13th Month Pay
13th Month Pay is where you release, track, and configure Philippine 13th-month (and optional 14th-month) payouts for your company. Every posted payroll cutoff accrues the benefit automatically behind the scenes; this page is where you turn that running accrual into an actual payout β in batches, whenever you're ready β review every committed release, record manual payouts outside the normal flow, and set the computation policy the accrual engine follows.
Overview
The page is built around four tabs that you switch between at the top of the screen:
- Process Release β pick a benefit (13th, or 14th once you've enabled it) and a year, multi-select any batch of unreleased POSTED cutoffs, Preview the per-employee amounts, then Release to commit them.
- Release History β every committed (or voided) release, with its frozen per-employee snapshot. Any committed release can be voided, which returns its cutoffs to the unreleased balance.
- Manual Records β payouts recorded outside a release (separation pro-rations, manual adjustments, and legacy runs), grouped one row per employee.
- Settings β the per-benefit accrual policy (computation basis, proration rule, divisor) for the 13th-month stream, and β once you enable it β the same policy for an independent 14th-month stream.
The active tab is remembered in the page address, so refreshing or sharing the link keeps you on the same tab. The page opens on the Process Release tab by default.
13th-month pay is now accumulative: as soon as a payroll cutoff is posted, ANTE computes and holds that cutoff's 13th-month accrual for every employee β you don't run anything to make it start accruing. A release is simply the moment you decide to pay out the accrual for a chosen batch of already-posted cutoffs. Cutoffs you leave out of a release stay in the balance for a later release.
Accessing 13th Month Pay
- Click Manpower in the sidebar
- Open Payroll
- Select 13th Month Pay
The page sits at Manpower β Payroll β 13th Month Pay. Access requires the 13th-month release permission for the Payroll menu group (an account with the older, Configuration-side 13th Month Pay permission can still reach the page too).
The Process Release Tab
Process Release is the payout workflow: choose what to cover, preview who gets paid how much, then commit.
Step 1 β Choose the benefit, year, and cutoffs
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Benefit | 13th Month Pay, or 14th Month Pay once it's enabled in Settings. Each benefit is its own release stream with its own cutoff coverage β releasing one never touches the other's balance. |
| Year | The calendar year to release for. Defaults to the current year. |
| Cutoffs to release | A checklist of every POSTED cutoff for the chosen year. Already-released cutoffs show (released) and can't be reselected. Check any combination of the rest β a Select all unreleased checkbox appears when there's more than one. While the list loads, the checklist shows "Loading posted cutoffsβ¦"; if there's nothing posted yet for the year, it shows "No POSTED cutoffs for this year yet." |
A cutoff can only be released once per benefit stream. You don't have to release every open cutoff at once β pick any subset now and release the rest later; nothing you leave unchecked is lost, it simply stays in the balance.
Step 2 β 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:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Employee | The employee's name. |
| Accrued to date | The employee's live accrual across every posted cutoff of the year for this benefit β covered by this release or not. |
| Previously released | What this employee has already been paid for this benefit and year. |
| Selected cutoffs | The accrual earned specifically within the cutoffs you checked. |
| Prior payments netted | Manual or legacy payments for this benefit and year that aren't tied to any release β netted off so the same money is never paid twice. |
| Cutoffs | How many of the selected cutoffs had posted payroll for this employee. |
| Release amount | What this release actually pays the employee β selected-cutoffs accrual minus prior payments netted, never below zero. |
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. Use the Search employeeβ¦ box to filter by name, and click any row to open its per-cutoff breakdown β each covered cutoff's base and accrued amount, plus the netting summary behind the release figure.
The Employee Status filter here is display-only. It changes what the preview table shows β it does not change who gets paid. Releasing still covers every eligible employee in the selected cutoffs, including anyone the filter is currently hiding. If a filter other than All employees is active, the confirmation dialog in Step 3 repeats this warning before you commit.
Step 3 β 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 β if the Employee Status filter isn't set to All employees, the dialog also reminds you that the filter only affects the display and 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 Β· total amount. See Release History for the frozen snapshot.
Optionally add Notes before releasing β they're stored on the release and shown in Release History.
The Release History Tab
Release History lists every committed and voided release for the company, filterable by Benefit (All, 13th Month, 14th Month).
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| # | The release's id. |
| Benefit | 13th Month or 14th Month. |
| Year | The year the release covers. |
| Coverage through | The latest end date among the release's covered cutoffs. |
| Cutoffs | How many cutoffs this release covered. |
| Release date | When the release was committed. |
| Employees | How many employees were paid. |
| Total released | The release's total amount. |
| Status | Committed or Voided. |
Click View (or the row itself) to open the release's frozen per-employee lines β each employee's basis, prior payments netted, cutoff count, and released amount.
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).
Coverage is a set, not a sequence β you can void any committed release regardless of when it happened, and the affected cutoffs simply become available again.
The Manual Records Tab
Manual Records holds every 13th/14th-month payment that isn't part of a batch release β separation pro-rations, manual adjustments, and any payment carried over from before the accumulative release engine. Rows are grouped one per employee, filterable by Year and Payment type (All, Release (batch), Annual (December), Mid-year (May), Separation pro-ration, Manual adjustment), and searchable by employee name or code.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Employee Code / Employee Name | The employee. |
| Payments | How many payment rows this employee has for the current filters. |
| Types | The distinct payment types among that employee's payments. |
| Last paid | The most recent payment date. |
| Total amount | The sum of all of that employee's payments for the filters applied. |
A Total footer sums the Total amount column across the filtered employees.
Drilling into an employee's payments
Click an employee row to open their payment list β 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 β 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 β not to refund an employee.
The Settings Tab
Settings holds two things: the per-benefit accrual policy that drives every posted cutoff's running accrual, and the legacy company-wide run settings still read by older, non-release payment records.
13th Month accrual card
| Field | Options |
|---|---|
| Computation basis | Basic pay only (statutory) or Basic pay + allowances (richer policy) β what counts toward the accrual base each cutoff. |
| Proration rule | Attendance-netted (basic actually earned β PD 851) or Full basic (no attendance deductions). Attendance-netted follows the statutory rule, where absences reduce the base. |
| Divisor | Each cutoff accrues base Γ· divisor. The statutory default is 12; the field accepts any value from 0 (exclusive) to 24. |
| Manual salary adjustments | Whether a manual salary adjustment (added from an employee's Salary Detail) counts toward this accrual base:
|
Click Save to apply. A saved confirmation reads "Saved β unreleased accruals repriced." β changing the policy immediately recalculates every cutoff's accrual that hasn't been released yet; anything already released stays frozen on its release snapshot.
Per DOLE Labor Advisory No. 13, s. 2024, "basic salary" for 13th-month purposes excludes overtime, premium pay, night shift differential, and holiday pay β and a refund or reimbursement returns the employee's own money rather than paying for work, so it isn't basic salary either. That's what the Manual salary adjustments setting above is for. Under Set individually per adjustment, open the adjustment from the payslip's Adjustment Details dialog and choose whether it counts. The employee is always paid the full adjustment either way, under any of the three modes β the setting only affects the 13th-month figure, never the payslip, net pay, or contribution bases. Because the accrual is recalculated live from posted payroll every time it is viewed, changing either the company-wide mode or a single adjustment's setting corrects this figure immediately, even on an already-posted cutoff β there is no need to unpost or recompute payroll.
14th Month accrual card
A second, independent card for an optional 14th-month benefit. Toggle Enable 14th month pay to turn it on β 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
| Field | Options |
|---|---|
| Computation type | Pro-rated (statutory minimum β PD 851) or Fixed (1 Γ monthly rate; pays more than statutory minimum). |
| Payout schedule | December only (single payout), May + December (split payout), or Custom (operator decides per run). |
Click Save configuration to apply. These two fields no longer drive the Process Release tab β they remain for any older payment record and integration still reading them.
Common Tasks
Release accrued 13th-month pay for a batch of cutoffs
- Go to Manpower β Payroll β 13th Month Pay (the Process Release tab opens by default).
- Set Benefit to 13th Month Pay and Year to the year you're releasing for.
- Check every unreleased cutoff you want to pay out now (or Select all unreleased).
- Click Preview and review the per-employee amounts, opening any row's breakdown to verify a specific figure.
- Click Release, confirm in the dialog, and check the success message.
Enable and release 14th-month pay
- Open the Settings tab and turn on Enable 14th month pay on the 14th Month accrual card, set its policy, and Save.
- On Process Release, set Benefit to 14th Month Pay β it now appears since it's enabled β then follow the same preview-and-release steps as the 13th-month stream.
Review what was released
- Open Release History, filter by Benefit if needed.
- Click any release to see its frozen per-employee lines.
Undo a release
- On Release History, find the committed release.
- 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)
- Open Manual Records to review or soft-delete existing manual payouts.
- 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) β it doesn't have its own "record a new payment" action.
Change the accrual policy
- Open Settings.
- On the 13th (or 14th) Month accrual card, choose a Computation basis, Proration rule, and Divisor.
- Click Save. Every unreleased cutoff's accrual recalculates immediately; released amounts stay frozen.
Related
- How to Process Payroll β posting a cutoff is what feeds its 13th/14th-month accrual
- Payroll Center β track and publish the cut-offs you later select for release
- Salary Detail β Add a salary adjustment β where, under Set individually per adjustment, an adjustment's own 13th Month treatment sets whether it counts toward this accrual
- Payroll Time Keeping β review attendance before a cut-off is computed