Add an employment contract and adjust a salary

An employee needs a contract before Sumly can produce a payslip for them. The contract holds the job title, the gross salary and the dates the employment runs between, and every pay change afterwards hangs off it. You add one when somebody joins, then come back to the same card to record a rise or to close the job out.

What sits on an employee's page

Start on the employee's own record, the one with the "Back to employees" button at the top left. "Employee information" runs down the left in three blocks: "Personal details", "Payment details" and "Tax details". The right-hand column is where the employment itself lives, and on a new employee both of its panels are empty: "No contracts yet." above "No payslips yet."

You do not need the rest of the record finished before you start. A contract saves while "Personal details" and "Payment details" are still blank, so add the contract now and complete those before the first pay run. Registering as an employer is a separate job outside Sumly, and our guide to hiring your first employee in Cyprus covers it.

Adding the contract

1. 01

   Open the form

   Click "New contract" at the top right of the Contracts panel.

2. 02

   Name the job

   "Job title" is required. "Contract type" is either "Permanent" or "Temporary", and it comes pre-filled as "Permanent", so a normal hire needs nothing here.

3. 03

   Set the pay

   "Salary basis" starts on "Annual salary", which labels the amount field below it "Gross annual salary". It is required. Enter the gross figure, before any deductions.

4. 04

   Pick the start date

   "Start date" is required. Type it in the dd.mm.yyyy format the field shows, or click through to the calendar and pick the day.

5. 05

   Save it

   Leave "End date" blank and click "Add contract". Most people are hired without a leaving date agreed, which is why the field is optional. You come back to this contract and set the end date when they leave.

The saved contract appears as a card: the job title, a "Current" badge, the salary, the contract type and the two dates. Underneath it is "Salary history", which starts as a single line: the start date and the figure you entered. From here on, that history is the record of what this person was paid and when it changed.

One thing to expect: "New contract" is now greyed out until the current contract has an end date.

Scheduling a pay rise

Every pay change goes through "Adjust salary" on the contract card. The modal opens with "Salary basis" already set, and that dropdown holds "Annual salary" and "Hourly rate". The amount comes up blank, so you type the new gross figure rather than editing the old one. "Effective from" is required. It is the date the new pay starts, not today. "Note" is optional, but on a rise dated months out it is worth writing down why, and its placeholder, "Annual review", is the kind of thing that belongs there. Click "Adjust salary" to save, and a "Salary adjusted" toast confirms it.

A future date does not change anything today. Sumly adds the rise to "Salary history" as a dated row badged "Scheduled", with a "Remove" link beside it. The card header keeps showing the current figure until the date arrives. So you can enter a rise agreed months ahead once and leave it to land on its own. How much to pay yourself in the first place is a separate decision, and salary versus dividends in Cyprus works through it.

Closing the contract with an end date

"Edit contract" does less than the form you started with. You can change only "Job title" and "End date", "Contract type" is greyed out, and "Start date" is locked. Those are the two things that change about a job: a move to a different position in the company, and the day the person leaves. In the end-date calendar every day before the start date is disabled, so a contract cannot end before it began. Pick the day and click "Save changes".

With an end date saved, "New contract" is clickable again. New terms go in as the next contract, and the old one stays intact behind it.

That is the payroll side of your setup done. Payroll is a per-employee add-on, so change your plan and add-ons first if you have not turned it on yet. Our guide to social insurance in Cyprus covers the contributions that sit on top of the salary. Next comes the everyday loop, starting with paperwork: getting receipts and bills into your inbox.