₹5 lakh on a notebook page: how untracked salary advances and employee loans quietly leak payroll money, and how VegaHQ auto-recovers every EMI

The ₹5 Lakh Notebook: What Untracked Salary Advances Really Cost You

Most owners know their payroll to the rupee. Far fewer know how much money is currently out with employees as advances. This piece walks through the math, where the leaks happen, and how to close them without becoming the bad guy.

01The math nobody runs

Take a 200-person company. If one in ten employees has a ₹25,000 advance running, that is ₹5 lakh of company money on informal credit. Add small personal loans and festival advances, and the figure climbs quickly. Yet in many SMEs, this ledger is a notebook page or a spreadsheet one person understands.

02Where the money actually slips away

The leaks are boring, which is why they go unnoticed. An EMI gets skipped in a hectic payroll month. Two people remember different balances, and the employee gets the benefit of the doubt. Worst of all, someone resigns and the outstanding amount never makes it into their final settlement.

03Turning advances into a proper workflow

VegaHQ handles advances and employee loans like any other approval. The employee requests from the mobile app, the manager and HR approve, and a repayment schedule is set. Each payroll run deducts the EMI automatically, the payslip shows the remaining balance, and any outstanding amount flows into the exit settlement. One report shows exactly what is out and with whom.

04Why employees like it too

Transparency cuts both ways. Staff see what they owe and when it ends, which removes awkward conversations and disputes with HR.

05My take

If fewer than five employees ever take advances, a clean spreadsheet with a monthly review is honestly fine. Once you cross ten active advances, or have regular exits, manual tracking will leak money — move it into your HRMS. With VegaHQ, it becomes part of payroll instead of a separate chore. Try it at VegaHQ.in.