New trends descend on HR & payroll

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New trends descend on HR & payroll

By , Surveys Editorial Project Manager at ITWeb.
Johannesburg, 2 Jul 2015

Employees are the heart of any business. This is especially true for mid-size enterprises, which must attract and retain the best talent if they are to hold their own against much larger competitors.

So says Anton van Heerden, MD of Sage HR & Payroll, who notes if enterprises are to take full advantage of their talent, they have to be able to manage it effectively and efficiently.

“This is why we’re seeing so many mid-size and large enterprises invest in powerful, simple and flexible HR management solutions to streamline their practices, improve efficiency and future-proof their businesses,” says Van Heerden.

Sage VIP and Synergy Group, in partnership with ITWeb, are conducting an online HR & Payroll Survey to gain valuable insight and perspective into the current strategies within South African organisations.

“It is important for organisations to seriously consider their HR and payroll automation strategies and the aim of the survey is to determine how South African organisations are faring when it comes to what motivates them to implement, upgrade or replace their HR and payroll solutions,” says Van Heerden.

He notes the survey is to also establish current market penetration of HR and payroll solutions within businesses.

Ashley Regenass, CEO of Synergy Group, adds: “This survey is needed to establish what the current uptake of automated and integrated HR and payroll is in South Africa.”

According to Van Heerden, there are quite a few trends that are being witnessed within the HR and payroll sphere such as compliance, payroll fraud, cloud computing, employee self-service and outsourcing.

He points out the regulatory and tax environment are becoming more complex. This trend is expected to continue, especially with pension fund reform on the cards, the possible introduction of national health insurance, and the Davis Commission’s reevaluation of SA’s entire tax system.

“More organisations are falling prey to payroll fraud. Many organisations are looking to the cloud to cut operational and capital costs. Employee self-service solutions give employees more convenience and finally outsourcing routine monthly payroll tasks allows organisations to focus on their core business more easily.”

It is important for organisations to seriously consider their HR and payroll automation strategies, says Anton van Heerden, MD for Sage HR & Payroll.

It is important for organisations to seriously consider their HR and payroll automation strategies, says Anton van Heerden, MD for Sage HR & Payroll.

When asked what challenges organisations face with regards to HR and payroll, Regenass advises that too many mid-sized businesses still store HR data in silos.

“Outdated HR systems with loose or no integration with accounting and ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems create inefficiencies and hamper visibility into business trends. Gaining visibility of HR performance is a growing challenge as well as statutory reporting,” says Van Heerden.

“A good solution will automate routine administrative tasks which helps companies to comply with regulations. Electronic processes also produce a wealth of data which enables HR to make better decisions.”

Regenass notes an effective HR and payroll system helps businesses to better manage their mobile workforce as well as improve efficiencies.

“An effective HR and payroll system will streamline compliance and help companies stay on top of the dynamic and changing HR landscape,” he adds.

Concludes Van Heerden: “By automating routine paperwork, HR departments will be able to focus more on issues such as training and development, performance management, employee retention, developing a positive business culture, and alignment of the HR strategy with the business strategy. This translates into a business advantage.”

 

6 trends affecting payroll and HR in South Africa

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South African companies face a number of human resources (HR) and payroll related challenges today, and there is no sign that the pressure will be let up in 2015 or 2106. Volatility in the workplace and workforce, skills development, and  tax regulations and labour laws that never cease to change are perhaps the most challenging issues that businesses need to face.

Thankfully there are many technologies, such as paymaster, and business models that assist organisations in South Africa in achieving greater control an improved management of HR with their business needs and of course take the pain out of payroll management. Here are some key Trends affecting Payroll and HR for next year or so are as follows:

  1. Compliance Compliance Compliance

It is expected that the regulatory and tax environment will continue to become more complicated, as proven by trends in the last decade or so. Implementation of pension fund reform has been delayed, however it is still very likely to happen, for example. And the environment changes every tax year.

  1. Increase in payroll fraud

Payroll fraud has seen reported incidences increase at an alarming rate especially among SMEs in South Africa. The growing number of companies asking payroll firms to assist with forensic investigations after falling prey to payroll fraud and this indicates that the crime is on the rise.

The three components of the classic fraud triangle – Motivation, opportunity and rationalisation  – form a perfect storm in payroll and this creates enormous risks for businesses. An automated payroll solution, such as Paymaster, well planned and implemented processes and strict governance are essential to containing the risks.

  1. Cloud Technology

A growing number of entrepreneurs now use cloud applications to get up and running quickly with essential business applications such as payroll and HR, this use of cloud technology is expected to grow.
Many existing businesses are expected consider the cloud as a method of optimising operational and capital costs in their IT environments, this will include Payroll. Furthermore it is expected that many companies that have not yet done so will implement online employee self-service solutions and this automate time consuming processes like expense claims and leave approvals.

The reason that the cloud plays such a large part of future operations is due to the fact that it empowers people to be productive while they’re mobile. The recent Sage Business Index survey for 2014 showed 59% of South African businesses believe the mobile infrastructure in South Africa makes it possible to work effectively on mobile devices. And more than 40% believe that, in the future, tablets and smartphones will be of most use for accounting and/or payroll.

  1. Strategic investment in HR

Business has recognised that an engaged and empowered workforce with the right skills and levels of competency will deliver a superior return on investment. A workforce that is engaged, happy and satisfied is proven to be vastly more productive and delivers the greater levels of innovation and customer service demanded to compete in today’s environment.

Because of this, many companies are automating or outsourcing their routine HR processes so that HR managers can focus on performance management, training, skills development, alignment of the workforce with the business strategy, and other key strategic initiatives.

  1. Outsourcing

A growing number of  companies are outsourcing routine payroll tasks such as processing the monthly payroll and printing and distributing payslips, allows them to concentrate on core business and entrust an efficient, specialist provider such as Paymaster with staying ahead of compliance requirements, technology, and other complexities of running a modern payroll.

  1. Online tools for smoother recruitment

Recent surveys have shown that up to 75% of organisations are adding online recruitment to their traditional recruitment methods and using social media in this respect. It is expected that more companies to use tools such as online applicant tracking, talent communities, and internal career portals in conjunction with their traditional recruitment processes as the cost for these is reducing and the process is not only faster but produces a more quality in the candidates.

In time, business will be able to export job specifications from their HR systems to online recruitment platforms or import a successful job applicant’s details directly into their payroll and HR software. This will bring new levels of efficiency to the admin processes that surround recruitment.

 

Signs you need to Automate your payroll

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Signs you need to Automate your payroll

 

With human resources and payroll departments under more pressure than ever before, a modern automated payroll solution is an essential for any business, says Sandra Swanepoel, sales director at Sage VIP.

Yet many organisations are still using manual processes that can’t keep pace with the demands of today’s workforce and the fast-changing legal and tax environment. Here are five signs that it is time to consider automating your payroll function.

You are spending too much time on manual work
A payroll system will automate the processes of printing and distributing payslips as well paying your employees each month. That will save you many hours spent manually calculating statutory deductions and spare you the risk of making an error that could put your business at risk. It can also help you do away with mountains of manual work around processing leave applications, calculating hours worked, managing expense claims, printing payslips for employees, and keeping accurate employee information.

You are doing your General Ledger transactions manually
With today’s payroll solutions, you can integrate your payroll data directly into your accounting system. This will save you time because you won’t need to manually capture journal entries for your salary costs. Allocating costs to the right GL accounts and cost centres will enable you to track costs by department or cost centre.

Look for a payroll solution with a trouble-free general ledger interface that cuts your processing time. Manually balancing your journals is a waste of time that could be spent on marketing and sales efforts, growing your business, and taking it to the next level.

Statutory compliance is keeping you awake at night
The labour and tax environment in South Africa is always changing. Making sure your payroll is 100%-compliant will give you peace of mind of knowing that your employees are taxed accurately. It will allow you to give employees a professional payslip that meets the requirements of the law.

Small business owners don’t want to be payroll specialists and they should not need to be. Automated payroll takes the complexities away and gives you peace of mind. It frees your time to look for the best human resources for your business since you’re spending less time on compliance.

You lack payroll reports and find it difficult to manage overtime and payroll costs
Your payroll solution should deliver reporting information that helps you to make consistently informed and effective business decisions. For example, you should be able to mine your payroll data to how employees are contributing to profitability, what resources you need and at what cost for major projects, and where you have gaps or surpluses in your human capacity. Without automation, you will find it hard to capture accurate data and then analyse, present, and share business intelligence.

You are open to payroll fraud or erroneous transactions
Payroll fraud is a major risk, especially for smaller businesses, and erroneous payments can cost you dearly. Payroll software delivers better visibility into transactions, proves an audit trail, and offers a set of controls, checks and balances that help to prevent errors and fraud. Look out for features such as bank account and ID number verification from within the system to reduce opportunities for fraud. With a manual process, you are far more open to fraud and error.

Payroll is just the start
Once your payroll is automated, you could also consider an integrated employee self-service module. Such a solution streamlines your processes by giving your employees user-friendly tools to update their personal details, apply for leave, submit expense claims and overtime, and view payslips and IRP5s online. Transactions are automatically updated in your payroll database, saving you the hassle of doing so manually.

The signs is it time for Payroll Outsourcing in your business

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The signs is it time for Payroll Outsourcing

Naturally, your business is about making money, but you know better than anyone that making money is hard work: it takes time and dedication. Regardless of which industry you’re in, you’re going to be generating and sending out invoices, collecting and tracking payments, transferring money, balancing your accounts, paying employees, and remitting payments to the government. It’s all part of being in business, after all. All of the bookkeeping, payroll processing, and tax filings that come with being in business can become incredibly time consuming, especially as your business starts to grow.

Your Options

As a business owner, you can start to feel like these processes are taking up all of your time, which leaves you with very little time to spend on your other business activities—the ones that actually make you money.

If this is how you’re feeling in the situation, you have three options: You can keep doing it yourself, you can hire an in-house payroll administrator, or you can outsource the responsibility to a payroll service provider such as paymaster. If you keep doing it yourself, you’ll find yourself with less and less time to work on your other responsibilities. If you hire in-house, you will still spend a lot of time training your new employee and fielding payroll-related questions. Outsourced payroll on the other hand can leave you free to do your work without having to worry about a hefty expense, accuracy, timeliness, or compliance.

Knowledge and Experience

Payroll service providers have specialized teams of qualified professionals on staff who know everything there is to know about tax legislature, government regulations and deadlines, and the subtle nuances of payroll management. Their extensive knowledge and experience makes them more efficient and accurate in their payroll processing than you or your employees could ever be. Take advantage of this expertise by using outsourced payroll. These experts don’t have to spend all their time looking up relevant tax laws or regulations. They know their stuff, so they can manage your payroll quickly and effectively. And since you only pay them for the work they do, this also saves you money in the long run.

Autonomy

When you use outsourced payroll you get to save time thanks to a payroll service provider’s autonomy. You don’t have to spend extensive hours collaborating with them to make sense of the work to be managed, no matter how complex it is. With an in-house payroll clerk, you’ll still be involved more than you’d like to be, which doesn’t save you much time. But a payroll service provider will only need you to provide the relevant payroll numbers once every pay period and the experts will handle the rest.

Think of What You Could Do with More Time

Most business owners’ top complaint is that there aren’t enough hours in a day. But when you use outsourced payroll, you suddenly get more time every day to spend on working with new products, services, marketing ideas, customers, or expansion efforts. You’ll even get more time to spend with your friends and family. You can focus your efforts where they matter instead of being stuck under piles of payroll paperwork.

Make the Switch

To get the most out of your payroll service provider, find one that works for your unique business needs, compare prices and services, and calculate just how much time you’ll save by switching to outsourcing. Once you see how cost-effective outsourcing can be and realize how much time you’ll save from putting the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders, we’re sure you’ll make the switch.

 

by

Ray Gonder

 

Benefits HR solutions offer to business

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 Benefits HR solutions offer to business

South African organisations face enormous challenges in improving efficiencies and cost control in their HR departments. One common problem is that HR departments spend too much time on administrative tasks and managing compliance at the expense of supporting managers in developing employee potential, says Ashley Regenass, Synergy Group CEO.Another issue is that managers lack visibility into employee productivity and cost, which leads to poor estimates of labour costs in turn and eroding profits and competitiveness. For many mid-market enterprises, much of the difficulty in taking more control over the HR function lies in the fact that they rely on poorly integrated systems and cumbersome business processes.

These are all challenges we are grappling with inside our own business, which is why we have decided to implement Sage HR Management to modernise our HR processes and business systems. We looked at five core requirements for a new solution before we made our choice.

Modern technology platform
Understanding that we wanted to take advantage of the latest trends such as mobility, we needed a business solution with a modern architecture. It would need to be flexible and modular, allowing us to introduce new features and functionality at a pace that would be comfortable for our business. It would also need to be simple and fast to implement and configure.

Integration
Too many mid-sized businesses still store HR data in siloes. Outdated HR systems with loose or no integration with accounting and ERP systems create inefficiencies across the organisation and hamper visibility into business trends. The tight integration of Sage ERP X3 and Sage HR Management was, therefore, a big plus for us as a Sage ERP X3 user. A company with unified financial and HR data benefits from accurate and exhaustive data for all its employees, and this is core to improving productivity.

With Sage HR Management, we’ll have a complete HR solution that integrates with our ERP system, giving us a real-time view into HR productivity and costs.

That’s critically important to us since we are a consulting firm and our people’s time and expertise is the main product we sell. An integrated HR package will also help us reduce the need to recapture data across functions such as payroll, hiring, on-boarding and retaining talent, and statutory reporting.

Tighter control
We wanted to empower our managers with unified HR and financial data that would allow them to forecast present and future costs while streamlining operations with automated workflows. Thus, we looked for a solution that automates processes from end to end. Sage HR Management also provides powerful tools for managing workflows and enforcing business rules.

Better compliance and visibility
Gaining visibility of HR performance is a growing challenge, especially for mid-sized businesses. A related challenge is statutory reporting. We wanted a solution that would provide a global, accurate real-time view of HR budget, workforce costs and performance, enabling faster, better-informed operational decisions. With its dashboards and analytic tools, Sage HR Management will give us greater visibility into the business so we can make better decisions.

It will also support us in managing internal processes as well as storing and accessing critical documentation.

Employee engagement
Companies around the world agree that employee engagement is vital, and especially so in an industry such as ours where the best skills are in high demand. For us, implementing an HR solution should therefore focus as much on HR service delivery as it does on improving efficiencies. Sage HR Management will give us powerful tools such as self-service HR services (via the Web or a mobile device) for ensuring higher employee retention and engagement. It will also help us to manage employee development with faster and simpler access to skills and performance information.

We considered it especially important to give managers mobile access to key performance indicators and operational performance data. Providing Web access to core HR data to managers – on any device and on any browser – giving them the freedom to take decisions from any location.

Posted by IT-Online on May 8, 2015

Automate, Automate, Automate

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These are the magic words to achieve payroll immortality. We need to look at every system, at every input and do what we can to avoid data capture. We need to automate leave applications, overtime hours, expense claims, and new employee take ons. What about employees collecting their own payslips or managers collecting their own reports. Payroll systems should be able to do all this.
5 good reason to automate everything we can.
1) It saves us time.
This is obvious. If we can import new employee details or import hours worked then the time it takes to punch these detail and check these details. You know that time is precious. Don’t waste it doing manual work

2) It reduces errors
Every time we have to punch (enter manually) something, the chance of human error gets greater. Spelling mistakes and wrong overtime hours cause our customers to become grumpy. It also means we have to go back and fix the issue. Taking up more of our precious time.

3) It creates a sense of order
Order in a payroll department is crucial. Automation creates that sense that things are being done, things are happening and I am in control. What is being put into the payroll makes sense because it is regular, every month data, imported from a known source in a known way, creating the result we get every time we do this import. Just the way we like it.

4) It creates a great deal of trust
When there is order and when the payroll reflects the input given by line or by the time and attendance figures or the leave system, then we start to build up an element of trust in the system and the procedures we are using. Every time it comes out right and the payroll balances the reputation of the payroll department is enhanced.

5) It creates accountability
The accountability for the accurate payroll is now a shared responsibility. Management for providing accurate data and for using the systems to create accurate data to use for payroll and payroll for processing that data and producing a 100 % error free payroll. The roles and accountability area are clearly defined.
Next week. Our role as tax guardians.