In the world of business, making mistakes can be costly, which is why it always pays to do some research before trying a new product, approach, or service. If you’ve been on the fence about implementing payroll & HR software for your company, then this article is definitely for you! Throughout this article, we’ll be taking a look at the benefits this type of software can provide in three separate stages: onboarding, ongoing, and scaling. Payroll & HR software solutions may not be ideal for every single business out there, but for the vast majority, making the switch from traditional manual processes will provide far more benefits than their current system in place.
Onboarding New Hires
For businesses that use manual processes for onboarding procedures, hiring new employees means pages upon pages of paper forms that will need to be completed, reviewed, and filed into the current system. Paper forms have a number of disadvantages:
- Duplicate information must be copied manually
- Storing paper files requires adequate storage space
- Paper files are easily misplaced
Not only is this approach time-consuming, but it’s also very prone to errors, which will take even more time to amend later on. This is where digital onboarding solutions can offer some relief, providing digital forms for the new hire to complete instead of paper ones. Unlike paper forms, digital forms:
- Automatically copy/autofill duplicate information
- Can be easily stored on the cloud or on a local drive
- Are easy to retrieve using the software’s search function
New hires will ultimately end up not only spending less time completing onboarding paperwork but filling out fewer forms overall as well! Since the information gathered through the HR forms can be instantly integrated over to the payroll software system, this eliminates the need for new hires to complete additional forms so they can start training for their new role right away.
Ongoing Business Operations
If your company manages payroll using manual processes, you most likely employ a small (or large) team of payroll specialists who spend the vast majority of their time in the office performing routine payroll calculations. Especially for larger businesses, this can quickly get expensive, since more employees mean more calculations are required each pay period, which in turn requires more specialists to be hired. Just like with HR, this is where a software solution can help alleviate your troubles!
Payroll specialists are extremely familiar with tax and compliance regulations, but at the end of the day, they’re just normal people. Unfortunately, people are prone to make mistakes from time to time, but even the smallest of mistakes can easily escalate into costly fines for your business. Also, tax requirements are changing all the time, which may not pose a giant problem if your employees only work in one location, but if you employ remote workers, it’s likely to cause issues down the road. Rather than relying on a team of people, your best option is to take advantage of cloud-based payroll software instead. This software, which is updated regularly and designed to remain accurate, uses a massive database full of all the latest tax & compliance laws when it calculates your payroll, allowing for fully compliant, hands-free payroll calculations.
Scaling the Business
Most businesses have the goal of scaling sometime in the future, either by expanding their current offers, opening new locations, or simply onboarding new clients. Your company will need to hire new employees if you want to keep up with increased demands, which in the past meant that your payroll processing costs would go up dramatically. Unless you were overstaffed already, your current payroll team would have been unlikely to be able to handle the increased workload, forcing you to spend more money hiring additional staff.
Fortunately, by using onboarding solutions alongside payroll software, businesses can efficiently onboard and manage new employees without needing to hire additional employees. In fact, most payroll solutions only require one or two employees to overlook their operations, meaning you can actually lower your staffing costs, not increase them. Of course, you will need to pay a little bit more to manage additional employees using a software solution, but payroll solutions such as UZIO charge very little for adding new employees to your payroll (often as low as $4.50 per employee!). Overall, software solutions allow you to effectively onboard new hires without worrying about exorbitant expenses, overworked employees, or a payroll system that consistently falls behind schedule.
Are Cloud-based Solutions the Right Approach for Your Business?
Truthfully, only you know the answer to this. You’ll need to take a close look at your current payroll setup to determine if making the switch would actually be beneficial. Still, in general, if your payroll is usually behind schedule, your payroll expenses are sky-high, or your current payroll system is a disorganized mess, you’ll most likely benefit from implementing software solutions.
