Training pays in the long run
By Leslie Faughnan
One of the most important factors in payroll software is training. This need was reinforced by Andrew Doyle, managing director of Keysolve.
“In many smaller businesses, the issue of trust is regarded as more important than other criteria in selecting who is to handle payroll,” he said. “This is quite understandable, but it can easily lead to problems.
“Payroll software is easy to use but that does not mean that payroll administration itself is easy,” Doyle said. “It is a serious business function today, with complex regulatory controls. It is also to do with what is probably the biggest single cost area. So being economical about investment in appropriate training does not make much business sense.”
This Irish vendor distributes Earnie payroll software in entry-level and two senior versions. It is a good example of a focused payroll solution that includes a more than good level of HR features, because that serves its customer base.
“If the business needs or wants more specialist HR software, our system will happily integrate with it,” said Doyle. Keysolve has begun to see fairly large-scale redundancies in its customer base and handling these is a busy area for the support team.
“Up to late last year we might have had a few queries a year about handling P45s and associated matters. Now they are likely to come in every day of the week.”
Another visible trend is towards more part-time and casual working, which can add to the complexity of payroll administration.
“Some employers are well used to all the variations, especially retail and hospitality companies. But there are many businesses that up to now only had full-time employees and standard conditions.
With some people on three or four-day weeks, issues can quickly come up that they have no knowledge of – for example, what to do about pay in respect of public holidays.”
The general level of understanding of employment regulations is declining, Doyle said. “You can invest in the software but with operators who are just ignorant of the overall employment environment, there are lots of confusing issues.
“In any non-standard situation, the business has to decide exactly what it wants it to do in order to get the system to cry it out. There are also, of course, more queries coming from staff that operators simply cannot answer.”
The Micropay and QuickPay systems from Sage Ireland have been among the market leaders for some years but have just recently been joined by SageHR to manage, plan and develop staff. HR managers and payroll administrators have the same objectives as every other aspect of Irish business, according to Karen Kane, Sage Ireland payroll and HR product manager.
“They are looking to improve performance while cutting costs,” said Kane. “They have an additional responsibility because they can provide essential reporting information to the business.”
Operating costs for companies are dominated by labour costs. So the payroll function must be able to provide an in-depth breakdown of payments and deductions in order to identify costly benefits and rates. This will allow the business to control labour costs now and plan strategies and forecast more accurately for the future.
Kane believes that the administrative and legislative burden in the payroll and HR function is very high, especially for smaller businesses. Compliance with Nera, CSO, the working time directive and all of the other requirements is itself consuming scarce working time and limited resources.
“On the other hand, when the systems are in place to support those mandatory tasks then there will be valuable information and insight to be gained for management,” said Kane.
A definite trend Kane sees is the increased incidence of casual working in client companies. “In trying to stay flexible with tight cost control, many of them are employing people by the day and with short-notice rostering. That all needs a good payroll system to administer in the first place.”
A key requirement today is web self-service for employees, managers and team leaders. “Our new Sage People Link service is a web interface, essentially software as a service, that integrates with Micropay Professional and SageHR,” said Kane.
“In addition to the self-service features, it provides client companies with systematic workflow for core processes, from hours worked, holiday control and payslip distribution to new employee set-up.”
