Payroll tools, wage calculators, and time-tracking

A calculator for Japanese payroll deductions is available at htm.co.jp/calculators-monthly-payroll-japan.htm, and a calculator for all individual tax types (including furusato nozei) at kaikei7.com/zeikin/shotokuzei/; more calculators are on htm.co.jp/learning-center.html. The practice of keeping a token Japanese full-time employee purely to satisfy visa requirements was discussed: options included hiring a Japanese accountant part-time, or a janitor/sysadmin at minimum wage (about 900-950 yen/hour, roughly 90,000 yen/month full-time). Hiring a Japanese-speaking employee significantly eases dealing with bureaucracy (one case: after hiring a Japanese-speaking employee, "things suddenly started moving," including the need to set up a fax machine and a landline for certain procedures). King of Time is a recommended time-tracking service (clock-in/clock-out) at 300 yen/month per employee, with an English interface and integration with accounting systems (MoneyForward and freee were mentioned). By law, printing payslips is mandatory (or the employee must separately consent to an electronic format) — freee HR's basic tariff doesn't allow it. One user built a payslip template manually in LibreOffice Draw to meet the required fields; a ready-made online resource is aipayslips.com/jp-payslip. Withholding tax for payments to contractors uses the specific 支払調書 form (different fields for salaries vs. contractors; it can be filed via e-Tax). Blank forms can be picked up in person at the tax office or mailed in advance. A certificate of paid social-insurance contributions (社会保険料納入証明書) and of paid labor insurance can be ordered by ordinary paper mail (no in-person visit needed), issued free of charge; the request form is on nenkin.go.jp (which operates on weekdays until about 16:00). Getting documents from the tax office/pension office online is cheaper than at the counter: roughly 480-500 yen for an online request with mail delivery versus 600 yen for an in-person counter request. Surveys from research companies (e.g., Tokyo Shoko Research) don't require a response, though replying is generally neutral-to-positive for a company's reputation; letters bearing the stylized 工 ("ko," part of "Shoko Research") can safely be ignored as spam. Japan's Statistics Bureau (総務省統計局) may call companies with a business survey (事業所照会) — this is not a scam, but a legitimate part of a business census/statistics collection. Source: https://www.htm.co.jp/calculators-monthly-payroll-japan.htm — Japanese payroll deduction calculator. Source: https://kaikei7.com/zeikin/shotokuzei/ — Individual tax calculator, including furusato nozei. Source: https://www.htm.co.jp/learning-center.html?q1=calculators — Set of other calculators for Japanese taxes and deductions. Source: https://www.aipayslips.com/jp-payslip/ — Online resource with a Japanese payslip template. Source: https://www.nenkin.go.jp/shinsei/kounen/hokenryo/nonyushomei.files/nonyushomei.pdf — Request form for a pension/insurance contribution payment certificate.