Payroll has become a critical financial aspect of running a business whether it is a micro enterprise with just five employees, a small or medium-sized enterprise with up to 250 employees, or a larger corporate operation.
With six Acts of Parliament impacting on payroll and HR, payroll software takes on even greater importance as a means of ensuring companies comply with tax, labour, employment conditions, equity requirements and Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases (COID), to name a few, as well as the reporting requirements of specific industry bargaining councils.
Softline Pastel Payroll managing director Grant Lloyd provides advice on how to go about selecting a payroll software solution:
1. Make sure you buy a software solution that matches your company needs and can expand with you. Don't fall into the trap of buying a Rolls-Royce with all the bells and whistles when what you really need is a small sedan, because if you do, you'll end up using 20% of the functionality. What a waste of investment, particularly when there are payroll and HR software solutions specifically designed to meet the needs of micro, medium and larger enterprises and to grow with them.
2. View 'payroll' as a starting point from which ultimately a highly effective solution can evolve over time. HR is a logical extension of payroll and it makes financial, business and practical sense to deliver human resources functionality incrementally from payroll. Crawl before you stand, and stand before you walk.
3. The HR space is anything but standardised and requirements vary from company to company. Look for a payroll solutions provider that has a focused technology development team capable of providing software updates and add-ons that will cater for operational, administrative and legislative changes.
4. Look for payroll solution providers that offer you choices in solution delivery. These could include an outsourced or bureau payroll service, a SaaS (software-as-a-service) online Web-hosted software solution, or an employee self-service option that allows staff to securely access value-added HR services and personal information online.
5. Ensure you obtain details of setup, training and ongoing support services and options before you make your final purchasing decision. Discovering costs that have not been allocated budget after making your purchase decision is an unpleasant surprise.
6. Payroll and HR is a fluid environment that will continue to change. It requires software that can respond accordingly, evolving incrementally to meet the individual company's needs, systems and processes while at the same time ensuring all legislative requirements are met.
7. A good payroll and HR software solution will ensure accuracy, simplify and speed up the processing and submission of tax, labour and other specialised returns required by government departments such as employment equity and occupational injury and diseases compensation.
8. When making your purchase decision, always remember that software will always be a business enabler, not a business driver.
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