You as the manager or owner of an organization, have much more important things to do than dealing with payroll and timesheets every so often. Do not get the wrong impression; these are decisive components of your business procedures. But, that is perhaps the best reason why integration of your payroll processes with time tracking system, is important – to make work easier for those involved.
First, let us look at some of the challenges that organizations run into when preparing for payroll:
• The aspect of employees working remotely and from multiple locations sometimes become a problem when it comes to preparing payroll
• Lack of centralized and accurate data that can be used to prepare payroll is also a common problem for a number of HR departments.
• Contradictory application of pay rules which result in errors and compliance issues is equally a common dilemma for organizations.
• The challenge of needing to approve and reapprove erroneous timesheets.
Need for accurate information
Payroll is grounded on employee time and attendance. That the simple truth; although in reality, tracking time and attendance for payroll purposes, is usually one of the most error-prone and time-consuming tasks for many organizations.
Paper-based or manual systems that run separately from payroll are generally rife with errors and inaccuracies. Sad to imagine, but it is easy to understand why employees often fail to remember to fill out manual timesheets. Think about this for example; do you believe that your employees can consistently remember to indicate on a timesheet every time they get in or leave the office? More so, how long their lunch or coffee breaks take? Not having clear-cut information on all of these instances can lead to them being under or overpaid, which is apparently not right according to labor laws.
Integration of payroll with time tracking offers a timely solution
The need for an efficient employee time tracking app cannot be overstated, bearing in mind you need to account for sick days, vacation time, and holidays. Integrating your payroll system with timekeeping software will not only improve the payment experience of your employees but, also ease the work of your HR department and other relevant departments. Here is how that is possible.
1. Reducing the chances of making errors
Modern time and billing software like AccountSight are designed to automatically gather employee attendance data while eliminating the need for manual input. Data is collected on a real-time basis, allowing HR departments to review and approve time and attendance for payroll processing, with better accuracy and ease. Basically, pairing your payroll with a modern time tracker provides real-time data analysis and gives you confidence that your payroll-related data is conclusive and always in sync. Some of this data may include:
• Your payment records against the actual pay stubs
• The information relayed from your employee management software to your payroll system
• Your withholding tax responsibilities
• Forms provided for your federal and state filings.
Remember, redundant payroll mistakes just eat up company resources and in the long run, results in lower productivity.
2. Ensures an efficient HR department
Industry estimates show that an average time of 7 minutes is required to manually compute time-card information for every member of staff per period. Relieving your HR department from such administrative undertakings is a big win for your organization. For instance, when you compliment your payroll processes with a time tracking solution like AccountSight, some of the redundant HR tasks are gotten rid of. You only need to key in information related to employee benefits, taxes, and other common payroll deductions, on one occasion. This obviously gives your HR department more time to focus on strategic assignments, like retaining and recruiting top talent.
3. Reduction in paperwork
By integrating your payroll system with timekeeping software, you will undoubtedly see a noteworthy reduction in paperwork. Since the whole integration aspect gets rid of paper reporting, you can say goodbye to the printing of paper timesheets, as well as keying in of endless data into the payroll system. Additionally and most conspicuously, your HR staff will not spend time approving each and every paper timesheet for members of staff who report to them.
4. Compliance conundrum
This actually should never be a conundrum. When you integrate your payroll solutions with time tracking software, you have a higher chance of defending your organization against noncompliance claims of wage and hour laws. You are confident that the data you utilized to compute payroll is accurate, given that it was automatically exported from a reliable time tracking system. This means, at whatever time, you can retrieve achieved time and attendance details to prove you are fully complying with federal and state employment laws presently in place.
Allegations of employment laws violations as you might be aware can be expensive. Then again, manually checking if you have complied with wage and hour regulations is not only tedious but time-consuming. However, when your payroll system works reciprocally with a time and attendance software, you can retrieve accurate data to fasten the whole process.
Instead of spending much time trying to match pay reports and schedules, you can provide information required for the audit quickly and return to the crucial aspects of managing your organization.
Ensure seamless integration between your payroll processes and employee time tracking app
Some organizations struggle to get a seamless integration of their payroll processes with third-party applications. And sometimes when it becomes unworkable, they try to improvise their operations as a result. Improvised solutions cannot be the way-out and will only make the payroll process thornier to manage.
HR departments should realize that integration of payroll and other key applications is a prime concern as it allows core employee information to be shared among departments and as a result, offers added value to the company. In other words, pairing your payroll system with reliable time tracking apps like AccountSight definitely guarantees accurate payroll processing; and with accuracy and precision, comes timely paycheck, which is vital in keeping your employees motivated.