresponding to the code is read — the other is ignored without generating an error. This allows importing both hours and amounts (e.g., expense reimbursements).

Here is an example of a valid line:

;21;;G;1;35.00;;;;;;;;2009-01-10;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Employee 21, earning code 1, quantity 35.00 hours, date 2009-01-10.

Frequently Asked Question: Who Calculates What?

The answer has two parts. Folks calculates time: hours imported on overtime codes are paid according to their multiplier (x1.0, x1.5, x2.0). Regarding dollar amounts, any earning expressed in dollars must already be calculated in the file.

• Overtime: the source system knows which hours are at straight time, time and a half, or double time. Folks then applies the code multiplier: 4 hours imported on OT 1.5 are paid at 1.5 times the rate.

• Holidays: the number of holiday hours is determined on your side and imported as quantity on the code associated with the Holiday preset.

One of the essential steps when integrating Folks Payroll is to create your company in the dashboard. Without this setup, other settings cannot be configured. Please follow the steps below to complete this successfully.

1. From the left menu, navigate to Payroll > Dashboard. On this page, click on the square containing 3 horizontal lines (☰) at the top left.
2. In the menu that opens, click on Business Settings and then on the Details tab.
3. Under the Details tab, fill in the information for the Business Info and Contact Info sections. Click on save.

The other configurations will then be accessible via the various company settings tabs.

This guide will walk you through the process of synchronizing employee profiles effectively for payroll purposes. A dedicated page is available for managing the synchronization of employee information related to payroll.

This page is accessible through: Folks HR > Payroll > Synchronisation

Sync Page Functionalities

• Decide who is included or excluded from your pay cycle.
• Sync employees.
• Validate all employee files for completeness before transferring to compensation.

Steps to Synchronize Employee Profiles

1. Access the Synchronization Page:

   In the main menu under Payroll, click on Synchronization.

2. Include a Terminated Employee:

   • Search for the employee you wish to include.

   • Use the toggle to include the selected employee in the pay cycle.

3. Exclude an Employee:

   • Search for the employee you wish to exclude.

   • Exclude the employee by selecting the desired date of exclusion.

4. Review Employee Inclusion/Exclusion:

   Easily view who is included or excluded in payroll for your current cycle.

5. Synchronize Employee List:

   • Once your employee selection is final, click on Sync Employees.

   • Select Validate and Synchronize to initiate the synchronization process.

6. Validate Employee Records:

   • The sync process will validate your employee records and highlight any errors.

   • Select the Correct button to apply the necessary corrections.

   • Continue correcting errors until no more payroll errors are detected.

7. Finalize Synchronization:

   Click on Synchronize to complete the process. All of your employees are now included in the current pay cycle.

This page provides a concise overview of the validation rules applied to company information and employee profile data when integrating with Folks payroll. 

These validations ensure that all transmitted data is complete, consistent, and compliant with the requirements of the payroll system. The tables below outline the constraints and mandatory fields for each data category.

Company Information

Employee Profile Information

After creating the company, the next step is to configure the company’s tax accounts (registration numbers) in the dashboard. These accounts include the identifiers used for remittances and filings with the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) and Revenu Québec, as well as for integration with company settings.

Without configured tax accounts, it is impossible to properly generate the remittances and payroll-related filings.

👉 The company must have been created in order to configure the registration numbers.

Follow these steps to configure the registration numbers:

1. From the left menu, navigate to Payroll > Dashboard. On this page, click on the square containing 3 horizontal lines (☰) at the top left. In the menu that opens, click on Business Settings and on the Tax Accounts tab.
2. Under the Tax Accounts tab, add each applicable tax account for the company. Here are the supported tax accounts:

• CRA: Account with the Canada Revenue Agency (identifier of the type 123456789RP0001).
• Revenu Québec: Account with Revenu Québec (identifier of the type 1234567891RS0001).
  💡Note that it is possible to have more than one CRA tax account and more than one Revenu Québec tax account.

3. For each account, provide:

• The type (CRA or Revenu Québec)

• The account identifier

• A label to distinguish it in the interface

• An optional note

4. Save

You can import time data and amounts from an external system into Folks Payroll to transmit them for payroll processing.

To do this, you must first configure your payroll item codes and export your time data via a CSV file. Please refer to the article Required Configurations for Time Import.

Once the pay codes are configured and you have the CSV file, the import is done in three steps. A description of the behaviour of multiple imports for the same pay period is provided at the bottom of the article.

• Step 1 - File import
• Step 2 - Data validation
  • Errors and causes
• Step 3 - Summary and sending to payroll

Step 1 - File import

1. In Folks, go to Payroll > Payroll Preparation.
2. On the payroll preparation page, at the top right, click the arrow on the payroll submission button and select Import time. If you do not have the timesheet, the submission button will take you directly to the import feature.
   
3. Next, import the CSV file you exported from your time management application. The maximum allowed size is 15 MB. Refer to the article Time Import File Format.
   The time and compensation data of your employees supported by Folks will be integrated into the current period. Data in columns not supported by the system are simply ignored during import. If an employee already has hours for this period, they will be replaced. Others will simply be added.
4. Once your file is uploaded, click Next.

Step 2 - Data validation

This step ensures that the data is consistent. The table displays the data line by line.

If your file contains errors, make the necessary corrections and re-import it. Refer to the Errors and causes section for assistance. You can also click Next to proceed with the imported lines. However, lines with errors will be excluded from the import.

Errors and causes

Each invalid cell has an error indicator with a tooltip explaining the cause. As soon as at least one cell in a row is invalid, the row status changes to Ignored, is greyed out, and excluded from aggregate totals.

A filter by status (All lines by default, Imported lines, Ignored lines) with count badges, a search across all data columns, and pagination facilitate analysis.

This section comprehensively presents the errors and warnings handled during time import. Note that the columns Line no., Employee, and Status never carry an error icon. An unfound employee is indicated by a long dash in the Employee column, with the error carried by the Employee no. cell.

Step 3 - Summary and sending to payroll

The summary presents the import in two sections — General Information and Payroll Code Information. By clicking Send to Payroll, a confirmation window informs you that sending may take a few minutes and offers a checkbox to receive an email upon completion. You can therefore launch the sending and continue with other tasks in parallel.

The data will be transmitted for employees included in the synchronization and whose profile is complete.

Behaviour of multiple imports for the same pay period

When you import time multiple times for the same payroll period, it does not add hours together nor erase everything previously assigned. The update is done by preset.

• Hours are updated according to their type (preset).

• If you re-import for the same employee and same preset → previously imported data is replaced by the new file’s data (no addition).

• If you import for the same employee but a different preset → both are retained (hours from the first preset remain intact).

• Presets absent from the new file are not affected.

Here is an example: