Community Learning Series - Personalising your payroll experience using Zoho Payroll

We all know that employees are the most important asset for any organisation. Organisations spend copious amounts of time recruiting, training, and retaining sufficient employment to maintain their business health and operations. And one of the most important ways that business owners look after their primary assets is timely payroll. In this Community Learning Series post, we will focus on customising some of the crucial elements within the payroll journey.

 

But why even customise? Irrespective of the size of the organisation, payroll plays a huge role in employee morale. While timely payroll is essential, personalising the employee experience is also important. Zoho Payroll helps you out with plenty of customisation options for various stages within the payroll process, so you can deliver a completely custom experience right from the moment your employee joins your organisation to the day they receive their full and final settlement.

 

Here, we will talk about three features of Zoho Payroll and how they can be customised to your needs.

 

• Email templates
  
• Payslip templates
  
• Organisation announcements
  

 

1. Email templates

 

Despite the variety of instant messaging platforms in existence, we still rely on emails for most of our professional communication. The reason is very simple: emails add a professional touch, but still pass on information instantly. In payroll, it's often important for communication to reach your employees in a professional and timely manner. Zoho Payroll helps you personalise this communication experience with templates specific to different scenarios.

 

Has a new employee joined your organisation today? Time to welcome them with a personalised message that reflects your organisation's culture. You can save the voice and tone you've chosen for your message, using a template.

 

Inside Zoho Payroll, go to Settings -> Email templates -> Employee invitation. As you can see in the below image, we have a predefined template set up for your convenience, but you can customise it to suit your brand and voice. You can make changes to the text size and font, and add links, photographs, and placeholders. We even provide the complete HTML code, which you can edit to make the changes you need. 

 

Once you make your changes, click Save. Now whenever an employee joins, they will receive the newly customised email you created specifically to welcome them.

 

You can customise other emails in the same way here. For example, this payslip notification template has been customised by adding a motivational quote, which can be changed every month. Or if you have revised employees' salaries this month, you can mention the change in the email.

 

These are just a few examples of how to utilise this customisation. Now it's your turn.

 

2. Payslip templates

 

Why are payslips so important? A payslip is a proof of the contract that binds any employee to an organisation. Professional-looking payslips will be considered as credible proof for future employment, or for obtaining employee loans. A detailed payslip showcases all the employee's tax liabilities, thus helping them make the right investment decisions, maximise their take-home salary, and plan their savings well in advance.

 

You've probably noticed that we provide a variety of payslip templates, including one specially designed for the full and final settlement. There are various components that should be present within a payslip to prove its credibility. Let's see how this can be easily achieved with our pre-existing templates.

 

Inside Zoho Payroll, click the Settings icon -> Payslip templates. 

 

As you see in the images below, we have 6 templates, and they cover all the necessary information such as the organisation details, employee information, and the breakdown of the salary into earnings, deductions, and reimbursements.

 

 

How can the templates be customised further?

 

Click on the edit icon below any template and you will see different ways to customise it on the left side. Here are a few things you can do:

 

• The organisation logo can be resized.
  
• You can choose the information you want to display on the payslip.
  
• You can even add up to 5 custom fields to the payslip.
  

 

When you're done making changes, click Save.

 

For example, we can add a custom field called Aadhar card to this template. When you come back to view this template again, you'll see the Aadhar card number field appear in it automatically. The full and final settlement payslip can be customised too—for instance, to edit the declaration section.

​

 

And that's how your payslips can be customised to look professional and reflect your brand voice.

 

3. Organisational announcements

 

There are various ways for you to communicate with your employees via Zoho Payroll, whether you're inviting new users or employees, or sending reminders for reimbursement proofs and tax declarations. But emails can be missed easily. So, if you want to make an organisation-wide announcement, how do you ensure that your employees don't miss it?

 

Zoho Payroll has an option for this.

 

You can now add a customisable banner message in the ESS portal. Here's how:

 

1. Inside Zoho Payroll, go to Settings -> Preferences -> Employee portal.
   
2. Under the Banner Message option, type your announcement.
   
3. Select the date until which you want this message to be displayed.
   

 

Here's an example:

 

And this is how the announcement will appear on the ESS portal for your employees:

 

 

So, have you tried out these features yet? If yes, were they useful? Let us know in the comment section below. 

• Topic Participants

• Archana

  

• Recent Topics

• ZIA "Generate Content" action doesn't have contexual data from the ticket

  "Generate Content" action doesn't have contexual data from the ticket. I try to get AI to help me with this ticket but it doesn't seem to have any ticket information as context. Although the ticket has a lot of information in it.

• Zoho Desk - Zoho FSM Integration issue on Mobile and iPad

  Hello Team, I am trying to create a Work Order (WO) using the Zoho FSM integration (Add-on Service) that is integrated with Zoho Desk. The issue is that the integration is not working on mobile devices and iPads. While I am able to create the WO, Request,

• E-File Form 1099 Directly With the IRS From Zoho Books

  The Form 1099 filing season has begun, and businesses are required to e-file certain forms with the IRS to report payments made to vendors and contractors. If your business made qualifying payments during the year, you must e-file the appropriate Form

• Can I hide empty Contact fields from view?

  Some contacts have a lot of empty fields, others are mostly filled. Is there a way I can hide/show empty fields without changing the actual Layout? I would like to de-clutter my view, and also be able to add information later as I am able. I would be willing to learn to code a button, but I am highly confused about it and thus worried it would be beyond me.  I've looked at a lot of the developer documents and I'm not able to make a lot of sense of them.  Thank you in advance to anyone who knows the

• Suggestions for showing subscribed Topics in CRM (contact record)

  We have several Topics set up in ZMA. We also have a sync set up between ZMA and CRM. I'd like to display the subscribed topics on the CRM Contact record. This will allow the Sales team (who uses CRM) to see at a glance what topics a Contact is subscribed

• Replies sometimes creating separate ticket

  Sometimes when a customer responds to an email coming from Zoho Desk, instead of adding a reply to the original ticket, a separate ticket is created. This happens even though the response subject line contained the ticket number, and the person responding

• Re-hide fields when option is unselected

  Hi all Can anyone help me with this - when I create a 'show' field rule for when a dropdown option is selected, how to I make it so the 'show' option re-hides if that option is no longer selected?

• Allow Attaching Quartz Recordings to Existing Zoho Support Tickets

  Hi Zoho Team, We would like to request an enhancement to how Zoho Quartz recordings integrate with Zoho Support tickets. Current Behavior: At the moment, each Quartz recording automatically creates a new support ticket. However, in many real-world scenarios:

• I'm getting this error when I try to link an email to a deal inside the Zohomail Zoho CRM extension.

  When I click "Yes, associate," the system displays an "Oops!! Something went wrong" error message. I have attached a screenshot of the issue for reference.

• Custom Fields

  There is no way to add a custom field in the "Timesheet" module. Honestly, the ability to add a custom field should be available in every module.

• Remove the “One Migration Per User” Limitation in Zoho WorkDrive

  Hi Zoho WorkDrive Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to raise a critical feature request regarding the Google Drive → Zoho WorkDrive migration process. Current Limitation: Zoho WorkDrive currently enforces a hard limitation: A Zoho WorkDrive

• Translation from Chinese (Simplified) to Chinese (Traditional) is not working. It randomly translated. Google Translate accurately but zoho translate is not working at all

  Hi friends, The newly added language for translation. https://www.zoho.com/deluge/help/ai-tasks/translate.html "zh" - Chinese "zh-CN" - Chinese (Simplified) "zh-TW" - Chinese (Traditional) my original text: 郑这钻 (and it is zh-CN) translated traditional

• Consultant-Only Booking Page

  Zoho Bookings does not allow for Meeting Type OR Workspace-Wide booking pages to be turned off. This is detrimental to organizations that have territory-based or assigned accounts, because if prospects can go to these booking pages and either select the

• All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

  The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Latest update

• Call result pop up on call when call ends

  I’d like to be able to create a pop up that appears after a call has finished that allows me to select the Call Result. I'm using RingCentral. I have seen from a previous, now locked, thread on Zoho Cares that this capability has been implemented, but

• Custom Sorting based on other columns in table

  I need the ability to apply custom sorting to a text-based dimension in the X axis where the sorting is based on another column in the table. For example, I have a chart report where the X axis is a text label. I would like to be able to sort those text

• Feature Request: Enable Custom PDF Layout Editor for All Modules (Including Package Slips)

  Hello Zoho Community and Product Team, I am writing to share a suggestion that would significantly enhance the customization capabilities within Zoho Books. We all appreciate the power of the Custom PDF Layouts (the "New" template engine) that allows

• Is there a way to invoke deluge function from within a widget?

  Hi! I have custom functions in deluge and I was wondering whether there is any way to call this function through a widget? Something like on click of a button inside a widget, run the deluge custom function. Would this be possible?

• Can a default task Priority be set?

  The "Priority" field in the Task layout does not allow a default to be set. Is there another way of doing it? Because the current default is "None" and the Zoho Kanban board design has selected this field as critical information to surface by including

• Adding a threshold to a line chart based on date range

  I have a line chart that is tracking a percentage over time. It also has a filter for 50 different clients. I would like to create a threshold that is based on a portion of the date range. As I understand it, this would be done by adding a column to the

• Resize Signature field dynamically

  On the tablet, it is perfect. But on smaller mobile devices and PCs, both web and application, it is too small for people to sign. Is there any plan to make the signature field size dynamically in the future update?

• Super Admin Logging in as another User

  How can a Super Admin login as another user. For example, I have a sales rep that is having issues with their Accounts and I want to view their Zoho Account with out having to do a GTM and sharing screens. Moderation Update (8th Aug 2025): We are working

• Zoho Creator Application - New User Not able to access the application

  In Zoho Creator, The newly added user not able to access the " Added Application" - User has received the Invitation Email, but while clicking "confirm Account" in the invitation Email, the following error message has appeared. "Sorry! you cannot accept

• Deleting Salutation Field

  We have updated our lead input screen and 'Salutation' has appeared. This is not visible in the 'Edit Pgae Layout' screen so cannot be moved to 'List of Removed Fields'  Salutation is visible in the list in 'Customization - Fields' however I can only 'Edit' or 'Replace' I cannot delete and I do not need this field on my lead input screen.  Please can you advise how to get rid of this.  Screen shots can be provided if needed.  Thank you Tasha

• Auto-Generate & Update Asset Serial Numbers using a custom function (Assets Module)

  Hello Team, I’ve been working on a script to automate one of our processes in Zoho FSM, and the core functionality has been successfully implemented. However, I’m encountering an issue related to serial number allocation, which is not working as expected.

• Partner with HDFC And Sbi Bank.

  Hdfc and sbi both are very popular bank if zoho books become partner with this banks then many of the zoho books users will benefit premium features of partnered banks.

• Zoho Mail iOS app update: Access Delegated Mailbox.

  Hello everyone! You can now access the delegated mailbox from within the iOS version of the Zoho Mail app. To access the delegated mailbox: Open the Zoho Mail app. Go on to the 'Email' module. Tap the profile picture. Choose the delegated mailbox Please

• How to convert Lead's country field from Text to Pick List

  Hi, I would like to change the default country field in ZCRM from text to pick list. It looks like not I can't delete default country field and recreate it as pick list nor can i create an new custom field country because such a label belong to default field. So what do I have to do? Any ideas? L

• How create a draft via workflow?

  I wish to create a workflow rule for specific emails that creates a draft response - not an automatic email reply, but just a draft with a set response ready to be verified by an agent who can then manually select recipients. Alternatively, the workflow

• New feature: Invite additional guests for your bookings

  Hello everyone, Greetings from Zoho Bookings! We are happy to announce the much-awaited feature Guest Invite, which enhances your booking experience like never before. This feature allows additional participants to be invited for the bookings to make

• Improved Contact Sync flow in Google Integration with Zoho CRM

  Hello Everyone, Your contact sync in Google integration just got revamped! We have redesigned the sync process to give users more control over what data flows into Google and ensure that this data flows effortlessly between Zoho CRM and Google. With this

• Image field in custom module

  Hi guy, Is there any hope of adding a custom image field in the custom module? We created a custom module to keep track of assets, and it would be helpful if we could attach an image to the record. Thanks Rudy

• الخصم على مستوى فاتورة المبيعات

  السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته مطلوب في إنشاء خصم على مستوى فاتورة المبيعات وليس على مستوى البند أريد معرفة الطريقة؟

• VAT and Taxes option not available

  Dear ZOHO Team , The VAT and Taxes options in my ZOHO books account not available,I tried to find how to enable or check the way to use this option but unfortunately couldn't find it anywhere ,I'm in UAE ,kindly let me know what to do to solve this issue

• Default Tagging on API-generated Transactions

  If one assigns tags to an Item or Customer, those tags get auto-populated in each line item of an Invoice or Sales Order when one creates those documents. However, if one creates the Sales Order or Invoice via the API (either directly coding or using

• Direct Feed (Bank)

  Is Direct feed integration for AlRajhi and ADCB bank supported by Zoho Books in GCC/Saudi

• Sales Order, Invoice and Payment numbers

  Hi zoho friends, it is me again, the slow learner. I'm wondering if there is a way to have it so the Sales order, invoice and payment numbers are all the same? It would be easier for me if they were the same number so there is not so many reference numbers

• MS Teams for daily call operations

  Hello all, Our most anticipated and crucial update is finally here! Organizations using Microsoft Teams phone system can now integrate it effectively with Zoho CRM for tasks like dialling numbers and logging calls. We are enhancing our MS Teams functionality

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Report

  From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports The customer satisfaction (CSAT) report helps teams understand how customers feel about their support experience, identify service gaps, and continuously improve the help desk. It turns

• Timeline Tracking Support for records updates via module import and bulk write api

  Note: This update is currently available in Early Access and will soon be rolled out across all data centers (DCs) and for all editions of Zoho CRM. The update will be available to all users within your organization, regardless of their profiles or roles.

• Next Page