How healthy is your payroll?

5th June 2019

 

Payroll is an integral part of all organisations. Whoever looks after your company’s payroll is not only responsible for employees’ salary compensation, but they also need to protect your company’s reputation by ensuring compliance with various legislation. Even though payroll is vital, people often fail to recognise the importance. Payroll affects every aspect of the organisation, from the reputation of the company right to the moral of your employees.

 

Now you know the importance of getting payroll right, you need to ask yourself a few questions to ensure your payroll is healthy…

 

If you do your payroll in-house:

How long does it take your company to process the payroll?

Are you worried that you may not be complying to all relevant legislation surrounding payroll, such as GDPR and auto-enrolment?

Do you or your colleagues spend too much time working on your payroll?

Do you get complaints from your employees about payroll mistakes?

 

If you outsource:

Does the payroll team have direct access to payroll data and reporting functionality or is it reliant on the third party to provide information?

Does the payroll team have real-time visibility of any changes?

Can the payroll services provider deliver the complex data feeds required for essential pension information?

How easy is it for the payroll team to provide finance with the necessary reports for the financial conduct authority?

Do you get complaints from your employees about payroll mistakes?

 

Unfortunately, payroll errors are more common than you might think. Many businesses, particularly smaller ones find it challenging to keep on top of the frequent and complicated changes surrounding payroll legislation.

 

Outsourcing your payroll can mean a reduced spend in the long term, ability to free up resources and improve turnaround times, allowing your employees to focus on the other important things that matter.  Very few businesses wouldn’t benefit from outsourcing payroll, so if payroll is costing you too much time and money, you are making too many mistakes and you are finding complying difficult, now might be the time to consider outsourcing. Outsourced payroll comes in many different shapes and sizes – and for any company, the fear is losing control of this key business function.  Does the service offer:

 

• Real-time inputting of payroll information and rapid turnaround of processing?
• Ability to immediately amend errors?
• Full visibility and reporting of the payroll?

 

Outsourcing can be daunting for some companies as the idea of handing over their payroll to a third party can be scary and can leave a company lacking timely access to critical payroll information. A more effective model combines a dedicated payroll processing service with front end access to the payroll system. Using this part managed model a company gains:

 

• Real-time access to the payroll system, with full reporting and up to date information
• A third party to undertake the essential payroll processing
• Access to skilled personnel who can support the business in setting up new elements and schemes as required.

 

Deciding to switch to outsourcing is just the first hurdle. The next big step is finding the right outsourcing company to ensure that your payroll is left in capable hands. And here are a few questions you need to think about before picking which provider you use:

 

• Does the payroll service provider offer seamless management of joiners and leavers?
• Do employees have self-service access to payslip information via a GDPR secure portal or app?
• Are payslips designed to provide full and clear detail about the amount paid, including performance related or bonus payments – and hence reduce employee queries?

 

Delivering payslips really is just the beginning for an effective payroll services provider. In a fast-changing world, organisations should be looking for a partner that can:

 

• Support business change that affects payroll.
• Manage new business tax rules to support diverse employee taxation schemes.
• Understand schemes such as Auto Enrolment and Give as You Earn
• Respond fast to support the payroll team.
• React quickly – Bonus and other payments are often finalised with little time to notify payroll teams. A payroll services provider needs to be geared up to respond flexibly to change.
• Foster an environment of on-going improvement.