Singapore payroll and HR on the same engine as your ledger

Guliel is accounting and finance-operations software that runs invoicing, expenses, purchasing, payroll, reporting and a double-entry general ledger on one engine. Its Singapore payroll calculates CPF, SDL, FWL and the four self-help group funds, issues itemised payslip PDFs, and posts each approved payslip to the general ledger. Employee records, leave, attendance and employee expense claims sit in the same system.

A payslip in Guliel is the same document object as an invoice or an expense, with its own type. An employee is a relationship record, like a customer or a supplier. So a payslip can absorb a salary advance, repay an employee's expense claim in the same transfer, and reach the trial balance without an export from a payroll app into an accounting app.

Status, October 2026. Singapore payroll is live. Employee records, leave and attendance work in every country. The payroll screen opens for organisations based in Singapore; elsewhere, including Israel, it says payroll is not available in that country yet. Payroll rules for other countries are planned. Guliel does not submit CPF contributions, file IRAS returns or send salary payments from a bank.

What Singapore payroll calculates

Each payslip is computed from the employee's employment terms for the month it covers, with the rules in force on the first day of that month. Re-running December in March uses December's rates and ceilings.

• CPF for citizens and permanent residents. Rates follow the employee's age band and, for permanent residents, the first, second or third-plus year of residence, at graduated or full rates. Ordinary wages are capped at S$8,000 a month from January 2026 (S$7,400 in 2025). Additional wages, such as a bonus, are capped by the S$102,000 annual salary ceiling, less the ordinary wages already subject to CPF that year.
• SDL for every employee: 0.25% of total wages, at least S$2 and at most S$11.25 a month.
• FWL for Work Permit and S Pass holders, by pass type, sector and tier. An employee gets CPF or FWL, never both. Employment Pass holders pay neither; SDL still applies.
• Self-help group funds: CDAC, ECF, MBMF and SINDA, from wage-band tables, by the fund the employee elects. An employee can opt out.

Per-run inputs cover what changes month to month: a bonus, counted as an additional wage, and signed adjustments. An unpaid-leave deduction lowers the month's ordinary wage, so CPF follows it. An adjustment marked as a reimbursement is paid without CPF. An employee who joins or leaves mid-month is paid for the calendar days employed, and CPF is computed on that prorated wage.

For other countries the engine has a generic gross-to-net profile with no statutory deductions. The app does not offer it as a payroll run, because a payslip without the country's rules is not a valid local payslip.

A payroll month, step by step

1. Pick the month. Guliel drafts a payslip for every employee employed in it.
2. Review the drafts: gross pay, each scheme, net pay, employer cost and any open credit per employee. Add a bonus or an adjustment and regenerate one employee's payslip.
3. Approve. A draft posts nothing; an approved payslip posts to the ledger.
4. Record the payments: net pay to each employee, and the statutory amounts to the CPF Board and MOM. A payslip turns paid when both sides are settled.

A draft can be deleted. An approved payslip can be voided, and the void stays in its event history. Either way, the month can be generated again for that employee. Generating payslips for a month inside the locked period, or recording a payroll payment dated inside it, is refused; the books lock date is set by a manager.

Salary advances. Record an advance before the payslip exists. It stays an open credit for the employee and is applied to the payslip at month end; any excess carries to the next one. The run grid shows each employee's open credit, so an advance does not get forgotten.

How payroll posts to the ledger

Postings are computed from the payslip lines, so the ledger cannot drift from the payslips.

Payslip line	Debit	Credit
Gross earnings	Salary expense	Due to employees
Employee CPF and SHG deductions	Due to employees	Statutory payable
Employer CPF, SDL and FWL	Statutory contributions (employer)	Statutory payable
Salary advance before its payslip	Unapplied payments	Cash

Paying net pay clears Due to employees; paying the authorities clears Statutory payable. The income statement shows "Salaries & wages" and "Statutory contributions" as their own expense rows, and the dashboard shows employer cost per employee next to spend per vendor. The Payroll Summary report lists gross pay, each scheme, net pay and employer cost per employee for any period.

Payslips

The Singapore payslip PDF follows MOM's itemised payslip layout: basic pay, allowances, gross pay, deductions with the employee's CPF, date and mode of payment, overtime details when present, other additional payments, net pay and the employer's CPF. SDL and FWL print separately as other employer contributions, because they are not CPF. Payslips are in English.

Employee records

• Employee code (EMP-0001 onward, never reused), photo, probation end date and HR notes. Notes are visible to managers only.
• NRIC or FIN, validated and stored masked. A manager sees the full number only by asking for that one record.
• Employment terms: title, start and last day, monthly or hourly rate, currency, and for Singapore the residency, pass type, sector and SHG election. A raise or a role change is a new term, so each employee has a career timeline. Re-hiring starts a new term.

Leave and attendance

Leave. Requests are filed for an employee; a manager approves or rejects them, and nobody decides their own request. Balances show entitlement, days used and days carried in. In Singapore, annual leave and outpatient sick leave follow the Employment Act, and approving more days than the statutory balance is refused. Hospitalisation, parental and unpaid leave are not yet available as Singapore leave types. In other countries, annual, sick and unpaid leave are tracked under company policy: Guliel applies no statutory entitlement, the manager decides each request, and every balance is labelled as company policy.

Attendance. Check-in and check-out are stamped with the server's clock, never a time sent from the device. A manual correction needs a note, keeps the original times and goes back for approval. A manager approves sessions, never their own. Timesheets total each employee's hours by day, in the organisation's local time.

Employee expense claims

An expense can be attributed to an employee and marked as paid by them. The vendor stays the vendor in reports, and the ledger moves the debt from accounts payable to Due to employees. Open claims show on the payroll screen and can be repaid in the same payment as net pay. A claim repaid this way never becomes a payslip line, so it never enters gross pay or CPF. Expenses attributed with a benefit class feed a year-end Benefits in Kind report per employee, laid out like IRAS Appendix 8A. Employees cannot yet submit claims themselves.

Roles and payslip privacy

• Running payroll and reading the run need the contributor or manager role. A viewer can do neither.
• Outside the payroll screen, a payslip opens only for a manager or for the employee it belongs to. An API token also needs the payroll scope; an invoices scope does not reach payslips.
• Below manager, the ledger shows payroll postings without employee names, and the dashboard shows payroll as one total. The general ledger report labels payroll postings "Payroll" for everyone. The totals do not change.
• A manager can give an employee a self-service login. It opens one page with two tabs: check in and out, and the employee's own payslips. A former employee keeps reading their payslips until a manager revokes the login.

Payroll, HR and attendance are separate features in the API, each with its own OAuth scope, so an MCP client such as Claude or ChatGPT can be given HR access without payroll. It acts within the signed-in user's role, under the same rules as a person.

What this isn't

Guliel calculates and records payroll. It does not submit CPF contributions to the CPF Board, file IR8A or Appendix 8A with IRAS, or pay salaries through GIRO, FAST or PayNow. You make those payments and filings, or your accountant does, and record the payments in Guliel. Payroll rules for countries other than Singapore are planned.

FAQ

Does Guliel calculate CPF?

Yes. For citizens and permanent residents it applies the rate for the employee's age band and PR year, the S$8,000 monthly ordinary-wage ceiling from January 2026 and the S$102,000 annual ceiling on additional wages. SDL, FWL and the four self-help group funds are calculated on the same payslip.

Does Guliel submit CPF or file IR8A?

No. Guliel calculates payroll, issues payslips and posts to the ledger. Submitting CPF contributions, filing with IRAS and paying salaries happen outside Guliel; you record the payments afterwards.

Can I run payroll outside Singapore?

Not in the app yet. Employee records, leave and attendance work in every country, but the payroll screen opens only for Singapore organisations. Payroll rules for other countries are planned.

How does payroll reach the general ledger?

An approved payslip posts gross pay to Salary expense, employee deductions and employer contributions to Statutory payable, and net pay to Due to employees. Recording the payments clears both payables. A draft posts nothing, and a month inside the books lock date refuses new payslips and payments.

Who can see payslips?

Running payroll needs the contributor or manager role. Elsewhere in Guliel, a payslip opens only for a manager or the employee it belongs to. Below manager, the ledger shows payroll postings without names.

Can employees see their own payslips?

Yes, with a self-service login that a manager grants. The employee sees their own payslips and can check in and out, and nothing else.

How are employee expense claims repaid?

Attribute the expense to the employee and mark it as paid by them. The amount becomes owed to the employee, shows on the payroll screen, and can be repaid in the same payment as net pay without entering gross pay or CPF.

What does payroll cost?

Pricing is per organisation, not per seat, and the published plans do not meter payroll or employees. Free is $0. Standard ($20) and Premium ($99) are published prices; paid plans are not on sale yet. See pricing.

Run your next payroll month on the free plan: start free.