When we think payroll we think salaries, right? This is not entirely wrong, but let’s unpack this for a second. Payroll plays an imperative role in any organization, big or small. It contributes in sustaining the moral of employees as well as compliance in respect of a company and employees’ wellbeing.
Let’s look at a few pointers that may help you ease off some payroll stress.
1. Familiarize yourself – many people confuse payroll with salaries only and forget the in-betweens or should we say the “package” that makes up the salary. It is safest to familiarize yourself with the basic payroll processes, such as tax calculations, legislations, and the administrative duties that follow.
2. Familiarize your employees – it is important for your employees to understand how they are getting remunerated and what benefits/deductions they could expect, this allows for better understanding and satisfaction of the employee. Employees will also feel a sense of relief and that they are treated fairly. Remember a happy employee equals a happy client/increased productivity.
3. Categories your employees – utilizing job grades and job titles to help ease the process of determining a salary for an employee, as job grades describes the level of experience and qualifications. Allocating job grades and job titles also gives the employee a sense of meaning in the workplace and perhaps even bragging rights outside of the workplace. Not to mention the impact it could have on your Employee equity reporting.
4. Determine at what rate your employees will be paid – would it be hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, per piece production or per sale? All these rates at which employees are remunerated makes the setup of the payroll much easier once a structure has been set in place.
5. Keep track of EVERYTHING – according to SARS any financial information should be kept for a minimum of 5 years. Employees also have a tendency to back track and then we get the questions, “why was I deducted an extra amount this month as of last?” or “why are my travel claims different to previous months?” Keeping track of records also allows for accuracy and for ease of reference purposes. It is also imperative to keep these records for a predecessor that might come into play, and assist them with audits/ compliance.
6. Systemize your payroll processes – the best advice one could give is to acquire a user-friendly/stable software to manage your employee’s lifecycle within the business, this could help your company eliminate the paper effect #GoGreen. It could also help you keep track of all historic information and records. Another benefit of having a payroll system is that it will allow the employee’s to have some sort of power by pulling their own payslips, applying for leave, logging travel claims etc. this facilitates a big part of your monthly processed and saves you time and the frustration you regularly come into contact with. LabourNet strongly recommends the PSIber Human Capital Management Platform to all its clients, to see what it has to offer, visit www.psiberworks.com to get a free demo.
Following these basic steps will allow you to acquire precision in the payroll field and ease of work process.
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