10 Features Your Payroll Should Have

Forget about the bells and the whistles, the nice to haves that people always dream of, and programmers love to include but us small business owners never use.  I want to suggest what, you  as a small business owner , should be looking for as the basics when looking for a payroll/human resource system.

1)      Monthly, weekly employees in one company

Every employee is in the same company paying SARS and UIF under the same number. This means that when reports are printed there is no adding up or collating of information. The report will combine all the employees in one report. (Great for emp201 and banking extract files) (Paymaster OnLine does)

2)      Simple quick adding or resigning of employees

You don’t want to spend ages adding or resigning employees. The process must be quick and logical. Once the employee has been added then it should be easy to get his first payslip completed (Paymaster OnLine does)

3)      Quick changes to payroll

Changes should be quick and immediate no waiting for someone to complete the payroll, then having to run the payroll before the changes take effect. Modern payrolls all run in real time. (Paymaster onLine does)

4)      Payslips printed on A4 paper

Don’t waste money on payslips or having to buy a special printer for payroll. Find a payroll programme that will print all your reports and payslips on a normal laser printer. (Paymaster OnLine does)

5)      Access from anywhere

As a small business owner you want to work from anywhere at any time. So it makes sense to make sure that your payroll and employee details are available from anywhere  at any time (Paymaster OnLine does)

6)      Input from your time and attendance or capture on the system

If you run a time and attendance system your payroll must be able to import this data. If you don’t have a time and attendance system then you must be able to punch in the data or import it as an excel spreadsheet into the payroll (Paymaster OnLine does)

7)      Reports easy to set up

Information is the key. When you need it, it must be available quickly and easily. You don’t want to have to wait for the payroll department or service provider to have to write the report for you. (Paymaster OnLine does)

8)      Support /help when you need it

There are times when you need help. Not a look up thing, not an e-mail but a real person who will hold your hand and take you step by step to where you want to be. (Paymaster OnLine does)

9)      Backup made easy

On line payrolls are backed up by the service provider. This means you don’t have to worry about backing up the information. Some online payrolls allow you access to your historical data for as much as three years. A copy of a payslip 6 months old is just a couple of clicks away. (Paymaster OnLine does)

10)  Affordable

Like everything else payroll software needs to be affordable. The best payroll solutions  price their product on an employee per month model and this allows you to pay less when you have reduced employee numbers and more when the number increases. You should be able to pay monthly. (Paymaster OnLine does)