“I remember getting to my desk fresh from a holiday, only to be overwhelmed by the many manual tasks waiting for me, such as tax calculations or chasing employee information. I love managing payrolls. But doing things manually and then double-checking everything to find errors was exhausting and left little time for the more interesting and strategic work.”

Many payroll professionals appreciate those feelings. A recent survey revealed payroll teams lose around 11 hours each week on inefficient tasks and processes (https://apo-opa.co/4roNxWq). Their ability to work well also affects other employees, 64% of whom say they experience major stress (https://apo-opa.co/46Q3Eor) when there are errors in their pay cheques. Nearly half of businesses are also hit by penalties and fines because of payroll errors (https://apo-opa.co/4aXU9Gh).

The source of payroll errors

Payroll errors are staggeringly common, affecting one out of every five employees. It’s a source of stress and disharmony, since 98% of workers regularly look at their payslips and a third notice payroll errors (https://apo-opa.co/47kw3mI). How companies resolve those errors influences employee attitudes towards their employer. Payroll mistakes may be clerical, but they affect unity, culture, and professionalism.

If these errors are so problematic, why do they occur? The simple answer is payroll complexity. Apart from payment calculations and payroll runs, administrators must also keep track of changing legislation and maintain records around timesheets, leave allocation, bonuses, taxes, and other data points that determine salaries. Then there are the interruptions from other people for salary breakdown reports, onboarding, and other business tasks that require payroll’s involvement.

“Payroll is super complex. Individual tasks may seem simple, but they combine into various processes and responsibilities that require a lot of time and focus where you don’t want any errors. This is why many payrolls still use outdated systems and manual processes. When you have a system that works, even if it doesn’t work well, you don’t want to mess with it because payroll is that delicate,” says Swanepoel.

Fix payroll through repetitive tasks

Fortunately, modern payroll systems are helping companies navigate those delicacies and claw back time for their payroll teams. The best strategy is to focus on streamlining and automating repetitive tasks.

• Payslip distribution: Automated processes deliver payslips automatically to employees, and self-service portals such as the Pacey WhatsApp bot (https://apo-opa.co/4btEqPn) let employees get payslips, leave allowances and applications, and other information by themselves.

• Legislative updates: Payroll teams that use cloud-native payroll platforms get automatic updates for legal changes and the affected calculations, pushed by experts who monitor legislative changes in different countries and industries.

• Automated data sharing: By integrating payroll platforms with HR and finance systems, they can share workforce and financial information securely to maintain up-to-date and singular records.

• Error detection: The leading payroll platforms include data analytics, machine learning, and other types of artificial intelligence to spot errors.

Other examples include faster report generation, streamlined onboarding, managing different employee categories, termination calculations, and many of the time-consuming moving parts inherent to payroll.

Leading cloud-native payroll platforms have the native capabilities to streamline and automate crucial tasks. Software modules, often provided at no extra cost as part of the platform subscription, cover many common payroll processes. Payroll teams can also design custom forms and automations.

Swanepoel recommends starting with highly common and repetitive tasks.

“Look for the big time sinks and find out what you can do about them. Pick a few, set goals, and get approval from those who will benefit from improving those processes. Use off-the-shelf features in your payroll software to automate those, or work with the payroll vendor to help you design custom processes. Payroll is complex and won’t change overnight. But a clear focus and the support of a skilled vendor will deliver quick results that you can build on. You’ll be surprised by what is possible.”