We can all agree payroll is a pretty crucial element of your organisation right? After all, the ability to pay your people accurately and on time is a top priority and undoubtedly a cornerstone of your employee rewards and well-being schemes. This need for ongoing accuracy in your payroll is precisely why organisations must place an emphasis on finding a payroll solution that can support them in achieving excellence.
Recent research by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals found that a staggering 74% of payroll professionals surveyed said that they were unhappy with inefficiencies in their current solution. Despite this and in spite of the continued complexities demanded of today’s payroll functions, businesses still continue to de-prioritise updating their solutions.
A huge contributing factor to this hesitancy to change is the fear of getting things wrong. Payroll is a vital element of any organisation and the fear that upending your processes by installing an unproven solution can give people pause for thought.
Even when businesses do get it right and find that holy grail of a solution that has all the functionality they’re looking for, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve hit the jackpot when it comes to long-term payroll peace of mind.
A common mistake organisations make is to view payroll through a narrow lens and in particular, to consider the function as a separate entity to the rest of your HR responsibilities. Payroll doesn’t exist in a vacuum and in fact, the accuracy and integrity of the information afforded to your payroll teams through HR systems, can be the make-or-break factor that determines whether you get payroll right.
We all want to achieve payroll perfection but does that stop with your payroll solution? In this article we will be exploring the importance of integrated payroll and HR systems in helping organisations maintain the accuracy and excellence they’re looking for.
Why integrated Payroll and HR?
Why is integrated payroll and HR so important then? We believe that a common cause of payroll inaccuracies comes from organisations treating Payroll and HR as separate entities and not considering them as part of the same organic process.
Furthermore, when businesses cleave to attitudes that view Payroll and HR separately, it can create a culture of working in silos, which then in turn create their own challenges and hurdles. Payroll is reliant on an accurate flow of information from HR in order to achieve excellence.
When systems and processes are separate, not only does it necessitate the duplication of processes- doubling up on manual inputs and time-consuming admin tasks, it also exponentially increases the risk of human error fouling things up.
Furthermore, when errors do inevitably occur and HR and payroll teams find themselves existing as separate, siloed entities, there is a tendency for poor behaviour to creep into practices- teams apportioning blame and general distrust manifesting when things go wrong. Not only does this erode the relationship between colleagues, but it also acts as a definitive barrier to operational efficiency.
Ultimately having separate software solutions for payroll and HR leads to heightened risks of payroll errors which in turn, leads to more work for pay professionals in the long run, who have to deal with the task of amending mistakes, not to mention the needless uncertainty and stress incorrect or missed payroll deadlines place upon your employees.
The benefits of integrated HR and Payroll
- Automation- With integrated software, you can finally say goodbye to tedious manual input and the need to replicate data manually across several platforms. When your systems talk properly with one another, you have the peace of mind to understand you have the ability to pull through pay and reward data effortlessly, with automatic syncing overriding the need for dual entry.
- Security- The elimination of duplicated processes and the need to split your focus between multiple platforms is vital in reducing the risk of data breaches and security errors.
- Scalability- Having your payroll and HR functions operating on the same platform makes scaling your core HR needs to fit your business easier than ever. As you grow, your system grows with you and as your people management needs grow in complexity, you have the peace of mind to understand that your payroll will also grow in lockstep with you, meaning there’s never any lag in delivering payroll excellence.
- Data accuracy- With your HR and payroll functions operating on a unified platform, the elimination of multiple manual inputs and duplicated processes which are traditionally the bane of data accuracy and integrity, suddenly become a thing of the past. Ultimately, this means freeing your HR and payroll teams to focus their efforts on more strategically influential tasks, all while being safe in the knowledge that the people data they are working with is accurate and correct.
- Empowered people- Integrated payroll and HR solutions hold the key to removing the admin burden across your business. Not only does this free your HR and payroll teams from time-consuming tasks, but it also affords you a unique opportunity to empower your people and let them take a more active approach in accessing their pay information. The best modern pay solutions are accessible on the cloud and offer a strong self-service functionality, allowing employees access to key data such as payslips.
- Paying for performance- With HR, performance and payroll data easily accessible, you can ensure that you are paying and rewarding your highest performers appropriately for their hard work, building a culture of productivity and fairness.
How Advanced can help
Perfect payroll is the dream for every organisation but making that dream a reality doesn’t happen automatically just because you’ve found the right payroll software. Your teams deserved to be supported by systems and technology which are working in lockstep to help them achieve these goals.
Advanced Payroll, has been designed specifically to help tackle challenges facing payroll professionals day in and day out. We’ve taken on board the experiences of people working in the field in order to craft a solution that can free payroll teams from the burden of admin-heavy tasks, with automated processes and approvals allowing them to leverage their skills in more meaningful ways.
Our HR management system, Advanced HR, is designed to help people teams get the basics in HR done right. Our easy-to-use solution ensures HR teams have access to reliable people and payroll data, automated processes and simple self-serve capabilities to drive success.
The integration of Advanced HR and Advanced Payroll offers you the unified solution you deserve, empowering payroll teams, HR teams, managers and employees to not only make core HR tasks simple but to free themselves from the administrative burdens which act as a barrier to transformative change.
If you’d like to discover more about how Advanced Payroll and Advanced HR can come together to help you achieve payroll perfection, get in touch today.