6 Tips for an Accurate and Way
More Efficient Payroll Process
The payroll process within your company is really important. It is often one of the greatest expenses within an organization, and with good reason. If any mistakes are made or your staff ends up getting paid late, then your workforce is not going to be happy. Although it is a complicated process, there are ways to make payroll more accurate and efficient. This article aims to give you six tips on how to do just that.
Use The Latest Software
In the past, all payroll and accounting were done manually, with incredibly time-consuming entries made by the payroll department every month. As the world has become more digital and computer focused, many software has been introduced that make payroll easier. You can utilize this software and let the program take care of wages, meaning that you don’t have to worry about anyone getting paid on time. It will also remove a huge amount of potential human error. You will be unlikely to be able to remove the human element entirely in the payroll process, but you can make your life a lot easier. Taking advantage of the latest software will help you make your payroll process more accurate and more efficient.
Adopt A Self-Service Model
When working in a large company, a huge amount of time is taken up by having to update various staff members’ personal details. You’d be surprised how often people move house or change bank account. All this time spent amending these details is generally time wasted. What you can do is move to a self-service model for holding a staff member’s personal details. They can have a profile online that they can amend themselves, as and when they need to. This will need to be checked periodically to make sure that the information has been entered correctly. Realistically, the staff member is much more likely to get their address and bank information correct than your HR person. Adopting a self-service model will save you time and money in the payroll department and make the whole payroll process more accurate and efficient.
Keep Policies Simple
If you are not able to automate your payroll process, a good way to make everything a bit easier is to make your policies simple. What can hold up the payroll process is having complicated ways of working out paid holidays, reimbursements, and other miscellaneous expenses. If you come up with a clear and strict policy for how to process these payments, then you will make your life so much easier. There may be some discussion that needs to happen about how to work out the best way to do this, as the calculations may not be that simple. There will be a way to work around this, though, and it is worth powering through. Keeping your policies simple will make your payroll process so much more accurate and efficient.
Use Electronic Pay Slips
Although many companies no longer give out physical payslips, if you still do, you should consider moving to electronic payslips. The reasons for this are numerous. Firstly, having an electronic copy that cannot be lost is so much better than relying on staff to hold onto a piece of paper. It’s cheaper, as the printing costs for physical payslips will rack up over the months and years. It also makes the distribution so much easier as they can be emailed out to staff automatically. Using electronic payslips is a really smart way to make your payroll process much more accurate and efficient.
Direct Deposit
There is some misinformation around the idea that using a direct deposit scheme for paying your employees is more expensive. It is not, it normally works out cheaper. It’s much easier and faster for your employees and should keep them happy. Using a direct deposit bank transfer is a great way to make your payroll process more efficient and accurate.
Establish A Payroll Calendar
If you work in a company where there is not an established payroll calendar, then you should think about setting one up. Everyone in the payroll department must understand exactly when all of the relevant dates are. It can also be useful to share this with the whole company so that there is no confusion about pay cycles. Establishing a payroll calendar is a smart way to make your payroll process more efficient.
Despite payroll being a complicated process in the past, there are many ways to make your life easier. With improved software and intelligent design, sooner or later payroll may become completed automated. Until then, hopefully, this article has helped you find some ways to make your payroll process more efficient and accurate.
