Paying staff can be a chore – especially if you have a fairly large team with members earning different amounts from week to week. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to make your payroll easier.

Use payroll software

Payroll software is designed to centralize and automate much of the payroll process. If your employees have a fixed monthly salary, you can easily automate each payment using the software. You can also automatically calculate and set aside tax.

Clock hours with a digital timeclock

Do your employees work slightly different hours each week due to different shifts? Getting employees to clock in and clock out using a digital timeclock can help you track their work hours. This can be linked up with payroll software to automatically calculate pay, which can then be automatically paid to your staff. Just be wary that time clock errors can occur (such as an employee forgetting to clock in or clock out for their shift) so you may still need to check for any discrepancies. 

Automatically track benefits

You can also leverage technology to manage staff benefits, such as holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay, health insurance contributions, pension contributions, and bonuses. You can use benefits administration software to track the benefits and the amounts you need to pay your staff. You can also use the software to track paid absence allowance (such as how many days of paid holiday an employee has left).

Outsource your payroll

An alternative to fully automating your payroll is to outsource it. You can commission outsourced payroll services companies to stay on top of the payroll for you. Outsourcing payroll services allow you to save time, reduce pay errors, and ensure taxes are accurately calculated and paid on time. Employee data could also be more secure in the hands of an outsourced payroll company with better security measures.

Hire an in-house HR employee

If you don’t like the idea of an external company handling your employee data, you could hire an in-house employee to handle your payroll. This could be a dedicated HR staff member who handles all employee admin. You may also assign the role to a staff member who is handling other duties if you feel there isn’t enough HR work to justify an entirely new role.

Hiring a new employee to take over your payroll is likely to be more expensive than outsourcing your payroll. That said, you could make it cheaper by hiring a part-time employee or giving the duty to an existing employee.