Sep 2022
16
3 signs your payroll process is outdated
Staying on top of the latest digital business trends isn’t just difficult, it can be quite costly too. From banking apps, to Making Tax Digital – digital processes are becoming the mainstream. The payroll industry is no different and how well you keep up with the rapidly changing industry can often depend on the payroll software you use.
When your business becomes more digitalised, this can have a ripple effect on your entire company – from boosting employee satisfaction to increasing the competency and efficiency of your payroll workflow. But how do you know if your business’ payroll process is outdated, and if so, how can you update it? Let’s look at the top 3 signs your payroll process is outdated, with some easy-to-use tools you can start using today to modernise your business.
Having paper-based payslips
Do you still send employees’ paper-based payslips? Whether you send them by post or leave them in the break room for employees, these can both pose security risks. For example, if you leave payslips around the office floor, or even somewhere such as underneath a till, there’s a good chance that someone in the company could pick up the wrong payslip; exposing a staff member’s personal data to unauthorised persons.
Another way you can distribute payslips is by email. However, this can post security risks, as people might forget their password, or their payslips might get sent to the wrong email, exposing sensitive data to unauthorised users.
Luckily, these days there are much more secure and cost-effective alternatives for distributing your employees’ payslips. One way is by having staff use an employee app that syncs with your payroll software. This streamlines your payroll process by letting your payroll software distribute payslips automatically, at a time of your choosing. Employees can then view, print and download their payslips from anywhere, at any time, from their employee app on their iOS or android device. This streamlines your payroll process by letting your payroll software distribute payslips for you.
BrightPay’s cloud extension, BrightPay Connect, can offer employees access to their own employee app, where they can access payslips from anywhere at any time. As well as a payslip hub, an employee app can come with many other innovative features, such as an annual leave tool and a HR document hub.
Payments take days to land in employees’ bank accounts
If wages take days to land in employees’ bank accounts, it can leave you feeling on edge until you know they’ve been paid. Not only that, but if an error occurs and an employee is underpaid, for example, it could leave them waiting for up to a week to be paid what they are owed. Not to mention the manual workload that’s involved in creating bank files and rectifying such errors, each pay period.
Thankfully, there are faster, easier and more reliable methods of paying employees – some can even allow employees to be paid in as little as 90 seconds. An example of this would be using BrightPay’s integration with Modulr, a direct payments platform that lets you pay employees, HMRC and subcontractors in under 90 seconds, through your payroll software. This saves you time by removing the need to export bank files,and offers your business a more flexible solution to pay employees.
Manually backing up your payroll data
Manually backing up your payroll data to your PC, a third-party cloud server or an external hard drive isn’t just time-consuming, it can also pose security risks. For example, if your PC got hacked, or your external hard drive wasn’t ejected properly, you could potentially lose your data backups or employees’ payroll information could be leaked to unauthorised users. On top of that, manually backing up your payroll data each pay period takes time and it can be easy to forget to do it.
That’s why having your payroll data automatically backed up for you can save you time, while providing your business with a more digitalised and up-to-date solution. This ensures that your payroll data is backed up securely and remotely in the cloud, which increases your GDPR compliance and improves the overall security of your business. Allowing technology to do this tedious work for you in the background means you can attend to other important matters of your business.
A great example of this can be seen in BrightPay’s cloud extension, BrightPay Connect, which backs up your payroll data automatically to the cloud every 15 minutes, and once again when you exit the software. These backups are stored chronologically on the secure Microsoft Azure platform.
BrightPay is one of the UK’s leading providers of payroll software for SMEs. Interested in learning more about their cloud extension, BrightPay Connect? Book a free online 15-minute demo today. To stay up to date with all the latest payroll news and legislative updates, sign up to our weekly newsletter here.
