Reference
Glossary
The words that show up across TriblockHR, in plain language. If a term in another guide is unfamiliar, it's probably explained here.
Payroll terms
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Pay run | One round of paying a group of employees for a period. It moves through Draft → Pending Approval → Approved → Published. |
| Payroll group | A set of employees paid on the same frequency and schedule (e.g. "Monthly Salaried"). Every pay run starts from one. |
| Pay code (pay type) | A category of earning with a rate multiplier — Regular (1×), Overtime (1.5×), Holiday (2×), and so on. Every earning on a payslip sits under a pay code. |
| Pay type policy | A rule that changes a pay code's rate based on tenure — e.g. a reduced rate during a probation period. |
| Allowance | Money added to pay on top of salary or wages — housing, transport, commission, a bonus. |
| Deduction | Money taken out of pay — loan repayments, insurance, pension, union dues. Separate from statutory (government) deductions. |
| Gross pay | Total earnings plus allowances, before anything is taken out. |
| Net pay | What actually reaches the employee: gross, minus taxes, minus deductions. |
| Off-cycle run | A pay run outside the normal schedule — a bonus, a correction, severance. Starts empty; you add the amounts. |
| Pre-run review | A check before approving a pay run that flags unusual changes versus last time and surfaces data problems. |
| Bank file | The payment file you upload to your bank to pay everyone in a run at once. |
| YTD (year-to-date) | Running totals for the year so far — earnings, taxes, contributions — shown on payslips and used for annual filings. |
| Proration | Adjusting a salaried employee's pay for a partial period — e.g. someone who started mid-month gets a part-month's pay. |
Time & leave terms
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Time-off type | A kind of leave — Vacation, Sick, Compassionate. Defines how that leave behaves (paid or not, does it carry over, etc.). Company-wide. |
| Time-off policy | How much leave a group of people gets, by length of service. Different groups get different policies of the same type. |
| Accrual | Leave that builds up gradually over the year, rather than being granted all at once. |
| Rollover | Whether unused leave carries into the next year or resets to zero. |
| Threshold | A tenure step in a policy — e.g. 10 days after one year, 15 days after five. |
| Blackout dates | Dates when leave can't be requested — a busy season, stocktake week. |
| Timesheet | The record of an employee's hours for a period. Hourly pay is built from it. |
| Punch | A single clock-in or clock-out, from the dashboard, a hardware clock, or an import. |
| Work schedule | A planned roster of shifts. The plan, not the record of hours actually worked. |
| Shift slot | A reusable shift template — "Morning, 6 AM–2 PM" — that you drop onto the schedule. |
People & org terms
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Employment history | The timeline of someone's job — hire, raises, promotions, transfers, termination — each with an effective date. |
| Effective date | The date a change takes hold. Payroll reads the record that was effective during the pay period, which is why a backdated raise still pays correctly. |
| Employment level | A tier (full-time, part-time, contract…) that drives overtime rules and payslip layout. Much of payroll config is per level. |
| Division / Department | Your org structure. Divisions can also enforce location-based clock-in. |
| Standard allowance / deduction | One set to attach automatically to every new employee from their start date. |
| Bulk update | Making the same change to many employees at once — a reorg, a policy switch. |
| Sign-off | An employee actively acknowledging a document — they can't view it until they confirm they've seen it. |
Statutory / country terms
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Statutory deduction | A government-required deduction — social security, income tax. Rates are set by law, not by the employer. |
| PAYE | "Pay As You Earn" — income tax withheld from each paycheck, in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Saint Lucia. |
| NIB | National Insurance Board — social security in the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos. |
| NIS | National Insurance Scheme/Service — social security in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados. |
| NIC | National Insurance Corporation — social security in Saint Lucia. |
| NHT / HEART / Education Tax | Additional Jamaican statutory contributions (housing trust, training, education). |
| NHIP | National Health Insurance Programme — health contribution in Turks & Caicos. |
| TRN / BIR / TIN | An employee's tax registration number — TRN in Jamaica, BIR in Trinidad, TIN in Barbados. Required to file for that person. |
| Tax certificate | The annual statement of an employee's earnings and tax for their personal return — P24 (Jamaica), TD4 (Trinidad), TD-5 (Saint Lucia). |
| Remittance | The payment of withheld taxes/contributions to the authority, with a report listing what it covers. |
System terms
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Module | A part of TriblockHR you can turn on or off — Payroll, Recruitment, Learning, and so on. You pay for and enable only what you use. |
| Role | What someone can do in the system — Employee, Manager, HR Admin, Payroll Admin. Sets the ceiling on their access. |
| Permission | A specific extra ability granted on top of a role — like handling salary or approving timesheets. |
| Approval workflow | A fixed sign-off chain for a process — e.g. time off goes to the manager before it's approved. |
| Automation | A more advanced, build-it-yourself flow that reacts to events or schedules and can branch, wait, and send emails. |
| Template | A reusable definition — a form, an email, a performance review, a course — you set up once and use many times. |
| Audit trail / log | The automatic record of who changed what and when, kept on most records for accountability. |