As a small business owner, you most likely have a lot on your plate and overseeing payroll— as essential as it is—only serves to consume more time than you can afford to spare.
A sound system should comprise payroll software features that are robust, easy to configure, and flexible enough to manage and automate payments to all your workers in the most efficient manner.
In addition, your payroll system should simplify tasks and make it easier for your staff to comply with tax laws and financial regulations, manage payroll flows, complex rules, and checklists.
Fortunately, there are features in good payroll software that can do all these and save your employees time processing payroll.
So, whether you’re shopping for new software or you want to assess your current process, here are four must-have payroll software features that your system should include to make it more efficient:
4 Essential Payroll Software Features
Payroll Software Features #1 – Integration Options
With so many moving parts and distinct elements, mistakes in processing payroll are all too common, and the more isolated each element is from the other, the more vulnerable to error the process becomes.
While it may seem extremely difficult to eliminate all of your payroll slip-ups, many of the issues can be addressed, managed, and kept to a minimum when your payroll software enables you to integrate with other platforms and software seamlessly.
Good payroll software should integrate natively with your time and labour management systems, compensation management, financial management, absence management, and other business systems.
You may wish to ask your payroll company about the platforms they integrate with and any additional costs to integrate. Getting an integration option on your payroll system will reduce the error margins when computing payroll.
In addition, it will enable you to keep all your software under one login and have all your information in one spot.
Payroll Software Features #2 – Direct Deposit
For most businesses, long gone are the days for checks and cash. Every employee should be able to receive their wages directly in their bank accounts without having to wait for an unpredictable number of hours for it.
As a result, any mode of payment short of a direct deposit might be viewed as archaic and inefficient, thus leaving a negative impression on your employees.
With a direct deposit feature on your payroll, your employees won’t have to wait to receive their paycheck at work and then take it to the bank or check cashing service on their own time. From there, a waiting period ensues until the bank makes the funds available for their use.
These days, most payroll companies are fitted with a direct deposit option. And so, when looking for software, check out for direct deposit options. Be sure to ask if the direct deposit feature has any added costs or fees.
Payroll Software Features #3 – Payroll Reports
Another essential feature to have on your payroll platform is an easy-to-access and accurate payroll report generating function. A payroll report enables you to verify your tax liabilities and cross-check financial data.
It includes such information as pay rates, hours worked, overtime accrued, taxes withheld from wages, employer tax contributions, vacation balances and more.
Not generating reports when and how you want them will mean that you’d be somewhat blinded to vital financial information about your business. It is said that you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Having a payroll report generation feature is a crucial part of controlling your labour expenses, overhead costs, and profit margin because it will enable you to look at granular employee-level payment details and company-level overviews.
Payroll Software Features #4 – System Notifications or Alerts
System notifications and alerts are a vital and often overlooked payroll feature that can have an immense impact on both your payroll and HR efforts.
To begin with, having a notification and alert feature on your payroll will help you stay on schedule because it will provide you with reminders to input your payroll data for the pay period.
In addition, alerts improve your HR functions by keeping you informed on your employees’ birthdays and work anniversaries. Ultimately, this can prove to be a valuable tool in your employee retention efforts if you choose to celebrate your employees on their special days.
Team Up with Workforce Africa for Payroll Support
If payroll is still tricky for your business, Workforce Africa can help.
By teaming up with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) for payroll and payroll tax compliance, you’ll get the support you need to run your business confidently every step of the way.