As your business grows, your staff numbers are also likely to slowly but surely grow. With increasing staff numbers, meeting your wage obligations can become increasingly difficult. To help manage your growing business, you should consider the benefits of integrated payroll processes. Integrated payroll processes use an automated payroll system, helping to avoid mistakes and making the payroll process quick and stress-free.
What are the benefits of integrated payroll processes?
An effective integrated payroll process is critical to running an efficient business. It will help you process payroll faster, more efficiently and with confidence. Other ways integrated payroll processes can help include it can:
- Process payroll calculations faster and more accurately
- Link timesheet systems to payroll software
- Collect and store payroll and employee information
- Generate payroll slips
- Automate the collection of information and reporting
- Assist in compliance with wage and legal obligations
- Automate certain tasks
- Provide a means to plan for future costs such as staff costs.
How can I be sure I am paying my staff correctly?
Without proper processes, you may unknowingly make mistakes with your wage obligations. For example, if pay amounts are miscalculated you could under or overpay your staff. Or, you could fail to track employees’ hours and overtime correctly and not be paying the correct amounts.
The Australian government provides numerous free resources that can help employers meet minimum wage requirements and other wage obligations. It is important to access these as each industry will have its own set of rates and rules. Some common areas where mistakes we see are made to help you pay your staff what they are entitled to. Let’s look at some key areas.
Late night shifts & early morning shifts penalty rates
Employees required to start work before 7 am or finish work after 7 pm will have variable rates. They will be entitled to an additional penalty rate during those hours worked.
Public Holidays
Depending on your industry, you might require your employees to work during a public holiday. Public holiday rates vary greatly between industries.
For example, casual staff in the Fitness industry have the same penalty rate for public holidays and weekends. However, the Hospitality industry is different. Casual staff in this industry have different pay rates for Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.
Methods of recording your employees’ hours
One of the most common mistakes to occur when not using integrated payroll software is the incorrect recording of employees’ hours. This in turn can result in pay errors. In today’s never-ending stream of innovative software and technology, you can readily access a vast pool of systems and software to assist with streamlining your payroll processes. Most payroll software allows employees to populate digital time sheets for your approval. Therefore, by using payroll software, you can improve accuracy as well as save time on data entry.
With this tool, employees become more responsible for providing accurate information which means you will spend less time adjusting and reviewing.
For more information about your industry and your industry-specific payroll requirements visit Fair Work Ombudsman.
If you would like more personalised assistance please feel reach out to our team at Powell Enterprises.
Important Reminder for Company Directors –
New Director ID
If you are a company director you are required to apply and meet the new directors’ ID requirements by 30th November. Check our previous article for more detail by clicking here. We can’t apply for a director ID on your behalf, but we can help you decide if you need to apply.