HR Management — Employee & Payroll

AskVAVA's HR suite is built for the single HR manager or small HR team running everything for a company of 5 to 200 employees — often across multiple countries. If you've been juggling spreadsheets for payroll, chasing employees for leave requests over WhatsApp, and losing track of who's on leave on any given week, this is the platform built to fix that.

The platform solves three core problems: scattered employee records that live in email and spreadsheets, manual payroll calculations that are error-prone and country-specific, and the absence of a proper statutory compliance workflow for CPF, EPF, SSS, and SSB contributions.

New to AskVAVA HR? Follow these steps in order to get from zero to running your first payroll cycle. Each step unlocks the next — skipping the salary setup is the most common reason a payroll preview shows blank figures.

1. 1

   Create the org and invite your HR team

   Sign up at askvava.com, create your organisation, then invite colleagues from Settings → Team Members. Assign them the HR or Admin role.

2. 2

   Configure departments and employment categories

   Go to Settings → HR Settings to set up your department list and employment categories (full-time, part-time, contract). These become dropdown options throughout the employee forms.

3. 3

   Import or add your first employees

   Go to Team → Employees. For small teams, add employees one by one via the + Add Employee button. For larger teams, use AI Import (Settings → AI Import) to upload a CSV or Excel file — the system maps columns automatically with a preview before committing.

4. 4

   Set basic_salary for each employee before running payroll

   Open each employee record and fill in the Basic Salary field. Without a salary, the employee will be excluded from payroll with a warning. Also set the country so the correct statutory deductions are applied.

5. 5

   Run a test payroll preview to verify calculations

   Go to Payroll → New Cycle, select the period, and click Preview. Review the CPF/EPF/statutory figures before approving. The preview is safe — no records are locked until you click Approve.

6. 6

   Enable WhatsApp bot for employees

   Set the phone number field on each employee record. This is required for the bot to resolve who is messaging and deliver payslips, leave balances, and clock-in commands over WhatsApp.

The Employees Hub is the single source of truth for all staff data. Every other module — payroll, attendance, leave, roster, WhatsApp bot — reads from this table. There is no separate “payroll employee list” or “roster team” — it is all one unified record.

Adding an employee here automatically makes them visible in payroll (if salary is set), the leave system (if leave policy is assigned), the roster (if is_schedulable is true), and the WhatsApp bot (if a phone number is set).

• CSV/Excel bulk import via AI Import — paste a spreadsheet and the system maps columns automatically with a preview before saving.
• Employee lifecycle: Active → Suspended → Dismissed → Reinstated. Use Suspend for temporary situations (maternity leave, LOA). Use Dismiss for terminations — this triggers final pay calculations.
• Departments and reporting lines are configurable. An employee can belong to one department and have one direct manager.
• Employee profile photos, NRIC/FIN, and bank account details can all be stored for payslip and bank file generation.

The attendance module captures clock-in and clock-out times from three sources: WhatsApp commands (most popular for field workers), the web app (for office staff), and manual admin entry (for corrections and exceptions). All three methods write to the same attendance table.

GPS coordinates are captured at the time of clock-in. If your organisation has a configured geofence radius (set in Settings → Attendance), employees clocking in outside that radius are flagged. The admin dashboard shows a map pin per record so you can review location at a glance.

• Late tracking: set a standard start time per department; employees clocking in after it are flagged as late with the minutes shown.
• Half-day flags are set manually by the HR admin, typically when an employee takes approved half-day leave.
• Export monthly attendance as a CSV from the Attendance → Export button — includes employee name, dates, hours worked, late minutes, and overtime hours.

Leave types and statutory entitlements vary significantly across Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Myanmar. AskVAVA ships with pre-configured leave types per country so you do not have to set up the structure from scratch — you only need to configure the entitlement days per leave type and assign them to employees.

Payroll is the most complex module in the platform — but the workflow is deliberately simple. You select the period, preview the calculations, make any adjustments, then approve. The system handles all statutory deductions per country, proration for mid-month joiners and leavers, and FX conversion for multi-currency payrolls.

1. 1

   Create a new payroll cycle

   Go to Payroll → New Cycle. Select the pay period (monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly) and the country or employee group.

2. 2

   Preview the calculations

   The system computes gross pay, statutory deductions, allowances, and net pay for every eligible employee. Review line by line.

3. 3

   Adjust as needed

   Add one-off allowances, bonuses, deductions, or override a statutory figure. All adjustments are logged with a reason.

4. 4

   Approve the cycle

   Click Approve to lock the payroll. This creates immutable payslip records. Approved payrolls cannot be edited — only a correction run can be added.

5. 5

   Generate and distribute payslips

   PDFs are generated automatically on approval. Distribute via email, WhatsApp, or the employee self-service portal.

6. 6

   Export the bank file

   Download the payment file in the format required by your bank (GIRO for Singapore, RENTAS for Malaysia). Upload directly to internet banking.

Once a payroll cycle is approved, payslips are generated automatically for every employee included in the run. You have multiple delivery options — and employees have self-service access via the employee portal and WhatsApp so HR does not need to manually email PDFs to each person.

• Employee self-service portal: each employee has a unique link at /e/payslips/[token]. They can view and download all historical payslips without creating an AskVAVA login.
• WhatsApp payslip on demand: employee sends 'payslip' to the bot and receives their latest payslip as a PDF attachment. They can also say 'payslip March' to retrieve a specific month.
• Bulk email: use the Send All Payslips button in the payroll cycle view to send every employee their payslip by email in one action.

The onboarding module helps HR manage new joiner checklists, document collection, and milestone tracking without losing items in email threads. Create a template once for each role type, then assign it to each new joiner — the template is copied into an instance for that employee so their progress is tracked separately.

The same module handles offboarding — use checklist templates for the handover process to ensure equipment return, system access removal, and exit clearance are tracked systematically.

• Milestone tracking: First Day, End of Week 1, End of Month 1, End of Probation. Mark each milestone complete as the employee progresses.
• Handover tracking for offboarding: assign handover tasks to both the departing employee and their successor so nothing falls through the cracks.
• Onboarding progress is visible from the employee record — open any employee and switch to the Onboarding tab.

The performance module supports structured review cycles — quarterly, half-yearly, or annual — with a dual-flow of self-review by the employee and manager review by the line manager. Both reviews are completed before a calibration summary is generated.

Goal setting uses a flexible OKR/KPI format. Each goal has a title, description, target metric, and a status that updates throughout the cycle. Competencies are rated on a 1–5 scale and can be customised per role family.

1. 1

   Create a review cycle

   Go to Performance → New Cycle. Set the cycle name, period, review type (quarterly/annual), and the deadline for submissions.

2. 2

   Assign reviewees and reviewers

   Select the employees in scope. Each employee is paired with their direct manager as the reviewer. Bulk assignment is available.

3. 3

   Employee completes self-review

   The employee logs into the portal and fills in goal ratings and competency scores with written comments.

4. 4

   Manager completes manager review

   The manager sees the employee self-review alongside their own rating form. Comments are visible after both sides submit.

5. 5

   HR reviews calibration summary

   A summary table shows every employee's self-score vs manager score. Use this to identify outliers and prepare for calibration discussions.

The claims module handles employee expense submissions and reimbursements. It is designed as WhatsApp-first — employees photograph a receipt and send it to the bot, which auto-routes it to claims. This removes the friction that causes claim submissions to pile up at month end.

The WhatsApp bot is the employee-facing interface to AskVAVA. Instead of requiring employees to install an app or remember a URL, they interact with the company's existing WhatsApp number. The bot resolves the employee by their phone number — which is why the phone field in the Employees Hub is mandatory for bot access.

Every bot interaction is logged to the conversation history, which HR admins can review from the Chat Logs section. The AI also answers policy questions using your uploaded HR documents and FAQs — so employees can ask “how many days of annual leave do I have left?” and get an accurate answer without calling HR.

These are the most common mistakes HR admins make when getting started, and the workarounds that save time.