How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Payroll
What is payroll and how do I prepare for it?
Payroll is simply a record of employees’ wages. It ensures accurate salaries, deductions, employer contributions, holiday and sick pay for employees. Timely and accurate payroll processing is crucial for both business owners and HR managers. Errors and late payments undermine trust and result in low employee job satisfaction, which ultimately costs money.
Keeping track of time cards, overtime, and absence is challenging, especially for small businesses, since complex databases are prone to error, further distracting you from more profitable work.
Here are a few tips on how to streamline payroll and avoid its many pitfalls:
Record centralization
Most payroll processes are now handled by computers, using spreadsheets and databases for employee records. However, manually entering payroll information whilst cross-referencing with HR data remains a time-consuming task. Keeping HR data and payroll systems in one place will help to streamline this process. Avoid the payroll crunch by centralizing all information into a single system, where changes and updates can be tracked more easily.
Go paperless
Going digital with payroll not only saves time spent printing and delivering payroll to pay your employees, but it also saves money on materials. This approach also allows for accurate records to be kept, as no paper logs or payslips will be lost. The Coronavirus pandemic has also pushed many companies to digitize their payroll, with many employees working from home still needing to be paid on time and remotely.
Make your employees’ lives easier
Digital payroll provides employees with more transparency when it comes to their pay, allowing them to view their statements at their convenience rather than only when they are paid. Any queries that they may have can then be dealt with as the month progresses, rather than all at once after payday, which can overwhelm administrative staff.
Create reminders
When using in-house payroll software, it is crucial to be mindful of important dates throughout the financial year. Depending on your location, you will be required to report payroll taxes, income taxes, and social security at different times during the year. The easiest way to remember these days is to set up reminders in a payroll system or within a personal calendar. In doing so, you will avoid expensive penalties by submitting this information on time.
Enhance timekeeping
Keeping track of employee working hours is perhaps the most time-consuming process of payroll. Not only this, but using manual time tracking, or even a timesheet calculator, is prone to human error both on the part of the employee and payroll administrator. This can lead to disputes and employee dissatisfaction. There are several solutions to this problem; from time-keeping devices to online time clocks for use by the employee. Accurate time logging is key to payroll success.
Work Hours Calculator by Keri Systems
By employing a tool that collates and reports employee attendance, you can reduce the hassle of payroll. This is where Keri Systems’ Work Hours Calculator comes in. By combining access control and payroll data, our solution makes it easy to collect and store information on employee work hours down to hours and minutes. Support is also provided for other considerations, such as shift patterns, overtime payments, and absence management.
Using access granted messages generated by two or more readers, this program generates and displays who has been at work that day (who entered the premises with a valid credential). Reports can be calculated based on which individual readers you choose. It is possible to have separate door readers or to have one reader at a single door. To ensure employee working hours are recorded accurately, these should typically be the primary entrance and exit doors.
This tool will streamline your payroll process and also allow you to collect information about problematic employees. It is estimated that 20% of your workforce arrives 10 minutes late at least twice a week, based on statistics from HR organizations, which results in employee productivity losses of $500 – $600 on average per employee per year. The Work Hours Calculator provides a method for tracking repeat offenders and compiling concrete evidence.
Furthermore, this tool eliminates the need for an overtime calculator, as the data from the work hours calculator can be used to compare normal working hours and identify hours worked outside of these times.
Combining your access control and payroll makes it crystal clear who has been at work on any given day and for how long. By integrating this feature into your security system, you will have peace of mind over employee attendance and avoid team management headaches.
For more information about Keri Systems access control solutions, please contact us to speak with one of our experts.
