Automation
...reduced the time spent on these activities by 85%, allowing us to focus on value-added activities...
We’ve also introduced automated faster payments. Once we ascertain financial hardship, a request is triggered on the administration platform, which flows through to payroll, triggers an immediate payroll calculation and sends the payment for processing. This means the recipient receives funds from two hours’ time to close of business that day. Our legacy process can take up to three business days due to the number of systems, touches and deadlines. Overpayment recoveries can be handled automatically when dependent benefits are payable. Where not (once repaid), the system automatically refreshes, updates the full payment submission (FPS) and adjusts the tax figure to be sent to HMRC. This saves about thirty minutes per case for manual adjustments. Processing ARUCS (automated return of unapplied credit service) and AWACS (advice of wrong account for automated credits service) files automatically (updating bank details for AWACS, suspension, reversals of pay, updating FPS submission and same-day automatic letter generation for ARUCS) has reduced the time spent on these items. Processes are dealt with
immediately rather than waiting in a queue for manual intervention. These improvements have reduced the time spent on these activities by 85%, allowing us to focus on value-added activities such as governance processes, pre-payment validations and exceptions resolution. The restrictions of the legacy system meant we couldn’t measure detailed accuracy or introduce key performance indicators (KPIs), other than failed payments, existence checking and customer satisfaction surveys. We can now report on: ● total number and amount (£) of payments ● overpayments – made (as % of total payments made), recovered (as % of overpayments), written off (total as % of overpayments) ● SLA (service level agreement) performance (% of late payments) ● number of – complaints regarding late and/or inaccurate payments, risk events relating to payments, partial/ineffective
control attestations relating to payments, and failed payments ● visibility of our KPIs enabling us to identify improvements to processes and patterns throughout the year. The move to modern platforms has enabled a significant improvement to our digital platform for customers. They’ll see pay information (historic and next payment detail), their pension policies, and self- serve for some activities such as change of address and bank account. This widens our scope in terms of potential B2B (business to business) clients and improves the customer experience for all. The only change our customers may notice is to the format of their pay statements, which was one of the principles we worked to – but our processes are much improved. This has been especially important during the pandemic, where the speed of processing claims and our ability to make payments swiftly has been even more critical to customers. n
Get your nominations ready!
We’re excited to announce that our Annual Excellence Awards will be open for nominations soon. It’s time to recognise those who work in payroll, pensions and reward for all their hard work throughout the year. We’ll announce our launch date online, via email and through our social media channels.
Visit cipp.org.uk/events/annual-excellence-awards , to find out more.
@CIPP_UK
cipp.org.uk
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 68 | March 2021
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