Is payroll a hassle? Integrating payroll and employee timekeeping makes payroll a whole lot easier. It also makes life easier for your employees, managers, and HR team.
Today’s post is for businesses that have separate payroll and employee time and attendance systems.
What’s the problem with separate systems?
If your systems are separate, you are duplicating work. And if someone is doing manual data entry, mistakes are sneaking through.
This real life example explains why payroll can take so long:
“Every 2 weeks, I run payroll for 200 employees. 39 of them are salaried, and about 50 of the hourly employees work in 24-hour programs. I copy each employee’s regular and OT hours from the software into an Excel spreadsheet. Without breaks or interruptions, this process would take about six hours. I’ve never done it in less than eight. It’s exhaustive and exhausting.”
Why is manual entry a problem?
As described in the story, the poor payroll manager has hours of tedious data entry. The hours must match up with the correct employee. He could inadvertently enter an extra digit, omit a digit, or transpose two digits.
Let’s see what happens when there is mistake. A conservative estimate of the error rate would be 2%. For 200 employees, that means four employees could get an incorrect paycheck. If you pay your workforce two times per month, this amounts to 96 incorrect paychecks annually.
Data entry problems are not isolated events…
If you pay your team members by the hour, your payroll is based on the hours entered. Either you short that employee or pay too much.
If the employee hours are wrong, the paycheck total is incorrect. If the paycheck has an incorrect amount, the withholdings are wrong. This could be due to inaccurate clock ins or corruption during the manual import.
Suppose this whole process started with paper time cards. An employee can enter an incorrect shift start time. The employee could do a math error when totaling hours. The manager who approves it could misread the handwriting.
If the hours are off, accruals follow suit. Employees might not earn vacation time or sick days that they are rightfully due.
It doesn’t end there. If the deductions are wrong, the employer portion of the taxes is wrong.
Now: “What is a better way?”
You need automated time tracking that syncs to payroll. It will also reduce mistakes in processing payroll and help you stay compliant. A biometric time clock synced to an advanced employee time and attendance system is the best way to go.
Here’s how it works:
It all starts with tracking staff member time. Recording time and attendance automatically is the first step for better payroll. A biometric time clock is the best way to ensure that punch times are correct. It’s virtually impossible to fake a biological identifier to buddy clock for another employee.
“What if not all of my employees are onsite?”
If you have mobile associates, they will need another clock in method. TimeWorks Mobile with GPS the geographic location when an employee clocks in on the web portal. This is not as fraud-proof as a biometric clock. But it beats taking their word for it.
It’s not just time theft that can mess up payroll…
A biometric clock and automated employee time tracking lets you enforce schedules and set overtime alerts. Some biometric clocks have tools that present staff members with logical prompts so they don’t make common punch mistakes. Make sure your time and attendance system has a mobile app for offsite punches.
MegaPay USA can help you speed up payroll. For more information, call us at 855-634-2729.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHR/comments/4nx4af/payroll_how_long_does_it_take_you_to_process/
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