Payroll processing is an indispensable task for any HR professional, as salaries are one of the most important motivational factors for employees to undertake their tasks on time and stay with an organization. On-time payroll assures employees that they are adequately compensated for their time and services, enabling them to perform their duties responsibly.
However, payroll processing is also a highly stressful process as it requires data input from different departments in the organization. Additionally, complying with the numerous regulatory rules and regulations further complicates the process.
So, what can you do about it? How can you avoid getting stressed every salary cycle?
What makes Payroll Stressful?
Let us start by identifying the root cause of the stress – what makes employee payroll stressful for HRs?
Payroll management involves multiple kinds of calculations, which are based on the monthly inputs, such as the attendance and leave details, earnings and deductions, etc. Additionally, there are numerous statutory compliances to take into account when calculating employee payroll. Hence, modern organizations usually deploy a dedicated payroll software to combat the various challenges in payroll processing.
Payroll processing becomes a highly complex and stressful process for the HR teams due to:
1. Manual Calculations
Employee salaries are calculated by considering their daily or hourly earnings, based on their attendance, including overtime, late-coming, etc., as well as the leaves taken during a specific salary cycle. However, when these calculations are undertaken manually, it can easily lead to manual errors. Since the payroll data is gathered from different departments, even a single oversight can prove to be disastrous for processing payroll accurately.
2. Lack of Data Security
Another major issue is the lack of data security and integrity with manual systems. Since most HRs use spreadsheets nowadays to calculate employee salaries manually, the limited security and integrity features fail to provide the robustness required for storing payroll data. The payroll data within spreadsheets can be accessed by anyone from the HR team and modified at any time, without a log, making it difficult to track who made changes.
3. Compliance Worries
Additionally, HRs are also required to stay updated with the ever-changing statutory rules and regulations, which proves to be difficult, given the various responsibilities handled by them in an organization. To make matters worse, any lapse in adhering to these laws could lead to hefty penalties, which makes payroll processing an extremely stressful endeavour.
4. Incorrect Attendance
Since attendance is the primary input for calculating employee salaries accurately, any errors in the attendance and associated details will result in major errors in the final payroll amount. When these details are captured manually, human errors can easily creep into the data. Similarly, it can also be manipulated if malevolent actors gain access to the data.
5. Monthly Input Issues
Monthly inputs are another hurdle for HR teams while processing payroll, as the exact salary figure is decided by including them in the calculations. As the monthly inputs include the exact number of hours worked, leaves taken, overtime, etc., a change in even a single digit can wreak havoc in processing an employee’s salary. With manual processing, such mistakes are unavoidable, which further increases the stress associated with payroll processing.
6. Limited Reporting
Manual payroll processing also translates to manual report generation. HRs find it hard to generate statutory reports manually as they need to collate every detail manually, making the process extremely time-consuming and meticulous. Hence, generating payroll reports for gathering insights becomes an additional stress-inducing task for the HR teams.
How does a Payroll Software like Pocket HRMS help?
The only solution to avoid the stress of manual payroll is to deploy a dedicated payroll system like Pocket HRMS. These payroll management system enable you to automate your complete payroll process, taking care of statutory compliances and enabling seamless HR MIS report generation.
Let us go through each aspect of the payroll process improved by deploying payroll system:
➔ Automated Processing
The most important factor that alleviates the stress of payroll processing is the automated calculations. Payroll systems like Pocket HRMS undertakes entire salary calculations using custom-defined formulae. In fact, Pocket HRMS goes a step beyond with smHRt® Payroll, which employs Machine Learning to learn your payroll patterns and highlight any errors in the payroll data, ensuring accurate payroll processing every salary cycle.
➔ Data Security & Integrity
Payroll management system also provides enhanced data security and integrity features, ensuring foolproof attendance and payroll data, resulting in accurate salary disbursals. For example, Pocket HRMS keeps your data secure with 256-bit encryption, while access is limited with the help of user access control, which abstracts the data effectively.
➔ Automated Compliance
Another excellent feature is the automated compliance handling provided by advanced payroll management systems like Pocket HRMS. It enables these software to stay up to date with the latest statutory changes and apply the statutory deductions while calculating employee payroll, helping organizations stay compliant. It alleviates the pressure on HRs to stay abreast of the latest developments in statutory regulations.
➔ Better Transparency
Having a dedicated payroll system also provides your employees with enhanced transparency as they can access their payroll details right from their Employee Self Service or ESS portal. Pocket HRMS provides its users with both mobile app and ESS portal that shares all information related to employee payroll, such as payslips, salary bifurcations, TDS & PF details, Form 16, YTD worksheet, and more. Such easy access to their information improves overall transparency, enhancing employees’ trust in their organization.
Pre-requisites to Consider before Deploying a Payroll Software
Since deploying payroll software provides you with numerous benefits, you need to consider the following aspects before trying to get the ideal system for your organization:
1. Business Structure
You should analyze your current business size and departmental structure to find the right solution. Since each payroll management software is developed differently, you should try to get a system like Pocket HRMS that can cater to a wide variety of businesses ranging from a start-up to a well-established enterprise. You should ensure that the software can handle your current business structure, while staying flexible enough to cater to future complexities.
2. Software Features
You should also check how the software functions with its advertised features. Companies often exaggerate their software’s features; hence, having a hands-on experience will provide you with a more realistic idea of their functions. You should check for the advertised features like smHRt® Payroll (in the case of Pocket HRMS), while ensuring that the system can also undertake other normal functions required by your organization.
3. Data Security
Data security is another critical factor that you should consider when trying to find the ideal payroll software for your organization. Since the system captures and stores employees’ personal and professional information, it should be highly secure. That is why modern payroll management software like Pocket HRMS comes with foolproof 256-bit encrypted database, which provides secure access only to authorized users.
4. Compliance Mechanisms
Your chosen payroll system should also handle all compliance-related calculations automatically. Additionally, it should also stay up to date with the ever-changing rules and regulations to help your organization avoid fines. By handling taxes and ensuring compliance, the software should effectively remove a major concern for the HR teams in payroll processing.
5. User Experience
The user experience is also a major factor to consider while deploying a payroll software. Modern payroll solutions provide an intuitive and interactive user interface, which results in easy adoption of the system. Advanced solutions like Pocket HRMS even provide additional features such as a dedicated dark mode, support for multiple regional languages, etc., to further enhance the user experience.
6. Customizability
You should also consider how you can customize the payroll system to ensure a smooth implementation experience. A customized payroll management system will also be able to adapt to your organization’s requirements, making it easier for your HR teams to adjust to it. That is why modern payroll solutions like Pocket HRMS provide the flexibility to tweak individual modules, as well as add and remove features according to business requirements.
7. Overall Costs
Another major factor to consider while deploying payroll software is the overall costs associated with it. These costs will include everything from monthly fees to implementation charges, to plan change charges, to other costs such as training, upgrades, updates, and more. Additionally, you should also consider the time taken to deploy the system and train your staff, as well as the time saved after its implementation while considering the overall cost.
8. Support Options
Finally, you should also ensure that the software vendor offers multiple customer support options, such as calls, live chats, and emails. You can also check whether they provide tutorials, documentation, as well as community support options. After careful consideration, you should choose the vendor who has a reputation for handling customers well, as it will help you easily clear any doubts or resolve any issues in the future.
Conclusion
To conclude, if payroll processing is stressing you every month-end, the simplest solution is to deploy a payroll software like Pocket HRMS. With its advanced smHRt® Payroll engine and intuitive interface, Pocket HRMS will provide you with complete peace of mind, thanks to its automated compliance handling, attendance and monthly input collection, accurate calculations, and more.
Contact our team for a free demo and experience the benefits of having an AI-powered, complete payroll solution.
