Collaborate without compromising on payroll security using Zoho Payroll

Collaborate without compromising on payroll security using Zoho Payroll


Welcome to the next session of our Community Learning Series. 

Today we will throw some light on how Zoho Payroll lets you collaborate with your distributed workforce and stay in control of payroll operations without compromising on the security of your employees' data. 

As a Zoho Payroll user, your organisation will possess all the crucial information about your employees like bank account details, personal information, and salary details. Therefore, it is critical that this information stays secure. If it falls into the wrong hands, it can lead to identity theft or worse. This in turn can have adverse effects on your employees' trust and might damage your organisation's reputation. 

To show how you can take control of your payroll operations in a secure way, we'll look at the below organisational hierarchy as an example.

                                        




The following table lists the responsibilities for each role as part of the payroll processing team.  


                                                

From the table above, you can see that only the CEO requires complete access to all the modules. The remaining users need access only to specific modules based on their roles. 

As the payroll admin of the organisation, the CEO can set up multi-level access in Zoho Payroll and allow the users in the organisation to access only selected data and functions. This way the CEO can maintain centralised control yet present the same user interface for all of the staff to get their work done. Distinctive user roles help cross-department staff can work in synergy without compromising the security of payroll data. 

As your organization's CEO or payroll admin, here's how you can assign access for each of your user roles.

Log in to Zoho Payroll.

Under Settings, select Users and Roles. 


                                                     

Refer to our self-help resources for step-by-step guidance on creating multiple distinct user roles.

Once you have created all the roles within your organisation, let's define the permissions for each of the roles. 

Payroll staff:

Let's assume that the responsibility of your payroll staff will be to maintain and update payroll records, validate payroll inputs, and get the pay run ready. 

Your payroll staff will need to collect employee details and payroll inputs submitted through various sources, and then create a pay run with all the information collected. 

They will need access to the following modules:
  • Employee module to maintain employee records.
  • Pay run module to create and edit pay runs. 
  • Preferences module to collect employee reimbursement and POI data 
   
                                               
   
Here you can allow the payroll staff to only view the basic employee details, but not create or edit them. This will ensure they cannot tamper with the employee data. 

In the pay run module, you can decide that they can only create and edit the pay runs, not approve or pay them. When you move on to setting the permissions for the other roles, you'll probably give the payroll admin approval access for any pay run and give the finance team permission to make payments to the employees. Each role has a unique set of permissions based on its duties and position in the hierarchy. 

                                

Now that the different roles have been set, the admin can invite users into the payroll organisation. 

Select Users under Users and Roles and start adding your employees under the different roles you have curated. All they have to do is accept the invitations they receive via email and create a Zoho account using the same email, and they are good to go.

Here's how the users will be seeing Zoho Payroll based on the roles that they've been assigned. 

HR staff:

Can add new employee details while onboarding new staff to Zoho Payroll.



Payroll staff:

Can enter payroll inputs of employees, create and edit pay runs.



HR manager:

Can approve salary revisions, reimbursements and proof of investments. Has access to all reports.



Finance manager:

Can create, edit and delete employee loans and record salary payments. 



External auditor:

Can access payroll, statutory and tax reports. 




So the roles have been created, the users are added, and the admin knows which actions each user can perform. We haven't mentioned user tracking yet, but that's another kind of accountability that's available. If a discrepancy occurs in the payroll system, the payroll admin can check the activity log report to see exactly which actions each user has performed. All of this helps you keep your payroll data safe with Zoho Payroll.

Do let us know in the comments below how you have customised the roles in your payroll organisation. 

Also, check out our previous post on a checklist to follow before hitting pay run here.

Until next time!










        • Recent Topics

        • My followed tickets extension is not working under the All departments view

          Hi. I've installed the My followed tickets extension. However, when I try to open the extension under the all departments view, I get the following message: 'Sorry, this extension is not supported in the All Departments view.' How can I solve this p

        • Ticket Time Entry to Timesheet

          The title just about sums it up. I have searched here and not found anything relevant, but If I overlooked, then please set me straight.  We have staff that do nothing but close tickets in desk all day long. These tickets represent their timesheet. Is there a way to have this information sync or for a tech to go into their timesheet themselves and sync it with their tickets of the same timeframe?? We waste a ton of time doing timesheets and the old "Clock in/Clock out" isnt detailed enough for us!!

        • Calls undetected.

          The call is not showing on the call log.

        • Calls undetected

          Zoho is not reading calls made.

        • Multi-currency and Products

          One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support.  However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK.  However, we maintain different price lists for each. 

        • Archiving Contacts

          How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

        • How to add to Subforms via Zapier with Zoho Writer?

          I have the following layout for a Zoho Writer Document. As you can see there is a repeating subform taking in "Items". I am trying to make a Zapier integration with it, and I can see there is 1 field saying: "Items", but it does not specify how I'm supposed

        • Missing information data Zoho inventory

          there some missing data in Zoho inventory connection. pick list stock counts bin location we have requested it via mail and the support team doesn’t gove feedback. has anyone achieve to get these info or to ask other ya les

        • Calendar Events Issues

          Not able to view scheduled events on my calendar

        • Extensions 101 webinar series: Build, integrate, and monetize with extensions

          Attention developers! Are you ready to take your extension development skills to the next level? We're excited to bring back the Extensions 101 webinar series with an expanded lineup of Zoho products and an introduction to more platform features. Last

        • Custom Related List Inside Zoho Books

          Hello, We can create the Related list inside the zoho books by the deluge code, I am sharing the reference code Please have a look may be it will help you. //..........Get Org Details organizationID = organization.get("organization_id"); Recordid = cm_g_a_data.get("module_record_id");

        • Where are recordings stored?

          I have hosted a couple of test meeting, used the "record" button to start and stop the recording but I am unable to find where are those recordings saved?  Can anybody help? Thanks

        • Zoho Desk's integration with Microsoft PowerBI delivers advanced analytics insights

          Hello everyone, Gaining advanced insights through reports and dashboards is one of the critical requirements of every business. In addition to key metrics tracked in Zoho Desk, such as agent performance, SLA adherence, and ticket lifecycle, businesses

        • Create static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values

          Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next couple

        • IMAP error message in Zoho mail

          I cannot send emails today. Everything fine for years until today. Get a message: "You are yet to enable IMAP for your account. Please contact your administrator". Does anyone know how to correct this?

        • Enhancements to Zoho Map integration tasks

          Hello everyone, We're excited to announce enhancements to the Zoho Map integration tasks in Deluge, which will boost its performance. This post will walk you through the upcoming changes, explain why we're making them, and detail the steps you need to

        • IMAP stopped working today

          Hello! I've been a paid customer for more than 10 years, IMAP was always working fine. But today this is the error I've got on my iPhone: I've tried toggling the IMAP for my account (Mail -> Settings -> Mail accounts) off and on again, but that did not

        • Are custom portals accessible on the Zoho learn smartphone app?

          In other words, can users external to my organisation, once signed up, use the app in the same way as internal users? Thanks

        • Zoho Books/Inventory - Update Marketplace Sales Order via API

          Hi everyone, Does anyone know if there is a way to update Sales Orders created from a marketplace intigration (Shopify in this case) via API? I'm trying to cover a scenario where an order is changed on the Shopify end and the changes must be reflected

        • Conditional Layouts On Multi Select Field

          How we can use Conditional Layouts On Multi Select Field field? Please help.

        • Multiple columns in a form

          I am evaluating Zoho Creator. However, I am seeing almost no layout control on a form.  Just a basic 1 or 2 column format that is then imposed on the entire form.  That's not going to work for many, many real world cases. We need multiple columns per line, and we need each line/section to occupy a single column or be able to span the columns.   Someone please tell me that I'm missing something and the capability is actually there.  

        • Global search

          Hi! I think it would be great to have a global search that would give you results from all records of a database, no only for a single field of a single form as we have now. Thanks!

        • Any insights about API/v2? Having problem for a while.

          I don't know why it is throwing a 404 error, my report name is correct. Has someone had this issue and how you fix it?

        • Edit QR code with redirect to form

          Guten morgen, wir haben ein Formular Reklamation_erstellen. Dort soll ein QR Code erstellt werden, der im Lieferschein angezeigt wird. Beim Scannen auf dem soll das jeweilige Formular zum BEARBEITEN geöffnet werden. Leider bekomme ich es nur so hin, dass

        • Getting all the ingredients together for baking an app

          Good day everyone. After reading a lot of the help docs and watching videos, I now started on my app. To prevent hours and hours wasted on going down the wrong track, I would like some clarification on the following. But first some background: I have

        • Help Needed with Configuring ZC Microservice

          I'm attempting to create a simple microservice, but am running into problems with scope and auth. Using Custom API Builder, here's my setup: 1. Method: GET 2. Auth: OAuth2 3. User Scope: All users 4. Response: Standard 5. Function: A function that returns

        • Creator Simplified #10: Predefine Form Field Values and Make Them Read-Only for Users

          Hey Creators, Ready for this week's tip in the Creator Simplified series? Today, we will explore how to have read only fields in a form. Use Case: Assume a scenario where the default value for a Department field needs to be English Literature, but you

        • To Assign a genrated pdf to a file upload field using delug

          content = "<html><body>HTML Content on page One <div style='page-break-after:always'></div> HTML Content on page Two </body></html>"; file = zoho.file.convertToPDF(content); file.setFileName("Name of the file"); <variableName> = <FormLinkName>[ID == input.ID];

        • Zoho Mail : Email Outgoing Blocked

          I suddenly received the following message yesterday. I cannot send any mail. Please resolve as soon as possible, I cannot work without sending email. Dear User, We regret to inform you that your email outgoing has been blocked and you will not be able

        • Creator and Tables

          Good day. I am trying to create my first application. I have imported my data into Tables and am creating my app in Creator. I do not see my tables and cannot see how to write forms data to a table. Even the Workflow just uses the form. In one of the

        • Calendar week view: Today + 6

          Is there anyway to have the calendar change dynamically based on the date? Due to the amount of events, we only display a week at a time, but towards the end of the week, we can no longer see ahead to next week (without changing it manually every time).

        • customer Name and address details

          i created one application there is no customer details in that . how to add customer details and

        • Recalculate every row in the subform

          Hello, Can anyone help me with a script, please? I have an issue. Sometimes it happens, that in a multi row subform one of the rows show an incorrect row total value. Not really understand how it can happen, if I have a 20 row subform, 19 rows show correct

        • Creating Repeat Forms that remove redundancies

          I wanted to understand if you can make multi-layer forms that reduce the need for users to input information in again and again. We want a form that our suppliers fill out per ingredient they sell, and the end result should have the Ingredient (Section

        • What is the difference between the free plan and the mail lite plan?

          What is the difference between the free plan and the mail lite plan? How many emails can I send per day?

        • Unblock email

          Hi The outgoing mail from a client of me is blocked. I already made tickets and tickets are send to the EU desk but nobody is responding. The problem is already 4 days! There is absolutely no help from the support. I am really not satisfied at all! Can

        • Domain verification failure

          Hello Zoho Support, I purchased my domain directly through Zoho Mail, but the domain verification keeps failing with the message “TXT verification failed.” I’ve already waited and retried several times, but it still won’t verify. Could you please manually

        • Unable to send message;Reason:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.

          My email account is unable to send emails, and I urgently need to use it. How can I resolve this?If there is anything we have done wrong, please let us know in advance so we can actively cooperate to improve. User ID: 850482493

        • URGENT: Email stopped workin - can't access admin panel

          For some reason email sending stopped working. When I try to send an email it fails with "Unable to send message;Reason:451 4.7.1 Temporary system error" I can receive email just fine I see in my notifications some errors about the MX records, however

        • Can I associate an invoice to a Project after the fact?

          We have generated an invoice but would like to assoicate it to a Zoho Project after the fact.  Is there any way to accomplish that? Thanks, Scott

        • Next Page