While there are many tedious tasks that have to be done to keep a business running smoothly, none can compare to the drudgery of payroll. It’s time-consuming, it’s detail-oriented, and it’s math. Ugh! For this reason alone, payroll software is a popular option for managers of all types of businesses.
But payroll applications have several other advantages aside from saving you from a mind-numbing task. A good payroll software can afford businesses tools that will make running things more efficient, more cost-effective, and more profitable. Features like:
Help keep things running smoother and easier for everyone. If you’re wondering what a service like this can do for you, here are the top benefits of payroll software and why every business is using them in 2021.
Managers or employees who have to deal with payroll spend more hours than you can imagine crunching the numbers, cross-referencing the data, and writing up the payslips. With a good payroll app, you can enjoy a hands-free payroll experience. The system will do all the work for you, freeing up your valuable employees and time to do more important assignments. By automating a lot of minutiae that goes into payroll, your team will be able to do more with this time-consuming task off of their shoulders. So, payroll software actually increases productivity all around.
While productivity might be the biggest benefit in terms of your ROI, the math factor is certainly the benefit that is most appreciated by the majority of managers and employers. Very few people love doing math, and even the ones who do love it, aren't thrilled with all the computations, equations, and calculations that go into churning out payroll, which is why payroll software is such a godsend. A computer program, the app will never complain about complex calculations or complicated equations. The more, the merrier! No matter how many employees you have, what type of payment structure you have set up, how often they take leave, or whichever other details are present to affect your payslips, payroll gets done quickly, easily, and efficiently, without all the math headaches normally involved.
This one is right up there with the productivity benefit. Taxes are a major pain in everyone’s neck. But like many annoyances in life, they’re a necessary evil. But understanding the requirements for tax filing, the various nuances that are involved from state to state and industry to industry, and knowing which forms need to be filled out for which type of employees is enough to make even a grown man cry.
Payroll software alleviates all the headache and waterworks associated with tax compliance. Did you know that the various regulations surrounding business taxes change on a yearly basis? Keeping up with all the rules and changes is a full-time job on its own, and employers often make major mistakes simply because their information wasn't up to date. These mistakes can be costly as government fines for tax non-compliance are hefty. Payroll apps monitor all tax regulations, update your payments accordingly, and apply all modifications in order to keep your business compliant at all times.
And what's more, it's more cost-effective. A basic payroll app is certainly less expensive than a full-blown billing department, and software is even cheaper than a standard payroll service. A payroll service will run you a lot more than a typical payroll application. So, if you're attempting to save money but still don't want to be saddled with payroll problems, payroll software is your best bet.
In fact, you can even use your payroll software to analyze spending, estimate resources, and plan future costs for upcoming projects to help stay on budget.
When you're dealing with finances, personnel records, and multiple applications, it's easy for personal or confidential details to get exposed unintentionally. This is a major security leak and a real threat to both the integrity of your business and the security of your information. But with dedicated payroll software, you alleviate much of the cross-channeling required to manually process payroll. For example, using the software, you can limit access to sensitive data to top personnel only, and you can add password protection to lock payroll details from prying eyes. You are also more able to keep close tabs on the entire process via the internal dashboard. Through this main framework, you automatically prevent file loss and limit security breaches.
While this isn't the main purpose, payroll applications are actually an incredibly resourceful tool for organizing loads of data. Since the software syncs with various other applications your business is currently using to input data, the payroll actually acts like a huge data vault. It includes important information like payslips, annual reports, timesheets, and more. This is all stored securely in one easy to access place, so managers can quickly and easily pull up information with a few clicks.
Employees are entitled to know what’s going on with their paychecks, and it's the employer’s responsibility to ensure that this information is forthcoming and easily accessible. Payroll software makes this an effortless task with a few convenient features. For one thing, the application will generate payslips automatically when payroll is processed. So, all employees have a digital record of their paychecks. These payslips can be stored and accessed at any time and easily for record purposes.
Another way the software promotes transparency is by letting employees take part in the payroll process. Many services offer an employee self-service dashboard. This gives employees the ability to input hours, check payroll data, and see what’s going on with their own paychecks. At the same time, the system blocks access to other details about payroll (using the password protection feature we mentioned earlier), so everything stays fully confidential.
As a business owner, if you knew how often mistakes are made when inputting data, you would probably never sleep easily again. And that’s not even mentioning how much money is lost to clerical errors every year (just to give you an idea, $7 billion were lost as a result of accounting bloops in a single year!). When people are inputting the data, mistakes happen. It’s a fact of life. We’re human, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But when it comes to the really important details such as payment processing, tax compliance, and other legalities, most businesses can’t afford such mistakes.
Payroll software eliminates the issue of human errors such as deleting files by mistake, putting the wrong information into the system, or using the wrong formula to make calculations. Using automated processing, payroll software lets you set up all your payroll details one time, including payment schedules, tax requirements, and unusual wage workers. Then the system processes payroll according to schedule without any human interaction whatsoever.
Payroll software can even integrate with HR benefits and programs your company runs, making this leg of your company run more smoothly than ever. Whether you want to maximize productivity, minimize costs, or just save yourself the annoyance of processing payroll every month, payroll software is the answer. Software helps businesses stay tax-compliant, reduce human error, and it’ll even ensure that your company is more environmentally-friendly. So, what are you waiting for? Drag your company into the 21st century with efficient payroll software now.