Setting up pay: rates and contractor withholding

Pay has two halves, and they live in two places.

What one person is paid is on their record, under Users › the person › Pay. What is withheld from a contractor, under a scheme such as CIS or RCT, is set up once for the whole workspace, under Pay › Contractor withholding.

What comes off an employee's pay — income tax, social insurance, pension, a student loan — is not set up in Maliru at all. Maliru works out each employee's gross pay, and your payroll provider works out the rest from it. See running pay. Money somebody owes the company, such as for damage or an advance, is a company deduction, taken with their agreement.

You need the Manage pay rates permission for either. It is deliberately its own permission: running the sales ledger or paying the suppliers does not entitle anybody to a colleague's salary. Recording rates is on every plan. Contractor withholding needs the Crew plan: on a lower plan it stays readable, and switching a component off is never refused.

A person can see their own rate, and any withholding set for them, without the permission, read-only, on their own record in the office. On their phone, Me › Pay shows the statements issued to them, not their rate.

Recording what somebody is paid

Open the person under Users, choose the Pay tab, then Show pay. A rate is not on screen until somebody asks for it, so opening a record to check a phone number does not put a salary on the screen behind it. Opening somebody else's pay is recorded in the audit trail; opening your own is not. Hide puts it away again.

Add rate opens Pay for the person:

• Paid — what their work pattern allows. A pattern paid in hours offers Hourly or Salary; a pattern paid in days offers Day rate. The form only offers what will be accepted. The pattern is set under Timesheets › Policies — see work patterns.
• Amount, in the workspace currency. If the workspace has no currency, the tab says Set the workspace currency first and nothing can be recorded.
• Salary for — for a salary, whether the amount is for A year or for one pay period of their calendar, such as A month. See Salaries, below.
• From — the first day the rate applies. A rate has a start and no end: the next rate's start is this one's end.
• Note — why it changed, for whoever reads the history later.

Then Record rate.

A rise is a new rate, not an edit

Recording a change of pay adds a rate from the day it takes effect and keeps the old one. That is what lets a correction to an old period be paid at the rate that was in force then, rather than at today's. The current rate shows at the top of the tab and a rate starting in the future shows as From its date. Once there is more than one, History lists them all, with the one in force marked Current.

There is no edit on a rate, and the database refuses to change a recorded figure. To put one right:

• Wrong amount on the right date — record a new rate with the same From date. The form warns This replaces the rate already starting that day before you save.
• Recorded in error — remove it with the bin icon beside it in History. (With only one rate on file there is no History list; record over it on the same date instead.)
• Pay changed — add a new rate from the date it changed.

Runs already closed keep what they paid, whatever happens to a rate afterwards.

The rest of the Pay tab

Under the rate, the same tab holds everything else about this person's pay:

• On the payroll or Supplied by a company — whether they get a pay run line at all. See self-billing a subcontractor.
• Materials, bonuses and allowances — pay that did not come off the timesheet. See adding materials, a bonus or an allowance.
• Contractor withholding — for a contractor, where they differ from the workspace's withholding. It shows nothing for an employee. See Setting withholding for one contractor, below.
• Company deductions — what they owe the company, and their Minimum wage band. See company deductions.
• Payroll ID — their employee number in your payroll software. See setting up your payroll provider.
• Settled by self-billing or Settled by invoice check — for a contractor, how they are paid for their work, and a Ledger button that shows this month's work. See checking a contractor's invoice.
• Where they are paid — bank details for the payment file. See where wages go.
• Corrections to periods already paid. See putting a paid period right.

Salaries

A salary is recorded for the year. Salary for lets you type it for A year, or for one pay period of the person's calendar, such as A month on a monthly calendar; either way Maliru keeps the yearly figure. The choice appears once the person is on a pay calendar.

Each run pays the salary for the period as a fixed amount: the yearly figure divided by the periods in a year. The clock doesn't price a salaried person's hours. Whether it is their attendance record is up to Pay salaries without clocking in on their work pattern, which is on unless you switch it off:

• On — they are paid their salary whether or not they clock in. Only approved unpaid leave comes off, at the day value, on its own Unpaid absence line beside the salary. Office staff and directors who never clock in need nothing more.
• Off — the clock is their attendance record. Every working day of their work pattern is scored from the clock as a full day, half a day or nothing. A working day that paid leave or a public holiday covers is paid. A working day nothing explains is an absent day: once somebody confirms it on the run, it comes off at the day value, on the Unpaid absence line. See running pay. Approved unpaid leave comes off the same way, without asking.

See work patterns.

The day value is the period's salary divided by the working days in that period. A calendar can use a fixed number of days in a month instead — 21.67, 26 and 30 are common — set as its Salary day divisor under Pay › Calendars.

Somebody who starts or leaves part-way through a period is paid the period's salary less the day value for each working day they weren't employed, on a line such as Salary (10 of 23 working days). Their first and last days come from the Start date and End date on their record under Users, and the Pay tab shows them under the rate, such as Employed from 01 Sep 2026 · last day 30 Sep 2026.

If their work pattern has Pay salaried people overtime switched on, hours in its overtime and premium bands are paid on top, at the yearly salary ÷ 52 ÷ their contracted weekly hours, times the band's multiplier. Where the salary already pays for that time — a bank holiday on one of their own working days, say — only the uplift is added, on a line marked (uplift). See work patterns.

What a week costs

Under the rate, What a week costs prices one week, Monday to Sunday, off the same timesheet the Timesheets section shows. Press Work out this week, and use the arrows to step back or forward a week.

Each line is plain time, an enhanced rate (for example Enhanced ×1.5), paid leave or days worked at a day rate, adding up to a Gross. Two notices are worth reading:

• days could not be priced — work from before any rate on record. It is left out rather than priced at a rate that was not in force.
• unresolved issues — a missing clock-out or an overlap changes the hours, so the figure moves once it is settled.

It is the timesheet only, and it is gross: underneath, it says Gross, before tax. Your payroll provider works out tax and take-home pay. Materials, bonuses, piece work and corrections are not in it; a pay run adds those.

Setting up contractor withholding

Open Pay › Contractor withholding. It holds only what is kept back from a contractor's payment under a scheme such as CIS or RCT. Nothing here is taken from an employee.

If your workspace is in the United Kingdom or Ireland, the empty screen, No contractor withholding set up, offers that country's scheme — Add the CIS deduction in the UK, Add the RCT deduction in Ireland — with the date Maliru last reviewed its figures. Add it by hand, beside it, starts from nothing instead. Anywhere else there is no ready-made scheme: press Add withholding and set up your own — see Adding withholding, below.

If you have no contractors, you don't need anything here: a run with no contractor on it works out gross without it.

If your workspace adopted a country set before 27 September 2026, its employee components — income tax, social insurance, pension, student loan — are hidden and no longer used. Only what reaches a contractor stays on this tab.

However you start, the list is yours to change: edit a component's figures, add one, move one, switch one off, or delete one nobody has been paid with.

Reading the list

Each component shows:

• its name, such as CIS deduction, with a Withheld pill
• one line saying what it works out: its rate, and the subtotal it is worked out on, each pay period
• where it came from, such as From the GB set · reviewed 20 Sep 2026, or Started from the GB set · figures changed since once you have changed its figures
• Checked, a Check button on a card outlined in amber, or Switched off
• a pencil (Edit), and a More menu (⋮) with Move up, Move down, Switch off or Switch on, and Delete

Every component is withheld from every contractor, each pay period, unless you set it differently for one contractor.

Nothing is withheld until you have checked it

Every component arrives unchecked, and a pay run that pays a contractor won't be worked out while any withholding in use is unchecked. While anything is waiting, the Contractor withholding tab carries a dot, the screen says how many components still need checking, and the Runs tab warns you, with Open Contractor withholding. Press Work it out anyway on a run with a contractor on it and Maliru refuses, naming each one — for example CIS deduction has not been checked. A run of employees only doesn't wait.

This is the important part. Maliru works out the arithmetic. The figures are yours. A scheme's rate is the one Maliru believed was right on the day it was written, with that date on it, and you are the one who answers for what you withheld from somebody. So Check opens the component itself — its rate, or for a table of bands the actual table — and says that confirming means you have checked this against the scheme yourself. Press I have checked this only when you have.

Check one at a time. There is no button that clears the lot, because that would be a way of agreeing to figures nobody read. Once every component in use is checked, the screen says Every component in use has been checked.

Switching off what you don't use

If you have no contractors, or a scheme no longer applies to you, don't check a figure to get past the check. Switch it off instead. Open the More menu (⋮) beside the component and choose Switch off. Maliru asks — Switch off CIS deduction?, for example — and explains that pay runs withhold nothing for it from any contractor until you switch it back on. Press Switch off.

The card then shows Switched off, greyed, and no longer needs checking. Switch on in the same menu puts it back in every pay run — still checked if it was checked before. Both are recorded in the audit trail, and neither changes a run that has already closed.

To leave a component out for one contractor only, don't switch it off: set it on their Pay tab.

Changing a component's figures

Press the pencil (Edit) beside a component. You can change:

• its Name, as it reads on a contractor's statement
• its figures: the Rate of a percentage, the Bands of a table, or the Amount each pay period of a fixed amount
• for a table, whether The thresholds are For a year, divided down to each pay period, or For one pay period
• its Note, for whoever checks it next

A table is typed band by band. The first band starts at 0, each band after it starts where the one before it stops, and the last covers everything and above. Type where each band stops under Up to, and its Rate. Add a band puts a new band on top, and the minus beside a band removes it. Maliru won't save a table with a gap or an overlap in it.

Changing a figure takes it out of use until it is checked again. The card goes back to Check, and a run that pays a contractor won't be worked out until somebody has checked the new figures. Changing only the name or the note doesn't need checking again.

New figures apply to every pay run worked out afterwards, whatever period the run covers. So close the last run at the old rate before you change it. A run that was worked out before the change can't close until it has been worked out again.

Once you change a figure that came from a scheme's starting set, the card says Started from the GB set · figures changed since: the review date belonged to Maliru's figures, not to yours.

What kind of component it is can't be changed: whether it is a percentage, a table or a fixed amount, and the subtotal it is worked out on. The editor shows these without offering them. For a different kind, add a new component and switch the old one off. That keeps anybody's own rate attached to what it was set for.

Adding withholding

Press Add withholding, under the last component (or on the empty screen). Add contractor withholding asks for:

• Name, as it reads on a contractor's statement
• Worked out as: A percentage, A table of bands or A fixed amount
• Worked out on: Gross pay, or a subtotal such as the labour element. For a subtotal nothing reads yet, choose A new subtotal… and name it, then tick the kinds of pay that feed it under What feeds what, below. A fixed amount isn't worked out on anything.
• its figures, and Place it: at the top, or after a component
• a Note

It doesn't ask what the component does, who it applies to, or whether it is worked out on the year so far: everything here is withheld from each contractor's payment, every pay period. Press Add withholding. It arrives unchecked, like a scheme's starting set, and a run that pays a contractor won't be worked out until it has been checked.

Moving and deleting

Move up and Move down in the More menu (⋮) change a component's place in the list. Moving one doesn't need it checking again, but a run already worked out has to be worked out again before it can close.

Delete is for a component nobody has been paid with, such as one added by mistake. Anything a closed pay run carries stays on the record, so Delete is greyed out with It has been in somebody's pay. Switch it off instead. Deleting asks first, and it also removes any contractor's own setting for the component.

Adding, changing, moving and deleting a component are all recorded in the audit trail, without the figures.

Setting withholding for one contractor

The workspace's withholding applies to every contractor, and contractors differ: one is verified, another isn't, a third holds gross payment status and has nothing withheld. Open the contractor under Users, choose Pay, then Show pay. The Contractor withholding section lists each component that is switched on. Each row shows the workspace figure, such as Workspace: 20% or Workspace: Bands, and how it applies to this person: As the workspace, or a pill such as Does not apply to them or Their own rate: 30%. An employee has no such section, because nothing is withheld from them in Maliru.

Press the pencil (Change for this person) beside one and choose:

• As the workspace — the same as everybody else.
• Does not apply to them — nothing is withheld for it, for this person only.
• Their own rate — a different percentage, for a component worked out as a percentage: a contractor whose status is unverified at 30%, or one with gross payment status at 0%. Enter the Rate. 0% is still a line on their statement.

Why is optional — a reason for whoever reads it next, such as Verified 12 May, shown on the row. Then Save.

A table of bands can't take a rate of its own; choose Does not apply to them if nothing should be withheld for it.

A change applies from the next pay run worked out. A closed run keeps what it paid, and each pay run line records which of these settings it used. If you change one after a run is worked out and before it closes, Maliru asks you to work the run out again first. Every change is recorded in the audit trail, without the rate.

On their own record, a contractor sees the same list read-only — Does not apply to you, Your own rate: 30%.

Which pay feeds which subtotal

Withholding works on a subtotal, and not every kind of pay reaches it. The UK's CIS deduction is taken on the labour in a payment and nothing on materials, because materials are not labour. A scheme on the whole payment, such as Ireland's RCT, reads gross and needs nothing here.

So under What feeds what, each of the seven kinds of pay has a row — Plain time, Overtime and premium time, Paid leave, Days worked, Materials, Bonus or allowance and Piece work — with a chip for each subtotal your withholding reads, such as labour element. Tick the subtotals each kind reaches. Adding the CIS deduction fills this in: every kind of labour feeds the labour element, and materials and bonuses don't. Change it if your arrangements differ, and every pay run worked out afterwards follows it. The section appears once a component reads a subtotal other than gross pay.

If a subtotal has nothing feeding it, the screen says Nothing feeds and names it. Withholding reading an empty subtotal works out to zero, which looks like a small number rather than a mistake.

What Maliru does not do

• It does not work out an employee's tax or take-home pay. It works out their gross, and your payroll provider does the rest, issues their payslip and files. Maliru keeps no year to date.
• It does not move money. Bank details, if you record them, are used for one thing: a payment file for your contractors, which you download and upload to your own bank.
• It does not file anything. It works out the figures a withholding return needs; sending them is yours.
• It does not warrant that a withholding rate is current. That is what the review date and the checking step are for.