How to Simplify Your Payroll Process

Managing your payroll can be a total nightmare, especially for a growing business. After all, using separate payroll processing tools translates to inputting and extracting data individually and sorting through numerous spreadsheets manually. In this article, you’ll learn how to simplify your payroll process.

The payroll compliance process also involves tracking and keeping critical information, which can lead to mountains of paperwork if you use manual methods.

Plus, payroll errors can seriously impact other aspects of your company, such as potential non-compliance with tax regulations.

What’s more, inaccuracies can hurt workplace morale if employees receive their salaries late or get the wrong amount.

TL;DR: You need to stay on top of your payroll.

The good news is, there are tips and tricks to simplify and streamline your payroll process and ultimately help you run your business more efficiently.

Read on to find out how to do just that.

1. Use a reliable timesheets app

Some of the most tedious tasks within payroll processing are your time entry and tracking.

This can take up a valuable piece of your productive work hours, and manual processes can leave your timesheet data and payroll open to potential human errors.

The solution? Use dependable timesheets software.

Timesheet apps make payroll easier by providing tools that simplify and automate your recording, tracking, and other related tasks from one single platform.

One such solution is Deputy’s time tracking app.

The app’s timesheets software allows employees to clock in and out easily through a desktop or mobile device. This reduces the chances of making errors that lead to payroll inaccuracies.

It includes a GPS location stamp and facial recognition. This shows your staff is at the right place and time for their shift, allowing you and managers to verify the timesheets seamlessly.

Managers can quickly approve the timesheets individually or in bulk, then export the approved timesheets to your payroll software.

The software can also automatically calculate your employees’ wages (including penalty rates and overtime pay) for each shift based on modern awards or Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA).

This way, you can set the various rates depending on the specific employee roles, and Deputy will crunch the numbers for you.

A reliable software makes your timesheets and payroll processing more efficient and accurate, reducing boatloads of admin work.

2. Centralize your systems and records to simplify payroll process

Using separate systems for payroll processing and related tasks can complicate your workflows. This can keep your payroll team from working as efficiently as possible.

An excellent tactic is to integrate your multiple systems and records into a single resource.

Doing so can give you better visibility into your payroll and related data. This also allows you to make crucial changes easily and ensure all records are up-to-date.

Centralizing your payroll system and records also makes updating your data, including earnings, benefits, deductions, leave, taxes, and payroll information, in bulk easier.

Updating your data in bulk reduces potential errors and ensures data accuracy while saving you a huge chunk of time and effort.

3. Streamline your compliance process

Failing to comply with regulations and legislation can lead to potentially costly penalties and damages to your company’s reputation.

However, maintaining compliance can often be a long and complex process.

This makes it crucial to establish strategies and leverage the right technologies to streamline your payroll and compliance processes.

Consider these tips to help you make your payroll compliance more efficient:

Maintain accurate personnel records. Personnel information can change regularly, and some of the details are likely to affect payroll.

Stay on top of your personnel records to ensure you have correct data and avoid mistakes that seriously impact your compliance.

Utilize audit trails. Audit trails let you link each transaction, such as payroll, invoices, and purchase orders, with supporting information. This helps validate any payment that might look unusual during an audit or investigation.

Audit trails can also help you protect against fraud, gain insights into your company’s health, and ensure corporate accounts accuracy.

Know the latest payroll legislation updates. Regulations and legislation can change constantly. This makes it vital to stay up-to-date with the latest news and changes to help ensure you maintain payroll compliance.

Streamlining your payroll compliance helps make the process less daunting and complex for your HR and admin teams.

4. Consolidate your pay schedules to simplify payroll process

Managing your payroll can be challenging, especially when maintaining multiple pay schedules.

For instance, you might pay your salaried employees monthly and your hourly personnel weekly or bi-weekly.

While this might not seem like a big deal, juggling multiple pay schedules can spell disaster since it’s easy to miss the dates.

It can also leave plenty of room for errors or potential non-compliance that lead to hefty penalties.

The key is to consolidate all your pay schedules through a calendar, template, or software.

For instance, you can use free tools such as Google Calendar to set payment schedules.

With the tool, you can easily create individual calendars for multiple pay schedules and have all of them in one tool for seamless management. You can also share the calendar with your admin and HR teams.

Set reminders for crucial dates, such as payroll tax reporting due dates, to help ensure you don’t miss anything and comply on time.

Consolidating and using the right scheduling tool helps you maintain your pay schedules efficiently. You can send employee salaries on time while minimizing potential errors.

5. Digitize your workflows

Paper-based methods can slow down your workflows, keeping you from working more efficiently.

As such, you’re better off digitizing critical parts of your payroll process. This helps speed up handling your tasks, streamlining your workflows.

Some of the strategies you can adopt are:

Using direct deposits. Opt for sending employee salaries directly to their bank accounts instead of using cash or even checks.

Direct deposits via Automated Clearing House (ACH) can save you time, money, and effort.

Filing taxes electronically. Electronic tax filing can simplify your payroll tax filing since you won’t need to print and mail forms. Instead, you can use a payroll system to pull the required information almost instantly, allowing you to file everything online with ease.