plan-payroll

Confident salary payment

The anxiety of "will there be enough for salaries" is usually about the fact that the number in your head is the "take-home" amount, while in reality about one and a half times more leaves the fund — personal income tax and contributions on top. This skill calculates the full cost of the payment with 2026 taxes, looks at the cash forecast and, if it is tight, suggests which receivables to push to close the gap by the payment date.

Disclaimer. Prepared for review by your accountant. It is not tax or legal advice. The tax figures are for the 2026 tax period; recheck the rates and thresholds before calculating the actual payment.

Run the confident salary payment pipeline by linking several skills. The owner confirms at each handoff — never send a reminder, lock in a forecast, or initiate a payment without explicit confirmation.

Argument breakdown:

• --horizon (default 30) — forecast window in days (30, 60, or 90)
• --payroll-date (optional) — payment date; by default the next scheduled date according to the internal regulations

Russian context: what "employee salaries" means

This is the payment of salaries to staff employees under employment contracts in Russia (not to contractors/self-employed individuals and not foreign payroll). Key rules for 2026:

• Salaries are paid at least twice a month: an advance (for the first half) and the final settlement. The specific dates are set in the employment/local act, and the calculation is due no later than 15 calendar days after the end of the period.
• Minimum wage: 27,093 ₽ from 01.01.2026 — the salary for a fully worked month must not be below it (before personal income tax withholding).
• The employer withholds personal income tax as a tax agent on each payment (both from the advance and from the settlement).
• Insurance contributions are paid by the employer on top of the salary (this is not a withholding from the employee's salary, but a business expense on top of it).
• Taxes and contributions go through UTP (unified tax payment) with notifications.

Step 1 — Cash forecast (cash-flow-snapshot)

Run the skill workflow cash-flow-snapshot:

1. Pull in accounts receivable, accounts payable and historical payment terms from ~~бухгалтерия (1C/MoySklad) and ~~платежи (YuKassa/Tinkoff/bank statement), whichever is connected. Fall back to a CSV export if there is no connector.
2. Include known fixed expenses (rent, full payroll fund with taxes — see Step 1a, regular payments to suppliers).
3. Build a forecast for 30/60/90 days (use the requested --horizon) with confidence corridors based on the deviation percentage.
4. Flag the risks by name — for example, “salary + contributions on May 15 fall 42,000 ₽ below the minimum cash balance under the median forecast”.
5. Provide a summary in chat + XLSX for download.
6. Show it to the owner. Wait for an explicit “ok, let's see what can be put together” before Step 2.

If the forecast shows that there is enough for salaries with a margin — ask the owner whether it is still necessary to work with accounts receivable or stop here.

Step 1a — Full cost of salary (payroll fund + Russian taxes 2026)

To make the cash forecast honest, calculate the full cost of the payment, not just the “take-home” amounts. For each employee:

1. Personal income tax (withheld from accrued salary, progressive scale by annual income):

Annual income	Rate
up to 2.4 million ₽	13%
2.4–5 million ₽	15%
5–20 million ₽	18%
20–50 million ₽	20%
over 50 million ₽	22%

The increased rate applies only to the amount above the threshold. Non-residents — 30% ⚠️ (check residency status with the owner if in doubt).

“Take-home” = accrued − personal income tax.

2. Insurance contributions (paid by the employer on top of accrued salary):

• Unified rate 30% — within the base 2 979 000 ₽ per employee per year.
• 15,1% — on payments above this base.
• SME benefit 15% — now ⚠️ only for priority sectors (Government list: OKVED + share of core income ≥ 70%), and only on the part of the payment above 1.5 MROT (≈ 40,640 ₽ per month); up to 1.5 MROT — 30%. The universal SME benefit from 2026 is abolished. Do not apply the 15% benefit automatically — first confirm with the owner that the business is in a priority sector and meets the income share requirement.

Full cost per employee = accrued salary + insurance contributions. (Personal income tax within the accrued amount is not on top; the employer withholds and remits it; for cash flow what matters is what goes to the employee "in hand", while personal income tax goes to the budget — both parts add up to the accrued amount.)

Show the owner the breakdown:

Сотрудник       Начислено   НДФЛ      На руки    Взносы (30%)   Полная стоимость
Иванов И.И.     80 000 ₽    10 400 ₽  69 600 ₽   24 000 ₽       104 000 ₽
...
ИТОГО фонд      X ₽         X ₽       X ₽         X ₽            X ₽

⚠️ If someone's year-to-date annual income crosses the personal income tax threshold (2.4 / 5 / 20 / 50 million ₽) within the year — flag this: the rate on the amount above the threshold changes. Leave the exact calculation of the crossing month for the accountant to verify.

Step 1b — Payment deadlines (UTP)

Include in the forecast not only the date of payments to employees, but also the dates the money leaves for the budget:

• Personal income tax for employees: notifications of calculated amounts — on the 3rd and 25th day; payment — on the 5th and 28th day (two payments per month by withholding periods).
• Insurance contributions: notification — by the 25th day; payment (UTP) — by the 28th day of the month following the month of accrual.
• Set these dates as separate outflows in the cash forecast — a common mistake: to budget for salary "in hand", but forget about personal income tax and contributions.

Step 2 — Working with receivables (invoice-chase)

After confirming Step 1, launch the skill's workflow invoice-chase:

1. Pull overdue invoices from ~~бухгалтерия и ~~платежи.
2. Rank by amount × days overdue × client payment history.
3. For each one, prepare a reminder draft matching the tone (soft for good clients, firm for those who are regularly late).
4. Invoices issued via ~~платежи with online payment, queue as drafts with a payment link; the rest — as drafts of emails/messages via ~~почта or ~~мессенджер.
5. Show the ranked list with drafts. Show the projected effect on cash, if the top-N pay within the horizon — does this close the payroll gap from Step 1?
6. Wait for an explicit "send" for each reminder (or a batch confirmation) before sending.

Approval gates (mandatory)

• Never send a reminder without the owner's confirmation — drafts only, until "send" is given.
• Never record the forecast as final without the owner's sign-off.
• Never treat the contribution benefit or personal income tax rate as final without owner confirmation of status (priority industry, residency). If in doubt, write "check with the accountant".
• If the connector is unavailable (~~бухгалтерия, ~~платежи, ~~почта/~~мессенджер), stop, report which connector failed, and ask: retry, fall back to CSV, or abort.

Output

Finish the run with a single summary paragraph: forecast verdict (sufficient / gap / risk), full cost of the payroll fund with taxes, reminders sent and to whom, projected new cash position if the reminders work. Repeat the disclaimer: tax figures are for the accountant to verify.

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Need to go deeper? This is a quick plan for a payroll payout. For regular payroll calculation (gross→net, personal income tax, contributions with SME rates, full employee cost) and receivables/payables with an aging register, there are skills payroll-rf, receivables-aging, accounts-payable in the pack finance-ru (the RU Business Packs line).