A desktop payroll management application built with Java, JavaFX, and MVC architecture. Designed to simulate a real-world HR payroll workflow with role-based access control, polymorphic salary calculation, and CSV-based data persistence.
Academic Project — BSCS, Karachi School of Business & Leadership (KSBL), Spring 2026 Viva Score: 10 / 10
Manual payroll processing is error-prone and time-consuming. This system automates salary calculation across different employment types, manages leave requests through an approval workflow, and enforces a strict role hierarchy — so only authorized personnel can perform sensitive actions.
Three distinct user roles with separate dashboards and permissions:
| Role | Capabilities |
|---|---|
| SuperAdmin | Full access — add/remove employees, manage SubAdmins, approve/reject leaves, view all payroll |
| SubAdmin | Approve/reject leave requests, view payroll reports — cannot create other admins |
| Employee | View own salary, submit leave requests, view payslip |
Three employee types with different salary logic, all handled through a unified PayrollManager:
- Full-Time — fixed monthly salary + overtime rate × overtime hours
- Part-Time — hourly rate × hours worked
- Contract — fixed contract amount with expiry date tracking
Each employee can carry multiple allowances (Housing, Transport, Medical, Bonus) and deductions (Tax, Pension, Insurance), all factored into the final net salary calculation.
Employees submit leave requests with start/end dates → requests appear in SubAdmin/SuperAdmin dashboard → approved or rejected with status update reflected in employee view.
Employee records and accounts are saved to employees.csv on first run and reloaded on subsequent launches. No database required — portable and lightweight.
PayrollManager processes monthly payroll for all employees and generates individual payslips viewable per employee, including gross pay, allowances, deductions, and net salary.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Language | Java 17 |
| GUI Framework | JavaFX |
| UI Layout | FXML |
| Architecture | MVC (Model-View-Controller) |
| Data Persistence | CSV (custom DataStore) |
| Build Tool | Maven |
src/main/java/
├── app/ # Entry point, AppData, DataStore (CSV I/O)
├── auth/ # UserAccount, EmployeeAccount, SubAdminAccount, SuperAdminAccount
├── controller/ # JavaFX controllers for each screen
├── enums/ # EmployeeRole, AccessRole, LeaveStatus, AllowanceType, DeductionType
├── interfaces/ # Shared contracts (e.g., Payable)
├── model/ # Employee, FullTimeEmployee, PartTimeEmployee, ContractEmployee,
│ # PayrollManager, LeaveRequest, Allowance, Deduction, Payslip
├── reporting/ # Payslip generation logic
└── view/ # FXML layout files
The system seeds 28 employees on first run across three employment types:
- 10 Full-Time employees across IT, HR, and Finance departments
- 10 Part-Time employees with hourly rates and hours worked
- 8 Contract employees with fixed amounts and contract expiry dates
All full-time employees carry pre-configured allowances and deductions. Two employee login accounts are seeded by default (ali123 / sara456).
PayrollManager — the core backend class. Responsible for iterating all 28 employees, dispatching salary calculation to the correct subclass via polymorphism, applying allowances and deductions, and generating payslip objects for the current YearMonth. Getting the aggregation logic right across three different salary models while keeping the manager decoupled from employee subtypes was the most complex part of the build.
MapList pattern — used to maintain fast lookup of employees to their payslips without duplicating data across the role hierarchy.
This project was packaged as a standalone macOS desktop application (.dmg). The app runs without any IDE or Java installation required.
.dmg file not included in this repository due to file size. Contact me for a demo.
- Designing a multi-layer MVC architecture in JavaFX from scratch
- Polymorphism in practice — same
processMonthly()call producing different results per employee type - Role-based access control without a database — pure object graph design
- CSV serialization/deserialization as a lightweight persistence layer
- Separating UI logic (controllers) from business logic (model/PayrollManager) cleanly
- Managing shared state across multiple controllers via a central
AppDataobject
Muhammad Ammar Saleem — @m2ammar BSCS Data Science, KSBL Karachi LinkedIn
- Fatima Naeem
- Abdul Hadi