organisations, payroll is either directly responsible for validating agency invoices or is heavily relied on to reconcile agency hours before payment. When T&A data and agency submissions do not align, the issue becomes a payroll problem by default. This results in increased manual work, longer processing times, higher error risk, employee and agency disputes, and heightened compliance concerns, particularly expected to prove what happened, often without having controlled the processes involved or having real‑time visibility into shifts that occurred across a 24/7 healthcare environment. A Real Example: Choosing One Version Of the Truth At one healthcare organisation, agency nurses were essential to around breaks and overtime. Payroll is
Payroll is expected to prove what happened, often without having controlled the processes involved or having real‑time visibility into shifts that occurred across a 24/7 healthcare environment.
maintaining safe staffing levels. Operationally, the model worked. Administratively, payroll received three conflicting versions of the same shift. Stability only emerged once the organisation made a deliberate operational decision: the validated T&A record would become the single source of truth. Rather than this sitting abstractly with “managers,” responsibility sat with the Registered Nurse (RN) in charge on each ward, who was already accountable for confirming staff attendance and allocating work at the start of each shift. Those RNs were given access
to the T&A system and asked to validate agency shifts as part of their normal handover routine, confirming start and finish times, breaks taken, and any overtime worked. Once validated, the T&A record reflected what actually happened on the floor and was used for payroll processing and invoice reconciliation. This change removed ambiguity, but it could not stand alone. Why Standardisation and Education Mattered
The single source of truth approach only
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ISSUE 23 GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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