---
title: "Payroll settings: streams, rates & compensation profiles"
description: "Pay streams, the withholding rates, and each person's compensation profile — effective-dated versions that never rewrite history."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://peoplematter.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Payroll settings: streams, rates & compensation profiles

Before [running a period](/en/docs/payroll/run/), three things must be in place:
streams, the rates, and each person's compensation profile. Streams are set in Payroll
admin, the rates on Company ▸ Settings ▸ Payroll (under Policy in the settings list), and the compensation profile on each
person's page.

## Pay streams

**New stream** creates a payment rhythm: name, period type, cycle type, payment offset
days, and an optional **category restriction** — a CLAIMS stream that pays only commissions
and reimbursements is made by fencing the categories here. Mind the rule the form
states: a restriction switched on needs at least one category, or the form asks you to pick
one or turn the restriction off.

> **Streams can't be edited once created**
>
> A stream row carries no edit — changing a cycle means creating a replacement stream.

## The rates (Payroll settings)

Income tax rate, NHI rate and salary ceiling, labor insurance rate and ceiling,
supplementary NHI rate, the monthly hours divisor. **The unit is printed beside each
field** — rates in basis points (hundredths of a percent), money in cents — because a
bare number field gives an admin no way to know what they are typing. These values
feed every run's withholding.

## Each person's compensation profile

The **Compensation profile** card on each person's page (opened by clicking their
row in People) is the basis of individual pay: **interval** (hourly / monthly), base
amount, the derived hourly rate, and currency (set by the organization's payroll
currency).

It is **effective-dated**: changing pay means **adding a version** — with an
effective start date — never overwriting the old one. The history under the card lists every
version, so "why did March pay this number" always has an answer: the version in
effect that March.

A person with no profile is skipped by a SALARY stream's run and listed in its report ("No
compensation profile") — for a new hire, this step is the mandatory stop before
[their first payroll](/en/docs/payroll/run/).

Source: https://peoplematter.app/en/docs/payroll/settings/index.mdx