Why a payroll software is better than spreadsheets

The last week of the month tends to have a frantic atmosphere. It’s that time of the month when employees rush to complete their deliverables. It’s also that time of the month when you have to cater to your bills and the financial pledges you made at the beginning of the month i.e., rent, school fees, weddings, holidays  etc. For HR professionals, the end month points to one item in this frenzied scale; payroll.

For any organization to run smoothly, employees have to receive their salaries on time and with all benefits, deductions & allowances done accurately.  This keeps morale up and contributes to high productivity. To ensure that everyone gets a fair piece of the pie, a significant number of HR professionals invest a lot of their time and energy during this time of the month in conducting the payroll process using spreadsheets. 

Unfortunately, the use of this application has proven to be outdated, tedious and time-consuming. While spreadsheets do have their advantages in multiple areas, they certainly prove disadvantageous when it comes to processing payroll and they can cause HR professionals lots of frustration.

In order to improve efficiency in payroll processing,  HR professionals are advised  to turn to a payroll software, and here’s why;

 1) Spreadsheets are complex, payroll software is simple

Spreadsheets can be complex and when you have a lot on your plate , your brain has a difficult time grasping vast amounts of information and executing things right.

A spreadsheet is a vast, complex tool with various concepts such as pivot tables, v-lookup, split fields, etc. If one is not an expert in this, they may have to spend a lot of time and energy processing payroll on excel. Other times a company may have to hire an employee to  handle this specific docket and if they leave, you have to quickly  hire someone else with spreadsheets expertise and this can be inconveniencing while at the same time costly.

Payroll software, on the other hand, is easy to use as it has automated features that can easily be navigated. This means that the processing of payroll is handled swiftly - just by a click and that this responsibility can easily be passed on to another employee should the one handling it leaves.

2) Payroll software is accurate

Have you ever had to deal with an aggravated employee over an error in their salary calculations ? It’s not pretty, is it?

Salary revision is a normal concept in companies. An employee can get a raise or a bonus or they could receive a salary deduction. Using a spreadsheet to conduct these computations can easily lead to inaccuracies.  In order to determine whether salary computations are accurate or not, organizations relying on spreadsheets always need to conduct audits and have the payroll reviewed by several managers. This leads to delays and at times unwarranted costs.

Payroll software is designed to accurately compute salaries for all employees while factoring in all elements of salary revisions. You get to give employees accurate pay and do this on time.

In addition to all this, should the company expand and hire a significant number of employees, the payroll software easily accommodates this scale-up, automatically incorporating the new employee data into its system. This means that by the time payroll season comes around, HR professionals are able to conduct the process accurately as their information is reliable.

Manual input of massive new employee data can easily lead to the inaccurate processing of payroll as with each new entrant you will have to create a new record and down the line, these records have a high likelihood of having errors.

3) Payroll software has data at its fingertips

Payroll processing has multiple faucets. In order to produce an accurate salary for a given employee, an HR professional has to have data from their salary revision, attendance at work, allowances, monthly benefits, commissions and tax declaration details. You will also need to have information from the employee’s personal records. It is possible to use spreadsheets to store all this information but you need to create multiple spreadsheets for each faucet and this can prove to be quite cumbersome.

Payroll software has the ability to store and  maintain your  different records efficiently. You can easily alter and automatically save data whenever you need to without having to search for specific records.

 In addition to this, payroll software helps HR professionals stay up to date with tax-related compliances. As a HR professional, you can automatically generate tax reports and conduct tax liabilities calculations with just a few clicks.

As part of their job, HR professionals using spreadsheets have to file annual returns, generate tax reports and calculate tax liabilities manually. This means every tax season, you have to brew a jug full of coffee, select a motivational podcast, and do all tax-related activities that you have been doing for years manually.

Tedious right?

It is also worth noting that payroll software comes in handy when a company expands to a new market where laws are different. Payroll software helps HR professionals be up to date with legal compliance in new territories. For instance, the software is able to accommodate different statutory deductions which are dependent on a given region. 

 4) Payroll software helps with payroll aftermath

There are activities that HR professionals need to do once the employee salaries are paid. They have to distribute pay slips, calculate payroll costs, and give their bosses payroll reports. These can be tiresome tasks but with payroll software, they are all automated.

If you use spreadsheets for your payroll processing, all aftermath tasks have to be conducted manually. These tasks can be easily mishandled due to their vastness and their tedious nature.

Wouldn’t you rather complete all of them with just a click of a button?

 5) Payroll software has a privacy feature

Remember how fast you used to shove your marked exam paper in your locker? It was almost automatic, keeping your exam score away from the prying eyes of classmates. As adults, we are not very different, we are simply uncomfortable with the notion of everyone knowing how much money we earn.

Payroll software has a privacy feature that allows you to create multiple roles that have different access levels. This means that essentially, every person in the HR department  will see what you want them to see and nothing more.

This same feature is not offered by spreadsheets. This means that payroll details remain in the open for everyone to see.

Now that you know how a payroll software can considerably make your payroll processing more efficient, which one is right for your company?

Request a demo from Elevate HR. 

Why Elevate HR is the right choice for your payroll processing needs

Elevate HR has an advanced payroll module that enables HR professionals to accurately compute payroll for their employees i.e., the software reviews payroll changes that have occurred during the month. Additionally, this module enables HR professionals to generate password-protected pay slips which ensure privacy for their employees.

Elevate HR also offers payroll software that helps HR professionals get submission-ready statutory reports i.e., NSSF, I-TAX, and NHIF. This feature enables you to automatically provide reliable reports whenever they are required. After disbursing salaries, HR professionals can use Elevate HR’s payroll software to generate pay slips.

Elevate HR’s payroll software will solve all the problems you are currently facing when processing payroll using spreadsheets.

Eager to make your payroll processing more efficient? Visit our page and get started on this life-changing journey!