Business runs on technology, that’s just how it is these days. You can now integrate multiple platforms or types of software to effortlessly streamline every aspect of your business. Software that is well designed can save you time and money while making your job feel easier.
Where does payroll fit into all this? Does it still need to be a manual task? The answer to that is no. In fact, payroll software can make your life, business, and management easier. Here’s how…
What Is Payroll Software?
By definition, payroll software is a software platform designed to help you manage your employees and their pay easier. It is a way to simplify payroll, giving you more control while having to put in less effort. These platforms were designed with the user and manager in mind, so they are often easy to use, nice to look at, and simple to understand.
When we talk about payroll software, we are talking about an all-inclusive type of program. So, you’re not just assigning payslips manually on a monthly basis. Instead, you have an all-in-one platform to manage your employees, their salaries, benefits and more.
How Does It Improve Business?
Sounds good, right? But, how does it actually improve your business? What is it about this sort of software that will actually make your life at work easier? Some of the key aspects are detailed below.
Integration With Other Platforms
One of the most useful parts of a streamlined payroll platform is its integration with other platforms. While it is not an all-around accounting system, it will integrate seamlessly with multiple accounting platforms, making payroll slide neatly into your overall business accounts. You will never again have to manually enter each individual member of staff’s pay into your business accounts to double-check them. Instead, they will simply appear on your accounting platform as a figure, making your accountant’s job a little bit easier!
Automation
On the subject of integration, it is worth mentioning automation. These two aspects come hand in hand. As mentioned, you will not have to manually transport data from one system to another, it will happen automatically.
Automation happens in other areas of your payroll system too. For example, if your staff have pensions with you, salary sacrifice schemes for products or services, or any other kind of deductions taken from their pay, the software will automate this for you, too. Once again, this saves many man-hours of manual labour and repetitive tasks.
All-In-One Links To HR
Most good payroll systems come as part of an all-in-one HR back-office system. This means it is linked to all the other aspects of the software. Once again, this makes each process far easier as everything is linked together.
- Onboarding
When onboarding a member of staff, you want to be able to immediately assign them the right amount of pay. With a back-office system like this, you can. Assign a new member of staff to their correct salary and the payroll system will automatically work out when their pay cycle starts and how much they will be owed.
- Rota Integration
When you pay staff hourly, it is often on a rota basis. Sometimes they earn more, sometimes less. And, sometimes there will be extra pay assigned to unsociable hours. With a payroll system that’s integrated with your hourly rota, all of these changes will be automatically reflected in their pay packet.
- Sick Pay Calculations
People get sick and miss work – that’s just a fact. It can be quite complicated to work out someone’s appropriate pay based upon their sickness record. Your payroll software can be integrated with contract rules, meaning it will automatically pay the right amount of sick pay for the right amount of time.
Cost vs Benefit
All of these benefits save you time. By saving you and your staff time, you are freeing them up to do more important tasks. Less manual data entry, more time spent caring about the wellbeing of your staff – or hiring awesome new staff! That’s what an HR department is for. Yes, this software will cost you a bit of money, of course. But, switching to this kind of platform saves the average business around 60% in costs, as you can use less staff to do these long, boring tasks, and leave it all to the automatic system.
So, the benefits of going digital for your payroll and HR far outweigh any costs. Your life will be easier, your management of staff will be easier, and your company will be spending less money on a once-bloated HR department. All in all, the switch to a digital payroll system couldn’t be a simpler choice to make.
