The buzz word - automation - has now been around for a while. It is seen in all walks of life. Your bill payments, subscription renewals, meeting schedule reminders - this list is endless, isn’t it? These make your life simpler, ease your tasks, and free up your working memory too, and allow you to concentrate on other important tasks. Time is precious and as valuable as money today.
Like anything else that is automatic, an auto payroll system software can leave you with more time at your disposal for more important tasks. All that time spent on manual data entry, verification, and cross-verification can be put to better use by choosing automated payroll processing. Let’s look at other ways of how automatic payroll systems can benefit you.
Benefits of Automated Payroll System
Minimize errors
You don’t want to be making mistakes with someone’s paycheck. Payroll errors could be one of the prime causes of dissatisfaction with one’s organization. While excel sheets and calculators are better at doing basic calculations, payroll software is a lot more efficient and reliable when it comes to calculating gross salary, deductions based on statutory compliance, tax deductions, etc. Without manual data entry, there is a lesser risk of making errors.
Save Cost
By avoiding expensive errors in payroll, you are obviously saving money. Think about all the savings from not paying ghost employees or even avoiding duplication of payments. Not only that, but cloud-based payroll automation software is also available at a pay per user model and comes at quarterly, half-yearly, or annual packages too. You can choose whichever one suits your needs. Being cost-efficient helps you make the right decision.
Ensure Security
Payroll data is confidential information and you don’t want it to be easily accessible to all. Paperwork and Spreadsheets cannot help you much in that regard. Automated payroll software takes care of data encryption and gives you an option to keep it password protected too so that you can regulate access control too.
Easy reporting
Automated payroll software enables you to look into payroll data analytics with great ease. All the information that you needed is now available with just a few clicks. There is no need to go through manual files to assemble all the data you need in a report. You are also given an option to download pre-configured reports from your payroll automation software. With reports on overtime, wage parity, attendance and leave reports, and much more, you can take better and informed decisions. The cloud-based payroll management system provides you with multiple reports as well:
- Reconciliation reports
- PT reports
- MIS reports
- Ad-hoc and user-defined reports
- Customizable payroll statement/ salary register/ wage register
- Reports under Shops & Establishment Acts of various states
- Reports under the CLRA Act of various states
Being statutory compliant
Time-consuming processes like monthly tax calculations, related deductions, filing statutory remittances like PF, PT, ESI, etc. can cause hidden losses to an organization. Also, non-compliance or incorrect filing can attract fines and penalties. Paycheck automation software allows you to stay updated about the latest laws, amendments, changes, and tax slabs. These get auto-updated in the payroll software and there is no need to manually keep track of them. You can feel confident about tax filing with the government
Employee self-service
Allow employees to take charge of their personal information available with their organization. Employees can view their payslips, deductions, tax declarations, leave and attendance data and so much more. This will ensure there are lesser knocks on the payroll manager’s door and even fewer emails in his/her inbox thereby. The on-boarding process can also be made easier by giving employees access to upload all relevant documents which can then be verified by an HR manager online. Reduced paperwork is a boon for the HR department.
Audit-ready
Have all payroll related information at your fingertips. Be compliant at all times so that you don’t have to go scrambling for data every time there is an audit. Gone are the days when you had to go through piles of files to check for payroll information requested by your auditor. Your auto payroll software system will store all your data including hours worked, leaves taken, deductions, salary structure, etc and you can pull it out on a need basis.
Integrated data for automated inputs
Your automated payroll system usually comes with inbuilt leave and attendance management systems which will enable a seamless flow of data between the payroll and leave & attendance modules. The software will auto-update the requisite information and keep it ready at the time of payroll processing thereby saving time spent in data entry and verification. The communication tool can also be configured for employees to update their leaves and regularize gaps in attendance before the payroll cycle closes to ensure there is no loss of pay due to these slips. Integration with banks can enable instant transfer of salaries post payroll processing by publishing instant payslips and bank transfer statements.
Who'll benefit the most from payroll software?
Any organization, which has the following symptoms, are clear candidates for switching over to a payroll software:
- Tedious and time-consuming manual methods of collecting and maintaining HR & payroll data (Use of spreadsheets for IT declaration, investment proof collection, reimbursements, etc.)
- Multiple data entry and verification touch points
- Multiple follow-up emails and messages to employees and their managers to initiate actions for various activities like leave requests, approvals, investment declarations, etc.
- Non-availability of relevant employee information, such as leave balance, status, etc., to their managers.
- Frequent delays in processing payroll and multiple human/calculation errors, which lead to employee dissatisfaction
- Busy HR and payroll administrators who’re only working on transaction tasks, such as employee document management, answering employee queries, following up leave-related transactions, etc., without time to initiate strategic HR activities
After getting to know about the various benefits of an automated payroll why would you want to go back to looking at rows and rows of payroll data on your spreadsheet?
