How To Streamline Your Payroll Processing

The bigger and more complicated your business, the more difficult it is to process payroll and accomplish other human resource and bookkeeping tasks. It is important to streamline your payroll and HR processes before you try to simplify the rest of your bookkeeping. Salaries and taxes are a large part of your business expenses, and the more accurate those numbers are, the easier it is to set and keep budgets.

Automate Attendance and Timekeeping

An automated system for tracking attendance and a standardized timekeeping process across the departments of your enterprise is essential for streamlining your bookkeeping. These systems help reduce human error in transferring numbers from a manual timekeeping method to your payroll software. You can even find software allowing your employees to clock in while doing an off-site task, such as a construction site or a remote maintenance call.

Use Scaleable Payroll Software

Many companies need help finding enterprise payroll software designed to scale up with you as you grow. Finding an outsourcing company that works with businesses of all sizes and offers scalable software packages and prices is important. These software packages integrate your timekeeping processes with your payroll and bookkeeping to calculate the proper tax and salary for each employee.

Compile Employee Data

Having an HR system integrated with your payroll software allows you to compile all relevant employee data in one place. These systems often include employee portals where workers can update and verify information as needed to ensure the most accurate data possible. You can set up an ideas and feedback section on your employee portal or post regular surveys to help review and improve company systems.

Go Digital With Checks and Stubs

Most employees and employers already embrace direct deposit to reduce the need for paper paychecks. Direct deposit also allows employees faster access to their wages and reduces the amount of uncashed checks on your books. You can enable employees to access digital paystubs on an employee portal to boost direct deposit benefits. Going digital allows the payroll processes to be distributed from a central department without having to print and sort the checks for each location of your company.

Review and Update Processes

The most important step to streamlining any business process is to set up a regular review and update. Checking in on how the changes to payroll processing are working or not working each quarter can help you determine which were good investments and which still need a little tweaking. Be sure to include employee feedback from as many departments as possible to get a fuller picture of the system. For instance, if your remote timekeeping apps have increased accuracy for on-call or off-site tasks, then you will see the benefits of this change reflected in the numbers.

It can be intimidating to start streamlining processes in your enterprise, but when you start with your payroll processing systems, you can achieve great returns. Streamlining payroll means automating processes like timekeeping and salary calculations. It also means accepting employee feedback and making information accessible through an employee portal.