Payroll is often processed and managed via the human resources department at multinational companies around the world, but this can vary depending on the size of the company. Some companies are large enough to have a global payroll function, others view it as a finance function while others still like to keep their payroll processing within the HR department for logistical and administration reasons.

But regardless of where you run and manage your payroll services from, there are often some tell tale signs that you need to manage payroll via software or change the current software that you use. In this article, we will look at a few of these signs that HR professionals should be on the lookout for.

All excel, no cloud

In 2022, this is more of a red flag and warning alert than a tell tale sign! If you are still processing your payroll via manual inputs and excel spreadsheet analysis and transferring data around a business via email, then you are pretty much still using the 1990s model for payroll delivery. You can just about get by on it, but it’s simply a matter of time before you become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data. You are also putting the company at a higher risk of breaking any security and privacy obligations, if data is being transferred by email, then it could be very easy for this information to be leaked, putting the entire organization at risk, and damaging its image and reputation.

The working culture world has changed in a post-pandemic world and the HR function must adapt to reflect this new working normal. The way payroll is processed and managed must change too, it makes sense for there to be a substantial change given that workforce employees are now spread around the world. Remote hiring and onboarding are on the rise with new payments and benefits packages now coming in to attract and retain top talent. There are a lot of moving parts and variables at play, attempting to manage it all via excel spreadsheets from a bygone era is certainly not the way forward.

If you are spending way too much time in manual processes such as excel spreadsheets, and you don’t have a payroll system that is operating in a secure cloud environment with digital tools and intuitive design that helps make payroll easier, faster, and better then it is definitely time to look around for a new software solution.

More hiring, more locations

Growing businesses need to scale with pace and agility. They want to hit the ground running in new countries and territories, carve out market share and create new revenue streams. They will be looking to their HR colleagues for support with this strategy, this support will come in the form of an aggressive recruitment policy and an ability to quickly set up and pay these new employees on the ground in the new countries.

To do this effectively, you need payroll software that can keep pace with your scaling and growth ambitions. New employees in new countries means that HR will likely have to outsource work to local country payroll vendors to ensure everybody gets paid. This is even more of a data, complexity, and management burden. Compliance responsibility, local labor and tax regulations also come into play here so again there is a need for powerful and flexible software to ensure visibility and control around compliance obligations, which will remain the responsibility of the global employer regardless of any third-party outsourcing with local country expertise.

As well as this, companies want to be able to assure their new employees that all their personal data and information is being secured in a safe place. Cloud software technology can help with this and help make sure that no sensitive employee data is leaked, which would negatively affect the employee and reflect poorly on the company and their overall image. This can help with the recruitment process, informing new hires that the company has modern technology which supports all of their privacy needs.

As a business grows, there is more to manage, and HR functions usually have a lot of administrative burden to deal with before any growth takes place. It is best to prepare for the future and ensure payroll software is in place to handle the challenges that are coming with extensive recruitment and scaling activity in a post covid world.

Errors are creeping in

If you notice either a small or significant increase in payroll errors inside the HR department, then this is another obvious indication that you lack software capable of spotting and correcting these errors. Manual data entry and excel spreadsheets are notoriously error prone- HR and payroll professionals do their very best, but if you increase the burden and workload on them and continue to operate with a very manually driven process, then you are risking more errors.

Errors can be costly and also hugely damaging to the reputation of a business, employee morale suffers, and they are unlikely to be tolerated. This could then lead to employee retention issues, as employees could become frustrated with mistakes being made in their payslips due to a legacy or dated process that the company uses. This could lead to an employee desire to move to a different company who operates payroll via cloud and automation technology, reassuring their employees that they run error free payroll.

Payroll software with automation functionality is capable of uploading bulk files for thousands of employees and then checking and validating them in seconds. Errors can be spotted very quickly and amended so that HR professionals have much more time to deal with these issues.

Automation significantly reduces and often eliminates entirely the scope for human error as it takes out many human touch points in the dataflow process. It is a huge timesaver too and can lead to HR professionals having more time where they are under less pressure and are in a far stronger position to spot errors, anomalies, and trends.

In today’s world there is no real excuse for persisting with dated legacy technology for your company processes, including payroll. There are cloud technology options available that can help organizations move away from the use of excel spreadsheets, which can be time consuming and prone to data entry errors. Cloud systems can help eliminate any errors as well as facilitate company scaling and recruitment ambitions, while also freeing up HR teams so they can focus on other key areas of their business.

For more information about our Global Payroll Control Platform contact us today.