13th Month Pay#

Step 1 — Choose the benefit, year, and cutoffs#

A cutoff can only be released once per benefit stream. You don't have to release every open cutoff at once — pick any subset now and release the rest later; nothing you leave unchecked is lost, it simply stays in the balance.

Step 2 — Preview#

With at least one cutoff checked, click Preview. ANTE computes, for every employee with posted payroll in the selected cutoffs, how much this release would pay out. The button reads Loading… while it works.

The preview header shows how many cutoffs are covered plus the accrual basis and divisor currently in effect (from Settings). Each row lists:

A Total row sums every column. An Employee Status dropdown (All employees, Active only, Resigned only) next to the search box lets you narrow which rows are shown, and defaults to All employees. A Branch picker beside it (showing All Branches by default) narrows the rows by branch: open it, search or browse the branch tree — parent companies with their sites indented beneath — and pick one. Choosing a parent covers its whole subtree, so selecting an operating company shows every site under it. The branch filter resets to All Branches each time you generate a new preview. Use the Search employee… box to filter by name, and click any row to open its per-cutoff breakdown — each covered cutoff's base and accrued amount, plus the netting summary behind the release figure.

Step 3 — Release#

Once a preview is on screen, click Release (disabled until a preview with a positive total exists). A confirmation dialog summarizes the total amount, employee count, and cutoff count, and warns that the released amounts are frozen and that voiding later returns the cutoffs to the balance — if a filter is active, the dialog also notes that the filters above only change what is displayed, and that the release still covers every eligible employee. Confirm to commit.

After it commits, ANTE clears the preview and shows a success message such as:

Release #N committed. Employees paid: count · total amount. See Release History for the frozen snapshot.

Optionally add Notes before releasing — they're stored on the release and shown in Release History.

Voiding a release#

A Committed release carries a Void action. Voiding asks you to confirm the amount and employee count being reversed, then:

• marks the release Voided;
• returns every cutoff it covered to the unreleased balance, available for a future release; and
• soft-deletes the payments it created (the frozen lines stay for audit).

Drilling into an employee's payments#

Click an employee row to open their payment list — every payment they've received for the current filters, with its benefit (13th/14th), type, computation method, cutoff period covered, paid date, and amount. Click any payment there for its full detail:

• A payment created by a batch release shows the release it came from and the frozen per-cutoff snapshot behind the amount — each covered cutoff's base and accrued portion, plus how much prior payment was netted.
• A manually recorded payout (not tied to a release) shows the payment facts only, with a note that it has no per-cutoff snapshot and is netted against future releases instead.

Removing a payment (soft-delete)#

Each payment row has a trash-can button. Clicking it opens a confirmation dialog showing the employee, type, computation method, year, and amount, then asks you to confirm with Remove from history (or Cancel).

Removing a payment is a soft-delete: the row stays in the database to preserve the audit trail, but it no longer counts toward 13th/14th-month netting on future releases.

Note: Soft-delete is meant to undo a mistaken manual entry — not to refund an employee.

13th Month accrual card#

Click Save to apply. A saved confirmation reads "Saved — unreleased accruals repriced." — changing the policy immediately recalculates every cutoff's accrual that hasn't been released yet; anything already released stays frozen on its release snapshot.

14th Month accrual card#

A second, independent card for an optional 14th-month benefit. Toggle Enable 14th month pay to turn it on — this unlocks the 14th Month option in Process Release, the 14th-month columns on the 13th Month Pay report, and its own release timeline. Its Computation basis, Proration rule, and Divisor fields work the same way as the 13th-month card, and are disabled until the toggle is on.

Legacy run settings#

Click Save configuration to apply. These two fields no longer drive the Process Release tab — they remain for any older payment record and integration still reading them.

Attendance rate method#

Some companies pay 13th month as monthly rate × attendance rate, where each leave type counts either as attendance or as absence according to a written policy. Choose Attendance rate (monthly rate × attendance rate) as the Proration rule on the 13th (or 14th) month card to use it. A company left on the other rules is not affected at all. When the method is chosen, three more fields appear:

Attendance rate policy card#

Below the accrual cards, the Attendance rate policy card holds the classification tables. There is one category per bonus — 13th month pay, Performance bonus and Salary increase are created for you, and you can add your own. The same leave type can be classified differently in each category (for example, sick leave as attendance for the 13th month but as absence for the bonus). Pick a category, then set:

• Rate denominator — the employee's own scheduled working days (the default), or the company's working days (which uses your payroll group's working days per week and leaves out holidays). Choose company days only if every employee works the same weekly pattern.
• Late arrival and undertime — never counted as attendance. By default they do not reduce the rate (the lateness is still deducted from pay as usual); you can instead reduce the rate by the minutes lost.
• Rate period starts — start of the year (or the hire date if later), the date of hire, or the date of becoming regular. Nobody is ever counted absent before they were hired.
• Leave type without a rule — what a leave type counts as when it has no row in the table, such as one created later. It defaults to absence, never silently to attendance.

In the Leave type classification table, set each leave type to Counts as attendance or Counts as absence, or leave it on Use default. Use the With pay only and Without pay only columns when paid and unpaid leave of the same type are treated differently (for example paid versus unpaid maternity). Tick Absence if negligent for work-accident style leave: it then counts as attendance only when HR has not flagged that leave filing as negligent. Click Save classification to apply.

Apply recommended preset fills the table from an example policy. It is never applied automatically; check it against your own signed policy first.

Preview attendance rates shows every employee's rate for a year, to exactly two decimals — the very figure the amount is computed from, so you can explain it when an employee asks. Changing a classification only affects future previews and releases; a release that has already been committed keeps the rate and the policy it was computed with.

Release accrued 13th-month pay for a batch of cutoffs#

1. Go to HR → Special Pay → 13th Month Pay (the Process Release tab opens by default).
2. Set Benefit to 13th Month Pay and Year to the year you're releasing for.
3. Check every unreleased cutoff you want to pay out now (or Select all unreleased).
4. Click Preview and review the per-employee amounts, opening any row's breakdown to verify a specific figure.
5. Click Release, confirm in the dialog, and check the success message.

Enable and release 14th-month pay#

1. Open the Settings tab and turn on Enable 14th month pay on the 14th Month accrual card, set its policy, and Save.
2. On Process Release, set Benefit to 14th Month Pay — it now appears since it's enabled — then follow the same preview-and-release steps as the 13th-month stream.

Review what was released#

1. Open Release History, filter by Benefit if needed.
2. Click any release to see its frozen per-employee lines.

Undo a release#

1. On Release History, find the committed release.
2. Click Void, confirm the reversal. The covered cutoffs return to the balance for a future release.

Record a payout outside a release (e.g. separation pro-ration)#

1. Open Manual Records to review or soft-delete existing manual payouts.
2. Click an employee to see their full payment list, then a payment for its full detail.

Manual Records is a review/audit surface for payments recorded elsewhere in the system (such as Separation Pay releasing a separated employee's final pay) — it doesn't have its own "record a new payment" action.

Change the accrual policy#

1. Open Settings.
2. On the 13th (or 14th) Month accrual card, choose a Computation basis, Proration rule, and Divisor.
3. Click Save. Every unreleased cutoff's accrual recalculates immediately; released amounts stay frozen.