Top 5 Best Practices When You Have a Cloud-Based Payroll

One of the most complicated and cumbersome operations to manage in any business is the payroll system. Cloud based payroll enhances the efficiency of small and medium businesses to tackle and manage their growth and development challenges. Most small businesses have acknowledged that cloud payroll helps them overcome the challenges of early stage Startups and enables them to grow faster.

The system helps them to enjoy and earn more profits than others that do not use it. The adoption of web based payroll is much lower than the adoption of other cloud based human resource applications due to the security concern.

As a small business owner, you need to learn the various processes through which you can handle your payroll systems and ensure your workers and other contractors of your company about compensations. While cloud based payroll system is still in its early days, many organisations are adopting this solution due to the advantages such as lower upfront cost, lesser liability, improved flexibility, etc.

Many top online payroll service providers offer professional services to manage your payroll. With the advancement in small business payroll solution, many organisations are now getting attracted to this to reduce their workload. If you are operating a small business, here are some of the small business payrolls solutions that will help you succeed in your venture and make profits.

Is it safe?

When we are talking about cloud based payroll systems, the obvious question that comes to our mind is “Is it safe”. The answer is Yes. Cloud based system is a highly maintained and regulated system that keeps your data and information safe and secure. As cloud based payroll is managed by a third party and stores a lot of data and employee details remotely, many SMEs try to avoid this service without knowing the working pattern and safety measures taken by cloud based payroll service providers.

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However, on the contrary, the payroll service providers maintain a high-security measure. Your data is not sitting in a computer which can crash, and your data may get lost or corrupted. All your data are stored in the cloud, and the system is using a technology that is regularly updated and highly maintained. These services provide accuracy and efficiency in computing and improve the reliability. The general precautions that all cloud based payroll providers take are:

• Regular security audit.
• Security scans to find any weakness.
• Dedicated staff to regularly update the software package.
• Dedicated staff to maintain 24/7 server security to keep the client’s data safe.

So, now as you know that your data is safe and cloud based payroll system is secured enough, we can proceed to find the best practices while using this service. To get a profitable and fruitful outcome by incorporating cloud based payment system with your business, you must follow some practices. There are many tips and ideas to adopt such as asking the employees to have strong passwords, two-factor authentication, proper training of employees, develop a payroll culture within your organisation, etc.

Here are the top five best practices to adopt when you have a cloud-based payroll

1.    Merge payroll with other systems and migrate to the internet

You will not be able to maximise your returns on investment if you fail to merge the payroll with the different business activities and services that are producing the money. There has to be a correlation between your business activities or the various units involved in the production processes. For example, this system will help you in electronic time management and attendance monitoring, general ledger, human resources, retirement accounting, and tax reporting.  You need to set up a web interface that connects data between systems in different miles.

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2.    Adapt and modify pay delivery for every category of workers

The payroll debit card is another good practice adopted by employers to settle the wages of their employees. Here, the employer will credit the card of every individual with the entitled salary and then, the employee can go to any ATM and access their money. This has gone a long way to reduce the issues of identity theft and fraudulent.

3.    Develop and maintain a payroll culture

Companies develop and adopt different payroll strategies for the payment solution for their workers. Therefore, you need to adopt a payroll culture, which you can maintain over an extended period to retain trust and confidence. This varies from one company to another because, in reality, every company works in different approach and style. Once you have a payroll culture and your employees are well trained, they can track and spot any suspicious web activity, and that improves the security measure as well.

4.    Consolidate payroll processes and possibilities

You need to adopt a payroll system and consolidate it everywhere in your business. This will enhance efficiency and inhibit duplication of processes. However, if you are operating a multi-national company, you can adopt multiple payroll platforms in different locations to reduce pay cycles and ensure faster processing. However, if you can consolidate payroll cycles, it will help to minimise cost relatively.

5.    Outsource and build effective analytics into payroll systems

This is one of the best practices of cloud-based payroll systems. You need to outsource your payroll duties to other organisations that can help you to manage them effectively. You may not have the expertise to handle tax related issues and the payroll administrations itself and in this case, there are good providers of payroll management like ADP, Ceridian Corporation, and others. If you outsource the services to them, they can help you to organise your system effectively and thus you can enjoy the returns on your investment.

Moreover, you need to incorporate effective payroll analytics methods into the system like web portals, business intelligence systems, and built-in report performance. These systems will help the directors to know when to pay bonuses, allowances, and other benefits to the workers.

If you take care of these practices, then you need not worry about your payroll. Make sure you are aware of the system entirely. Conduct training for your HR professionals to get used to this service.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, most small businesses have not heard of managing payroll in the cloud while those that have heard about it are not using it. However, few organisations are there who are using this service and enjoying a lot of advantages over the traditional payroll models.

‘Managing your payroll in the cloud’ means using the internet services to handle your payroll systems. Whether it is allowances, bonuses, commissions, and other commercial transactions, you can automate them in a cloud-based system, as this will save you time and money.  The world’s systems have gone mobile, and a lot of economic activities are becoming increasingly virtual. Therefore you need to have access to your business finances on the go, on your phones, tablets, and other mobile devices to handle any exigencies and emergencies that may come up anywhere.