Set up pay

Before your first payroll run, set up the lines that appear on a payslip, then give each person their pay and tax profile. A payroll run uses what you set up here.

Who can set up pay components and change a person's pay: Owner, Payroll admin.

Pay components

Pay components are the lines on a payslip, such as basic salary, housing allowance or a loan repayment. Find them under Settings → Pay components.

If you have none yet, Add the standard components creates basic salary, housing and transport. You can rename or extend them later.

To add your own, choose New pay component and fill in:

Code: short and unique, for example BASIC.
Name: as it appears on the payslip.
Kind: Earning adds to gross pay. Deduction is taken from net pay, for example a loan repayment.
Statutory role: how the law treats an earning. This decides what is pensionable, what is taxed and what NHF is worked out on.

Statutory role	Pensionable	Taxed under PAYE	NHF is worked out on it
Basic salary	Yes	Yes	Yes
Housing allowance	Yes	Yes	No
Transport allowance	Yes	Yes	No
Other taxable pay	No	Yes	No
Non-taxable pay	No	No	No

A deduction has No statutory role. PAYE, pension, NHF, NSITF and ITF aren’t pay components: Cadre calculates them.

You can’t delete a pay component, but you can Archive one you no longer use. It then stops being offered for new pay.

The Pay components settings page listing each component's code, name, kind and statutory role

A person’s pay

Each person’s pay is on their profile: open the person and choose Pay. Owners, payroll admins and payroll approvers can see it. Only owners and payroll admins can change it.

Under Set new pay, choose Effective from, the date the pay starts.
Enter a monthly amount in Naira for each component that is part of this person’s pay. Leave the others blank.
Choose Record pay change.

Pay is never edited. Each change is a new record with its own effective date, and the history stays on the page. A change dated in the future shows as Scheduled until that date.

A payroll run uses the pay in force on the last day of the month for the whole month. Someone with no pay in force is left out of the run, and the run page lists them.

The tax profile

The Tax profile on the same page holds what Cadre needs for this person’s PAYE:

Tax state: where the person lived on 1 January, or when they joined. If they have more than one home, use the one nearest their work. PAYE goes to this state for the whole year.
National Housing Fund: switch it on only if the person has chosen to contribute. NHF is voluntary for private-sector staff.
Months paid before Cadre, Opening chargeable income and Opening PAYE deducted: the months of this tax year paid by an earlier payroll or a previous employer, if any. If you leave them at zero, the first month in Cadre is taxed as a twelfth of the year.
The reliefs the person claims: Annual rent paid, Life assurance premium, Annual NHIS contribution, Annual home-loan interest and Monthly voluntary pension.

Choose Save tax profile. How Cadre uses these is explained in PAYE.

Benefits in kind

Benefits in kind are things the employer provides that aren’t paid in cash, such as accommodation, a car or club membership. Under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 their value is taxable income. Record them on the person’s pay page under Benefits in kind.

Choose Add a benefit in kind.
Choose the Benefit: Living accommodation, Vehicle, Other asset or Other benefit. For a vehicle or other asset, say whether the employer owns it or rents or hires it.
Enter a Description. It appears on the payslip.
Enter the one amount the benefit is valued on. The form asks for the right one: the annual rental value, what the employer paid for it, the annual rent or hire the employer pays, or what the employer spends a year.
Enter What the employee pays for it a year, if anything.
Choose Provided from, and check the taxable value Cadre shows before you save.

How each kind is valued:

Living accommodation: its annual rental value, capped at a share of the person’s gross income from the employment.
An employer’s own vehicle or other asset: a share of what the employer paid for it each year.
A rented or hired vehicle or asset: the annual rent or hire the employer pays.
Any other benefit: what the employer spends on it a year.

The shares and caps are set in law, and Cadre calculates the taxable value for you. What the employee pays reduces the value only as the law allows.

A benefit in kind is never paid. Each run adds its taxable value to the person’s income for PAYE only. It isn’t added to gross pay, net pay, the pension base, NHF or employer cost. A run takes a twelfth of the year’s value for each month, and for a part month, only the days the benefit was provided.

Benefits in kind aren’t edited. When one ends or changes, end it and record a new one. A benefit can’t start inside, or end before the end of, a month that a locked run has already taxed. Correct that month in a later run instead.

Statutory details

Before you file anything, each person needs the statutory details the schedules and bank file use. They’re on the person’s profile, on the Pay and statutory tab:

Bank, Account number (NUBAN) and Account name, for paying their salary.
TIN, for the PAYE schedule.
Pension fund administrator and RSA PIN, for the pension schedule.
NHF number, if they contribute to NHF.

Who can change a person's statutory details: Owner, HR admin, Payroll admin.

The legal employer’s own registrations, such as its TIN, RC number, PAYE tax ID with each state, pension employer code, NHF and NSITF employer numbers and ITF registration number, go under Settings → Statutory registrations. A missing registration shows up as an exception on the statutory schedules.

Journal account codes

Each locked run produces a payroll journal you can import into your accounting system. Under Settings → Journal account codes, match Cadre’s accounts to your chart of accounts:

Debits: Salary expense, Employer pension expense and NSITF expense.
Credits: Net pay payable, PAYE payable, Pension payable, NHF payable, NSITF payable and Other deductions payable.

Any earning that isn’t listed posts to salary expense. To post an earning somewhere else, choose Add an earning and give it its own account. Choose Save account codes. Until you save your own codes, Cadre uses its defaults.

Who can see journal account codes: Owner, Payroll admin, Payroll approver.

Only owners and payroll admins can change them.