People
Compensation and allowances
What is recorded about pay, why basic is stored separately from allowances, and who can see it.
Basic pay is stored on its own
A compensation record holds basic pay only. Allowances — housing, transport, phone — are separate records against an allowance type. UAE end-of-service gratuity is computed on basic alone, so a single blended salary figure makes end-of-service permanently uncomputable. There is deliberately no total-salary field.
Allowance types
An allowance type records what the allowance feeds: whether it counts toward the gratuity base, the leave-pay base, the overtime base. That is how payroll knows what to include, without HR computing any of those figures itself. A medical allowance paid because an insurer would not cover somebody is recorded against their benefit enrolment as well, so the payment is not left looking unexplained.
A type also records whether it is paid in cash or provided in kind. Company housing or a car still carries a value for tax; it is simply not paid out, and treating the two identically overstates take-home pay.
Effective dating
A compensation record carries the date it takes effect and, once superseded, the date it stopped. A raise is a new record, not an edit — a payslip was issued under the old one, and a payroll snapshot re-read in two years has to reproduce what was filed.
Which engagement pay belongs to
A compensation record can name the engagement it belongs to, because somebody holding two engagements can be paid by two entities. Where there is exactly one engagement, an unattached record belongs to it — there is nowhere else it could belong.
Who can see it
Compensation is its own data class. The subject and HR administrators see it; a line manager does not, and neither does an HR viewer. Reading it is recorded in the audit log, because *who looked at this person's salary* is a question that gets asked.
Recording a change
A raise is a new record, never an edit
Recording a pay change creates a record from the date you give and closes off whatever was in force the day before. The previous figure stays readable, because a payslip was issued under it and a payroll snapshot re-read in two years has to reproduce what was filed. Where somebody holds two engagements the form insists you say which — an unattached record would be claimed by whichever engagement started later, and one entity would file a salary belonging to the other.
Asking for a change
A manager can raise a request against somebody they manage; HR decides it. Nobody raises or decides their own pay — the panel is simply absent on your own record rather than present and refusing.
Approving does not change anybody's salary
It records a decision. Writing the pay record is a separate step, because an approval in March for a rise in July must not quietly become somebody's salary in March. Where the figure is settled and takes effect now, approving can write the record in the same action — and a request approved with nothing filed says so on the profile until it is.