Cintra iQ: key terms and concepts

Personnel record

Holds a person's personal information. Every person you want to record in the system needs one, including non-employees such as contractors, trainers, or job applicants. A person only ever has one personnel record.

Employment record

Holds the details of one period of employment, such as start date, employer, and post history. A person can have several employment records if they've had more than one period of employment. Each employment record has its own unique Employment ID.

Navigator

The central pane of the Cintra iQ home screen that lists records for the folder currently selected (e.g. Employment Records, Posts). Filters can be applied to narrow what's shown, and a filter icon appears in the bottom-right of the screen when one is active.

Record filter

A saved set of criteria used to sort, display, or restrict which records appear in the Navigator. Used for targeted reporting and access control. Built from filter criteria (individual conditions, e.g. Post Title Like "%Manager%") grouped into filter definitions, which can be organised into filter categories.

Post

Represents an individual position or assignment, often tied to a specific employee, that can carry a spine point, work pattern, and cost code. Posts let you pay an employee and assign a salary at the same time, and allow tracking of role history and changes.

Payroll membership

Identifies which payroll an employee is paid from. A payroll membership record must be set up for every new starter before they can be paid. Employees can be transferred between payrolls, but only where each payroll sits under the same PAYE reference.

Payroll group

A set of payrolls with the same pay frequency (e.g. all weekly payrolls paid on a Friday), grouped together so the same payroll workflow actions can be run across all of them at once.

Payroll workflow

The screen and process used to organise, automate, and track the key tasks needed to complete a payroll run, from inputting payroll information, to running calculations, to publishing payslips — using colour-coded status actions applied to payrolls or payroll groups.

Cost code

An analysis/accounting code used to allocate an employee's pay to a department or cost centre for finance journal reporting. Cost codes can be set at the employee level (Department/Costing form), at the post level, or picked up via Account Mappings during the journal extract.

Payment run

A batch of payments created to process wages, bonuses, or other payments to employees or third parties for a given payroll period. A second payment run created without overwriting the first is a supplementary payment run.

Scratch payslip

Shows what an employee's payslip would have looked like before any corrections were applied during the period the money was originally earned. Used to explain unexpected payslip values, by comparing original and corrected figures side by side.

Penny test

A £0.01 test payment made to a new client's or new SUN number's bank account, used to confirm the BACS connection between the Bureau and the client works before real payments are sent.

Correction

An automatic consequence of Cintra iQ being date-driven: when data in a past pay period is changed, the system recalculates tax, NI, and pension as if the change had happened at the correct time, then applies the difference to the current payslip. Payments can be corrected across the current and previous tax year; deductions are never restated from an earlier tax year.

Ad hoc correction

A manual, one-off payment or deduction entered directly against a specific past pay period, used when nothing else in the system already generates the correction automatically.

Amendment

The reversal mechanism for a correction that needs undoing or changing, because the original entry was wrong, dated incorrectly, or needs removing. Made by fixing the data at its source (e.g. post history, payments and rates, or the calendar) and recalculating the payslip.

Work pattern

Defines the days, or part days, of the week that count as standard working days for an employee or a post. Used to calculate an employee's Full Time Equivalent (FTE), pro-rate pay, and support accurate absence reporting.

Non-working days set (excluded days)

A reusable, named set of dated events, such as bank holidays or company closure days, attached to employee calendars so holiday and sickness are calculated correctly. Cintra iQ comes with default sets for England & Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Factory Shutdown.

Third-party definition

A record identifying an external party- such as HMRC, an AOE authority, or a pension scheme provider - that payroll deductions can be paid to. Set up under Payroll > Payroll Setup > Third Party Associations.

Deputy

A Self-Service role a manager can assign to another user so tasks such as approving holiday or absence requests can be delegated for a set date range, without permanently changing the reporting structure.

Authority to Recruit

A Self-Service workflow that lets an employee or manager request to recruit for an existing or new post. Once approved, the request appears in Cintra iQ for an HR administrator to process into an actual post.