1.1 Background of the Study
This study is aimed at computerizing personnel and payroll information system for staff in Nigeria Civil Service. The Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) is information Communications Technology (ICT) based computerized Human Resource and accounting Management Information System to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of payroll administration for its Ministries, Departments and Agencies. IPPIS provides a platform for computer application in government payroll management as it calculates each employees monthly basic pay, bonuses, arrears, national housing fund and pension contributions. Payroll according to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (7th Edition) was defined as a sheet containing the number of workers of an establishment and the amount each staff receives as salary or wages. As we all know, for any establishment to grow in the 21st century, there must be a cordial relationship between the employers of such establishment. This cordial relationship is maintained when staff receives their salaries, wages and other benefits across every staff of an establishment as at when due.
One of the biggest problems associated with the manual Payroll System was that government did not know the size of its workforce. Thus, some mischievous workers were collecting salaries from multiple pay points, for fictitious employees and of course workers collecting salaries when they are employed somewhere or not working with government. Therefore, the exact number of Personnel in MDAs being paid by in the Nigerian Federal Government cannot be easily ascertained due to non-availability of required and necessary information. Consequently, it has become difficult for government to have an accurate wage data for planning and budgeting purpose. The IPPIS project seeks to resolve this and also reduce the Federal Government expenditure on Overheads.
Nigeria Civil Service has faced a lot of problems in calculating their staff payroll and recording staffs’ information, because they have been using manual method and this of course delays the payment of staff salaries. This delay in salaries payment has put grudges in the minds of most workers making them to do their work reluctantly. Due to manual calculation of staff payroll in the Nigeria Civil Service, a lot of problems such as calculation of the actual time that a staff puts into his service is difficult, fishing out fictitious names that are included by corrupt officers are very difficult, occurrence of inconsistent figures in pays slip of workers and even the problem of security of information in workers files has been encountered so far by the government.
Having seen all these problems, the Nigeria Civil Service encounters so far, there is need for a computerized personnel and payroll information system for staff in Nigeria Civil Service in order to eradicate all the problems faced by it.
Some of the problems observed in the existing system are:
Over the years, manual method of record keeping and payroll has been used. This method has its problems. It has been proven to be very ineffective and inefficient. Some of the problems are
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to design and implement an integrated personnel and payroll information system that will work towards the elimination of ineffective mode of operation in manual based payroll information system.
The objectives of this study are as highlighted below;
1.4 Significance of the Study
With the growth in information technology, the study offers numerous benefits to the Nigeria Civil Service, and their employees. With an integrated personnel and payroll information system, the organization will enjoy accurate salary computation unlike the manual system. Nigeria Civil Service, ICT staffs will experience an easy, stress-free, and error-free documentation for all staffs with high secured database. Afterwards, further development can be made on the project work in accordance to the rapid development in information technology in the near future.
1.5 Scope of the Study
This project work covers the registration of staff and the recording of staff salary as well as processing the transaction record in order to generate results, in the Nigeria Civil Service. Generally, this project is geared towards the design and implementation of comprehensive review of integrated personnel and payroll information system for staff in Nigeria Civil Service. It is expected that this project will be successful enough to draw interest from other organizations, companies.
1.6 Limitations of Study
In the course of carrying out this research work a number of problems were encountered.
1.7 Definition of Terms
Analyst: This is a person or professional who studies the problem encountered by a system and creates means of solving them by introducing a better system.
Code: It is a written guideline that helps to determine whether a specific action is ethical or unethical.
Computer: Computer is an electronic device operating the control of instructions stored in its memory that can accept data (input) manipulate the data according to a specified rules (processing) produces result output and stores the result for future use.
Cross Pay: This is the sum total amount of employee pay before deduction.
Data processing: is defined as the entire process of converting or manipulating data into definite meaningful information (Adigwe, & Okoye, 2015).
Data: It is the facts collected for decision making they are facts that are kept to be processed to get more information.
Database Management System (DBMS): it is software which controls the flow of data and checks and checks on how data are stored.
Database: is an organized /unique collection of related files. It is a collection of schemas, tables, queries, reports, views and other object.
Deduction: This means withholdings from the gross pay for employee.
Design: is the art or process of designing how something will look, work.
Device: It is an equipment or machine use in carrying out certain operations.
Documentation: material that provides official information or evidence that serves as record; written specifications and information that describes the product.
Information: is a processed data that can be read and understand.
Input: A set of data sent to the computer processing.
Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS): this is information Communications Technology (ICT) based computerized Human Resource and accounting Management Information System used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of payroll administration for its Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
Management Information System (MIS): Information system that generates accurate timely and organized information so that manager and other user can make decision, solve problem supervise activities and track progress.
Net Pay: This is the final salary amount that will be given to the employee after the deductions.
Pay Period: This means the number of days or weeks for which employee salaries and wages are usually accumulated.
Pay Register: This is listing of the wages or salary due to employee for pay period.
Payroll Ledger: This is a table that shows the calculation pay of employees and the month in which they earned the pay.
Payroll Taxes: Taxes generally levied by Government base on the salary for the Nation building.
Payroll: this as the sum of all financial records of salaries for employees, wages, bonuses and deduction.
Pension: it is a regular payment made during a person’s retirement from an investment fund to which that person or their employee has contributed during their working life.
Salary: This refers to the remuneration of crewing to the employee work at administrative management or clerical level for monthly or annual pay period.
Security: This helps to prevent unauthorized users from illegally accessing certain data within the database, it protects your data/ files.
Software: These are set of logically related instructions given to the computer to perform some specific task.
System: Is the collection of hardware and software, data information procedure and people.
Wages: This is the Consideration given to employees who provides their services for an hourly rate.