These are times for technology-driven business growth for every organization, and any assumption that SMEs and startups don’t need a cloud payroll system as they need to cut costs and they should focus on manual in-house payroll processing.
We are not denying that there is a need for financial wisdom for businesses irrespective of their size or industry since the pandemic has cut down sales and made cash flow management more important than ever. At the same time, every adversity presents an opportunity and how is your company going to be ready for the opportunity if you remain overwhelmed with a recurring process like payroll?
Despite it being a regular process that your HR needs to perform every month, payroll management is a highly challenging, complex, as well as time-consuming cycle. You make one error, and at the other end there could be an unhappy employee or a missed compliance deadline. Neither of these scenarios’ augurs well for your business in these competitive times.
On the other hand, by investing in the right cloud payroll software, you can save long hours of repetitive effort every month and free up your HR teams to do other more impactful tasks such as hiring the right resources, training them or keeping your employees engaged.
A world class cloud payroll service provider would offer a solution that comes integrated with AI, process automation, data analytics and Internet of Technologies (IoT) sensors etc. It would simplify and expedite your payroll processes and also enhance efficiency in almost all aspects of Core HR tasks. Deploying an advanced cloud payroll software would ensure that your HR team can comfortably and accurately take care of the salary calculations, tax deductions, staying updated with the regulatory or taxation changes and even tracking employee time and attendance data. With remote working being a norm nowadays, the ability to seamlessly integrate the attendance management system into your cloud payroll system is a true blessing for the payroll processing team.
Here are some of the tasks that a world-class cloud payroll system can offer you:
- Online payslips – Generating payslips is one of the most mundane yet time consuming tasks that HR people are typically burdened with. Employees might need salary slips for past months due to any need, and the HR has to personally print and share those. However, when you have a cloud payroll system in place, the employees can log-into the self-service portal and print or view the salary slips they need.
- Automated tax calculations – An advanced payroll software would not only be able to automatically calculate taxes as per the given parameters, but can also receive automatic updates, and even file tax forms for employees as well as set reminders for them. Thus, you won’t have to worry about paying penalties or missing deadlines.
- STP compliance – STP and STP2 compliance are automatically managed by cloud payroll systems for companies working in Australia
- Ability to create rules based on modern awards or Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA) – It is possible to create organisation specific rules and EBAs through the system
- Cloud Integration – The fact that the software is based in cloud, enables it to be easily accessible at all times, across locations. Most leading software come with smartphone apps that allow payroll management on the go
- Scalable – Flexibility is one of the biggest benefits of the cloud technology. You can dynamically scale up your capabilities as your business grows
- Local tech/support team – Whichever country you use the cloud payroll system in, the leading software providers will offer local tech support teams that will be able to promptly offer the necessary assistance
- Transfer of current payroll and staff data – A major concern for the payroll teams is the fear of losing out on the data stored on existing systems due to incompatibility between the old and the new technologies. With cloud payroll solutions, you don’t have to worry about that. It will seamlessly integrate with the existing technology and facilitate smooth transfer of data
- Global/multi-country payroll – An advanced payroll system will offer operability across most major countries in different parts of the world. There will be a multi-country, multi-lingual and multi-currency support as well as seamless adherence to local regulations in each country
One of the most important aspects for you is to keep your employees motivated and paying them the right salaries at the right time. By doing away with manual payroll processing, you can eliminate errors of omission and calculation and keep the employees delighted regularly.
Also, in case you are keen to enjoy the advantages of a cloud payroll but not willing to process the payroll in-house, the best option would be to go for outsourced payroll services. A good payroll services company would also deploy a cloud payroll platform which will not only give you the benefits mentioned above, but also eliminate the need for you to take care of the payroll processes at your end. Thus, you can focus solely on your business growth with complete peace of mind!
