4th July 2016
At what point should you consider a change in your payroll processing?
All too often companies reach crisis point before making a decision to change. This puts people, systems and relationships under pressure, which is never good for business. Worse still, leaving it too late can result in the loss of key staff through illness or resignation.
So, what are the early warning signs for payroll?
One – The Vicious Cycle
In the vicious cycle employees are chasing you regarding payroll errors and this is taking up far too much of your time, to the extent that you’re under extreme pressure – often you’re still trying to clear errors on the previous month’s payroll whilst setting up the next month’s payroll. This is a recipe for disaster.
Two – Acquisition Aggravation
The MD has just announced another acquisition for your organisation and you’ve been landed with on-boarding loads of new staff onto your existing payroll systems. Can you cope? If you’re not prepared or your systems and procedures are not scalable you could be in trouble. This is also about your ability to add to strategy – a core value from payroll. Having the time to help senior personnel drive the business forward should be easy for you. There should never be any shocks.
Three – Deadline disasters
Staying on top of legislation, new procedures and implementation deadlines, as well as running your normal payroll, is tough. Just recently thousands of small businesses missed the SHA-2 Bacs deadline, which could have been catastrophic. If you’re having to back track to keep on top of changes, and are not planning ahead for the next payroll legislative changes, then you’re in trouble.
Four – Apathy
It’s always been like this. You put up with the glitches and anomalies and sticky tape that holds your payroll together. It’s a pain but you don’t want to go through any new ‘pain’ to change. Indeed you’re a little frightened. ‘It’ll be better tomorrow‘; a phrase that’s been long forgotten. You just get on with it.
Five – Growing pains
You’re organically growing and you love your existing systems and procedures. At some point however you know you’re going to outgrow your current set up. There has been the odd issue here and there but they are becoming more frequent. Knowing the limitations of your systems means you can plan ahead.
Six – Communication breakdown
Once you’ve lost trust in your payroll provider or staff member doing your payroll it can be hard to get it back. If the communication is starting to feel a little like pulling teeth, and you can’t easily pick up the phone to quickly resolve anything, it’s time to change.
