Why does payroll software need its own evaluation?
Payroll has the lowest error tolerance of any HR process. A wrong net salary damages employee trust; a misreported premium day or underpaid tax means administrative fines, late interest and corrective filings. Because the limitation period for employee wage claims in Turkey is 5 years, a faulty calculation rule can build up risk for years before anyone notices.
Payroll software should therefore be assessed on its own criteria, not as a sub item of a general HR system review. For the wider HR platform decision see how to choose HR software in Turkey. This guide focuses on payroll only and does not promote any particular product.
Which calculations must Turkish payroll software get right?
The core job is gross to net and net to gross calculation under Turkish rules. That involves several interlinked components:
- SGK (Social Security Institution) employee share of 14% and unemployment insurance employee share of 1%, applied between the floor (TRY 33,030) and ceiling (TRY 297,270) of earnings subject to premiums
- Employer share: 21.75% in total; with the Treasury discount under Article 81/ı of Law 5510, 5 points in manufacturing (pay 16.75%) and 2 points outside manufacturing (pay 19.75%), 21.75% without the discount; employer unemployment share 2%
- Progressive income tax on the cumulative annual tax base (15% up to TRY 190,000, 20% up to TRY 400,000, 27% up to TRY 1,500,000, 35% up to TRY 5,300,000, 40% above)
- The minimum wage income tax and stamp duty exemption; stamp duty at 0.759%
- Missing days, unpaid leave, sick leave days and partial months
- Overtime (50% premium), public holiday work and night work payments
- Severance pay (ceiling TRY 73,729.87, only stamp duty deducted) and notice pay
- Wage garnishments and alimony deductions, advances and loan offsets
Each rule looks simple alone. The difficulty is when one employee hits several of them in the same month, so test combined cases.
How do you test calculation accuracy?
Instead of trusting demo payslips, enter scenarios whose results you already know. The table below shows reference results for January 2026. The software should match them to the kuruş (the Turkish cent).
| Item | Gross TRY 33,030 (minimum wage) | Gross TRY 50,000 | Gross TRY 60,000 | Gross TRY 100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SGK employee share (14%) | TRY 4,624.20 | TRY 7,000.00 | TRY 8,400.00 | TRY 14,000.00 |
| Unemployment employee share (1%) | TRY 330.30 | TRY 500.00 | TRY 600.00 | TRY 1,000.00 |
| Income tax base | TRY 28,075.50 | TRY 42,500.00 | TRY 51,000.00 | TRY 85,000.00 |
| Income tax payable | TRY 0.00 | TRY 2,163.67 | TRY 3,438.67 | TRY 8,538.67 |
| Stamp duty payable | TRY 0.00 | TRY 128.80 | TRY 204.70 | TRY 508.30 |
| Net pay | TRY 28,075.50 | TRY 40,207.53 | TRY 47,356.63 | TRY 75,953.03 |
| Employer cost (non-manufacturing, 21.75%) | TRY 40,214.03 | TRY 60,875.00 | TRY 73,050.00 | TRY 121,750.00 |
| Employer cost (manufacturing, 18.75%) | TRY 39,223.13 | TRY 59,375.00 | TRY 71,250.00 | TRY 118,750.00 |
The second test is a bracket change. An employee on gross TRY 60,000 crosses TRY 190,000 of cumulative tax base in April. Correct software should show income tax of TRY 8,350 and net pay of TRY 46,656.63 in April; income tax of TRY 10,200 and net pay of TRY 44,806.63 in May and June; and from September, income tax of TRY 13,770 and net pay of TRY 42,640.40. Also check that the monthly minimum wage income tax exemption moves from TRY 4,211.33 (January to June) to TRY 4,537.75 (July) and TRY 5,615.10 (August to December).
You can verify these independently with the salary calculator and the employer cost calculator. For the step by step logic, see how to calculate payroll in Turkey.
Who should update statutory parameters?
Minimum wage, SGK floor and ceiling, tax brackets, exemption amounts and the severance ceiling change every year, sometimes more than once. Ask:
- Does the vendor update parameters centrally, or must users enter them manually?
- How soon after publication in the Official Gazette (Resmi Gazete) are updates committed?
- Are parameters stored with effective dates, so that recalculating a past month uses that month's values?
- Can the software produce difference payrolls for mid year changes?
Current values are listed on the payroll parameters page. For year start steps, see the new year payroll checklist.
How do you assess SGK filings and the MUHSGK process?
Payroll output is more than a payslip. MUHSGK (the combined monthly withholding tax and social security premium declaration) is filed by the 26th of the following month and covers both SGK premium reporting and tax withheld. Expect the software to provide:
- Complete MUHSGK data in the correct format
- Correct coding of missing day reasons (unpaid leave, sick leave, absence and so on) with tracking of supporting documents
- Controls reminding you that SGK start notifications are due before the employee starts work and termination notifications within 10 days
- Employee level tracking of SGK incentives and their eligibility conditions
- Traceable correction and cancellation filings
Incentive rules change often, so ask how the software updates incentive definitions, and check current conditions in the latest SGK announcement.
How should timesheet and attendance data flow into payroll?
Many payroll errors come from inputs rather than calculation. If the timesheet (puantaj) is prepared by hand and pasted in from Excel, the same copy errors can repeat every month. Check whether timesheet and overtime data flow into payroll automatically, whether unpaid leave from the leave module appears correctly as missing days, and whether a timesheet change after payroll close triggers a warning.
See how to prepare a timesheet in Turkey for building the monthly timesheet and the time and attendance system guide for collecting attendance data.
Why do reporting, accounting and bank integration matter?
After payroll closes, three jobs begin: accounting entries, bank payment instructions and payslip distribution. How well does the software support them?
- Does it generate journal entries or export files matching your chart of accounts, including any group reporting mapping?
- Can costs be allocated by cost centre, department and project?
- Are your banks' bulk payment file formats supported?
- Can it send e-payslips (electronic payslips) and collect employee acknowledgement?
- Can it produce budget versus actual personnel cost reports, including in a reporting currency for headquarters?
Which security and access controls does payroll data need?
Salary data is among the most sensitive information a company holds. Under KVKK (Turkey's Personal Data Protection Law), access must be limited to those who need it. Check that preparer, approver and read only roles can be separated, that salary changes are logged with user and time, and that closed payrolls are locked. The four eyes principle (one person prepares, another approves) should be workable even in small teams.
How do you score payroll software? (evaluation table example)
In this example the criteria are weighted to a total of 100 and two candidate products are scored from 1 to 5. Weighted score = weight × score / 5.
| Criterion | Weight | Product A score | Product A weighted | Product B score | Product B weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calculation accuracy (test scenarios) | 30 | 5 | 30.0 | 4 | 24.0 |
| Parameter updates and retroactive calculation | 15 | 4 | 12.0 | 5 | 15.0 |
| SGK and MUHSGK outputs | 15 | 4 | 12.0 | 4 | 12.0 |
| Timesheet and attendance integration | 15 | 3 | 9.0 | 5 | 15.0 |
| Accounting, bank and e-payslip | 10 | 4 | 8.0 | 3 | 6.0 |
| Security and access | 10 | 4 | 8.0 | 4 | 8.0 |
| Total cost of ownership | 5 | 3 | 3.0 | 4 | 4.0 |
| Total | 100 | 82.0 | 84.0 |
Product B leads on total but scored 4 on calculation accuracy. If that means one test scenario produced a wrong result, do not decide on the total until the cause is clear. Treating calculation accuracy as a knock out criterion ("every test scenario must match exactly") is usually the safer approach. The low cost weight here is a deliberate choice; adjust weights to your own priorities, but fix them before scoring.
How do you plan the switch to new payroll software?
The best time to switch is usually 1 January, which removes the need to carry over cumulative tax bases. If you switch mid year, each employee's cumulative income tax base for the year, minimum wage exemptions used, leave balances and seniority start dates must be migrated completely.
- Run at least one, ideally two months of parallel payroll and explain every difference per employee.
- Map every earnings and deduction code in the new system one by one.
- Check the first MUHSGK period against the old system's output.
- Decide where and for how long historical payroll records will be retained.