Do you dread the time when processing payroll comes around each month? From calculating taxes to allocating funding, it’s estimated that small HR teams can spend five hours of their day on time-draining payroll activities. However, in the rise of automation, there are some really useful tools that can help streamline common, repetitive processes, leaving employees to focus on other priorities.
Sophisticated solutions, such as Dynamics 365 Business Central Payroll, can integrate with your payroll platform and speed up workflows by performing functions including calculating employee salaries, tax deductions and generating payslips – opening up a world of business benefits. Keep reading to find out more about payroll automation and how it can benefit your company.
What is payroll automation?
Payroll automation is a method of using technology to reduce the manual steps performed within the payroll process, saving time, freeing up resource and reducing the chance of human error. Automation is usually used to save time on repetitive, manual admin tasks and calculations, such as:
- Tax calculations
- Data transfers from HR
- Generating monthly payslips
- Compliance processes
- Employee expense approval
- Management of leave and absence
The top 8 benefits of payroll automation
Faster payroll processing
From unexpected absence to heavy workloads, sometimes delays in manual payroll processing can’t be helped. Not only does automated payroll processing reduce multiple days’ work to minutes, but it’ll ensure that salaries always hit employee bank accounts on payday. Everyone’s happy!
Reduce the likelihood of errors
We’re only human and we’re prone to making the odd typo or error, however a mistake on a payslip can lead to employee frustrations and extra time spent rectifying issues. By automating your processes, you can reduce the need for manual data entry, removing the chance of any salary errors and improving the accuracy of your employee data.
Ensure legal compliance
Payroll automation systems help businesses keep on top of employee records in line with legal compliance and will automatically submit records on time. In addition, some tools, such as Dynamics 365, let businesses enable HMRC notifications within their system, which will alert the team of any changes and automatically apply any updates to instantly ensure compliance.
Increase data security
Payroll automation can improve the security of your files and data through encryption, ensuring only the teams that need access can view and edit the spreadsheets.
Boost employee job satisfaction
Nobody enjoys spending days on boring administrative tasks, and lack of job fulfilment often leads to employees looking for another job. Thanks to automation, your employees will be able to focus on other rewarding projects and priorities, creating a happier and healthier culture across the team.
Enhances record keeping
Although it’s easy to forget to set up a document or miss an update, it can lead to compliance issues. With an automated payroll system that can be triggered to make updates and create new documents, you can rest easy knowing that you have accurate and up-to-date record of employee and transactional data that you can refer back to at any time.
Speed up reporting
Say goodbye to afternoons filled with reporting. With the help of payroll automation tools, employees can produce reports with real-time analytics, in minutes, completely simplifying the reporting process beyond payroll, with teams such as HR and finance feeling the benefit.
Offer self-service to employees
A bonus benefit of payroll automation systems is that they often include a self-service portal that employees can use to edit their personal information and monitor their pay slips, meaning your employee records are more likely to be up to date - and your internal operations teams will receive less admin requests.
Our recommended payroll automation tool: Dynamics 365 Payroll
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Payroll acts as an extension of your existing Microsoft environment. From SharePoint to Excel spreadsheets, it lets you automate processes within Microsoft apps you already use, making it so much easier to adopt and implement across your payroll and finance teams. With sophisticated data management, efficiency and automated operation capabilities, it improves the accuracy of your data while streamlining your workflows, increasing efficiency and decision making.
