An important part of running a business responsibly and successfully is making sure work is consistently completed accurately and on time, and of course, this can only be assured by paying employees the agreed amount on a set day every week, two weeks, or month.
Business managers and owners should ensure they have an accurate, effective, and efficient payroll system in place. Instances of poor payroll management such as accurate and late payments can have several negative effects on a business’s performance. Other than getting yourselves a free paycheque stub generator these may include:
- Decreased workforce morale
- Work stoppages
- A lower staff retention rate
- Experienced and well-trained leaving
- Suppliers may refuse to work with a company
- Decreased confidence in an employer
- Damaged reputation
Alternately a well set up, implemented, operated, and managed payroll management system will provide a business with certain advantages such as:
- Improved payment accuracy
- Easy to use reconciliation tools to compare previous months payrolls
- Several reports can be produced
- Deduction and tax tools make regulatory compliance simpler
- Documents such as payslips and transfer records can be created quickly
- The software can be used to digitize records and payments
- Certain tasks can be automated with software
If you are setting up a new business or would like to improve the efficiency and productivity of an existing business by improving its payroll management, then here are some advice and tips on how to manage payroll more efficiently.
Use Payroll Management Software
Traditionally payroll was done using lots of paper forms and records, however, nowadays most businesses will at the very least use a spreadsheet to create digital records of payments. However, if managing the payroll at your expanding business is becoming problematic it is possible to put your business in autopilot by integrating payroll management software to help digitize records and automate processes. The typical functions of payroll management software are:
- ? Recording and enforcing payroll policies regarding time and attendance, compensation, leave and benefits, and reimbursements
- Collecting information about attendance, salary agreements and modifications, deductions, income tax declarations, and reimbursement claims
- Validating information by checking all the details are correct and it complies with a company’s payroll policies
- Calculating payroll
- Recording payroll data
- Scheduling payments
- Producing financial reports
Implementing a cloud-based payroll management system will help a business improve the efficiency of its payroll processes by reducing the risk of human error, speeding up processes, and providing a centralized place accessible from anywhere that employees can manage payroll with.
Review Payroll Performance and Policies
One task that should always be periodically carried out by managers and owners is a payroll audit to ensure payroll processes comply with a company’s payroll policies and regulations. In addition, managers should review payroll processes to check for inaccuracies and inefficiencies.
During payroll audits, managers should identify opportunities to improve productivity, this can be done by following certain steps:
- Verifying rates of pay to check for overpayments and underpayments
- Comparing pay rates to the days and times employees attended work
- Checking former employees have been removed from the payroll system
- Cross-checking reports with the general ledger to check total expense amounts match in both sources
- Checking tax submissions for each employee is up-to-date; this is especially important after changes to tax laws and regulations
Improve Staff Training
A huge part of any business’s success is providing staff with regular opportunities to learn and making sure they are highly trained to complete their daily work tasks. The importance of staff training applies to every department of the company including payroll.
It is vital to ensure all payroll staff is more than adequately trained, especially if new software has been introduced, in this case, employees will need to be trained on how to use a range of new management tools. Training staff to a good level of competency will reduce the number of human-caused errors, speed up the work rate, improve communication and allow for more transparency.
Streamline Processes
When integrating new payroll management software into an existing system, it can create confusion, and too many tools for capturing, inputting, processing, and tracking information may cross over and clash. For that reason, it is important for payroll managers to review every process and the steps involved to identify processes to streamline. Inefficiencies, confusion, and the risk of making errors can be reduced by eliminating unnecessary tasks and ensuring information is processed and stored on a single software with tools integrated to work together in an effective and easy-to-use system.
If set up and managed improperly, a payroll management system can cause a business significant disruptions, additional costs, and a damaged reputation. However, setting up and operating a successful payroll system is entirely possible by utilizing payroll management software and following several pieces of advice such as reviewing and upgrading processes, and training staff correctly.
