Establishing a good payroll system is a core part of all growing businesses. If you want to achieve sustained growth and success, you’ll need to bring a team along with you; making sure they’re paid right and on time is vital in doing that. At Snow we’re passionate about developing highly intuitive and easy to use payroll software that can help avoid common payroll pitfalls, especially in the face of new reporting regulations that have recently come into effect for 2024.
What is Payroll and why is it important?
Your payroll in basic terms is a record of all employees who have a contract that entitles them to financial compensation, which can be in the form of work-related benefits as well as take-home pay. It can also be important for keeping a historical record of elements such as bonuses and tax. Such practice may be vital for when it comes to ensuring you are complying with legal regulations.
Payroll is your way of keeping track of every employment-related financial outgoing from your company. Besides external obligations, a strong payroll system can ensure you maintain the trust of employees while keeping yourself right. Things like data security, privacy and absenteeism are among the other vital elements your payroll can keep track of when managed properly.
If everyone is paid correctly and records are kept up to date, businesses can save themselves a possible headache in having to clean up errors further down the line. Modern payroll software, such as that provided by Snow, can help make this entire process smoother by keeping track of potential issues and taking the pressure off you to do so.
Types of payroll
There will be smaller considerations that affect how your company specifically manages payroll – for example, whether you pay weekly, biweekly or monthly. Within this, hourly and salaried payroll are further options, as well as overtime. Some may use commission-based payroll based on sales. Whichever the case for your company, there are two major directions to consider for the type of payroll management that suits you.
In house payroll – Companies may decide handling payroll in house is the best option for them. This means you’ll have one or a group of employees (depending on the size of your business) handling your payroll themselves. The benefits of using this system are clear; first, it gives you total control over your payroll and there’s less concern over potential security breaches (though of course even from within this is something to never discount).
Having an in house system can also help with cost cutting, so it’s probably preferable for smaller companies. The drawback here though is that a small business may also have less experience for dealing with new regulations that can negatively affect your company if ever overlooked.
For both small and larger companies, one of the biggest challenges with in house payroll is that it may distract focus away from other areas that could be growing your business. What you spend by outsourcing may ideally be gained back in larger volume from other areas of your business as it grows.
With large companies, the consideration for in house payroll may be how much more there is to keep track of, especially if you expand into a multinational company with offices in multiple countries. This means even more unique regulations to consider and more in house resources devoted to monitoring them.
Outsourced payroll – an outsourced system to a reputable provider of payroll software can help in many ways. By giving some control over to experienced payroll experts, you’d have less concern of having to keep up with changing regulations yourself as they’re doing this for you.
This can help lessen the strain of handling payroll in house and may be especially important for growing companies as they branch out. Knowing your core payroll tasks are covered accurately and timely by software developed by an expert team can provide peace of mind. While there may be increased cost involved, you’d also be saving elsewhere in not relying on a dedicated in house team, with your employees able to focus their efforts in other areas.
Benefits of an effective payroll system
Regardless of the type of payroll system you use, knowing the benefits of having it managed well is important. Here are numerous factors to consider:
Tax compliance – Those regulations aren’t something you want to overlook or at worst it could mean legal trouble for your business. As they may adjust from year to year and country to country, ensuring you have a way to keep track of any changes as well as maintaining compliance with them should be a high priority.
Efficiency – Having the trust of both employees and other companies you may work with is vital. Efficient and accurate payroll management will go a long way to ensuring this.
Data Security – Whether managing payroll in house or outsourcing, having people you can trust in charge of handling it should be the top priority. Using highly secure payroll software can also be pivotal in ensuring protection from external threats, such as hackers.
Self service – If using software that lets employees monitor their own payslips and manage their own data, this will empower them and build mutual trust between you both.
Real time analysis – Hand in hand with the above point can be the ability to monitor employee data in real time with the right software. Keeping track of things like attendance, productivity patterns and other trends can help you plan better as a company for your next steps, anticipating rather than reacting to new developments.
Choosing the right provider for outsourced payroll
The main consideration for outsourcing your payroll should be how well equipped they are to handle all of the points mentioned above. At Snow, we’ve developed intuitive and easy to use software designed specifically for efficient processing of the entire payroll cycle.
Snow has focused on data security, compliance, accuracy of calculations, time and cost effectiveness, and ease of use when developing its payroll software. Furthermore, support from a team of experienced professionals equals strong customer assistance should any issues arise. There is no situation the customer support team won’t feel confident in dealing with at short notice.
If you feel payroll outsourcing may be the right choice for your business or simply want to find out more, get in touch today.