FEATURE INSIGHT
and expenses on Microsoft’s Excel. Large companies have the resources to minimise the number of systems being used and look to integrate these into one seamless whole. HR functionality, such as performance and discipline, may well be a leap too far for most businesses, and unnecessary for most, but having separate systems for leave, expenses and timesheet management and yet another for e-payslips is inefficient and an anachronism. Having your core HR requirements in the same cloud system as your payroll is critical to efficiency throughout your organisation. SH: It goes back to what I was saying earlier about products interlinking with each other. And the way that happens is through API (application programming interface). For example, when you order your taxi through Uber, it’s automatically linked to mapping systems and payment systems, and that’s done by API. The new banks, like Monzo, also use the API facilities of the banking network. What is the future for payroll software?
So, I feel there are a lot of payroll solutions out there that will eventually die because they don’t have API. They can’t go back and put API in because it needs to be built in from the beginning, like the car in my earlier analogy. ... they had built an electric car of the payroll world I’ve come across a payroll system in the UK with API and the analogy that struck me for that was that they had built an electric car of the payroll world. Everyone knows it’s the future, everyone knows at some stage they’re all going to be using it, but when they go into the garage to buy a new car, they think, do you know what, I’ll just buy a petrol one again. CD: The most obvious innovation is the move to genuine cloud solutions. In a world where employees are increasingly less deskbound, why is it so outlandish to think that payroll professionals should be forced into an office, when they could be processing payrolls from their home and
at times that are convenient to them? The use of apps is another innovation enabled by the widespread use of smart phones. An employee who can clock in and out, manage their holidays, sickness, expenses, timesheets and see their payslips, P60 certificates and other docs within a single app is much less frustrated than one who has to log in to multiple systems and remember to ask their manager. Increasingly we are seeing payroll software differentiating their offerings on time savings for the end user. In a cloud world, it doesn’t make sense to have skilled payroll professionals flogging outdated processes to death, when they could and should be focusing on managing complex tasks, resolving issues and advising clients on the best processes. End-to-end solutions which push timesheet and expenses tasks down to the employee and the manager reap efficiencies through and across organisations and reduce input errors. Simple things, like employee self- onboarding, reduce data entry risks and save time for payroll administrators and managers. n
PAYROLL ASSURANCE SCHEME Don’t wait until it’s too late
With penalties for non-compliance of up to £10,000 per day * , can your business afford not to be CIPP Payroll Assurance Scheme accredited?
Visit cipp.org.uk/PAS , email compliance@cipp.org.uk or call 0121 712 1000 for more information.
cipp.org.uk CIPP_UK cip .org.uk @CI P_UK
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | April 2019 | Issue 49 40
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