Six Reasons to Modernize Your Payroll Process

Every year, companies across the United States spend countless hours logging, filing, tracking, and managing their payroll, often utilizing a payroll process that is obsolete, inefficient, and potentially risky. In fact, some surveys have found that small business owners spend as many as 5 hours per pay period calculating payroll — time that could be much better spent developing other parts of their enterprise. Whether you’re still sorting through file cabinets each week, or you’ve already updated to a digital payroll system, there are plenty of reasons to make the leap to a modern, automated payroll process. 

What Does It Mean to Modernize Your Company's Payroll?

The actual process of modernizing your payroll system will look different depending on how you have been operating up to this point, but there are a few underlying core ideas. Modern payroll systems take advantage of advances in automation, data security, and software to eliminate human error, make tax compliance easier, and keep employee records secure. Switching to a modern payroll system can bring many benefits to your business, especially if you’ve been using outdated spreadsheets or paper filing methods.  

Implementing Technology and Programs for Payroll Processes

Modern technology has made many aspects of the payroll process easier, more efficient, and less complicated than ever before. However, none of that is helpful if a new, updated process is challenging to implement. One of the key determiners of good payroll software is the ease of implementation. Quality payroll software should integrate seamlessly with your business practices and should be designed so the cutover process is as efficient and smooth as possible.  

Six Ways That Modernizing Payroll Can Help Your Business

By modernizing your payroll operations, you can effectively prevent or mitigate some of the most common frustrations related to the process so you can focus on addressing other business needs. Modern payroll solutions can help with every part of the process, from navigating both common and unusual employee payroll issues, to ensuring tax filings are properly prepared, and more! Most businesses have found that payroll modernization has helped their operations in the following ways. 

1) Time Savings Through Automation

A significant chunk of payroll processing involves the same processes repeated week after week. Some studies have shown that, on average, businesses that process their payroll internally using traditional methods spend nearly 5 hours per pay period calculating and filing payroll. Modern payroll software can automate these repetitive tasks and free up time and resources that once were spent on manual payroll processes for more important work that furthers your larger business goals.  

Saving Money with Less Manual Tasks

As any business owner knows, wasted labor hours can add up quickly and cause an unnecessary drain on a company. Just as companies are looking to automate other parts of their business, such as production, marketing, or lead generation, by cutting out repetitive manual tasks, payroll processes can also be automated to save time and improve efficiency. By automating these tasks, labor hours can be saved or reallocated for what’s truly important to your business.  

2) Eliminating Human Error and Mistakes

Payroll calculation can be a complicated and repetitive process, particularly if it’s done by hand. Manual processes, especially repetitive, data-intense ones, are prone to human error. In fact, the IRS estimates that about 1/3 of employers make a payroll mistake each year — a figure that adds up to nearly $7 billion in penalties! 

Through a combination of automation and other technologies, modern payroll management software is designed to significantly reduce or eliminate payroll mistakes altogether. This ensures that your employees get paid on time and correctly each pay period while also cutting out potentially costly errors in tax calculations. 

Horizon has been a trusted payroll partner for businesses across the country since 1997; check out our Guide to Payroll Management!

3) Improved Timeliness of Payroll and Payments

Outdated payroll systems can fall victim to all kinds of delaying events. Paper checks can be lost or held back due to weather or shipping issues, errors in data entry can result in paychecks needing to be re-issued, and something as simple as one missing document can cause you to miss the payroll window for a pay period. As a business, missed payments to your employees can cause your staff to start looking for work elsewhere or, at the very least, can lower morale. Modern payroll solutions, by ensuring error-free data entry and streamlining the payroll process, can help consistently provide on-time payment, offer paperless pay solutions, and keep your business running like a well-oiled machine! 

4) Data Security Improvements

Federal law mandates that businesses securely store employee data, including personal information, payroll data, and other sensitive documents. Even if your business has moved from a locked cabinet in a corner office to digital storage, there still exists a potential for a data leak if the proper controls aren’t in place. Leaked or stolen employee data can not only cause immense legal and financial trouble for your business, but it also has the potential to upend the lives of the staff who trusted you with that information. By outsourcing your payroll processes and data to a modern, comprehensive provider, you can take comfort in knowing that your sensitive information is protected and secured against data leaks, breaches, and phishing attacks.  

5) Easier Tax Compliance

Anyone who’s worked in the murky realm of payroll taxes can attest that adhering to the dizzying number of tax laws, federal requirements, and reporting obligations can be a full-time job on its own. In 2016 alone, employment tax violations totaled more than $91 billion, and businesses throughout the country routinely see hefty fines and legal problems for errors and improper tax compliance. 

By using automated and purpose-driven payroll management solutions, your business can ensure that your tax filings are being handled on time and to the letter, making tax compliance easier, less time-intensive, and more error-proof.

6) Higher Employee Satisfaction

Morale among employees and staff is key to any successful operation, and modern payroll solutions offer a sound path to building a satisfied and productive team. Online and easily accessible employee benefits and pay portals enable your staff to stay on top of their benefits and conveniently view and track their pay. Additionally, by ensuring that your payroll is delivered accurately, and on-time pay period after pay period, you build trust with your staff and encourage a high-performance workplace. On the other hand, payroll issues have been proven to have a sharply negative effect on employee satisfaction. By investing in proven modern payroll solutions, you can make leaps and bounds toward building a satisfied and effective team.   

Horizon is a Trusted Partner for Payroll and HR Processes

For more than twenty years, Horizon Payroll has been providing trusted, proven, and reliable payroll management solutions for small-to-medium-sized businesses throughout the United States. As a trusted payroll service provider, we’ve helped our clients save time, cut costs, and increase the security of their sensitive information. We also provide industry-leading solutions tailored to HR, benefits management, and other critical business areas. All of our tried-and-true solutions are adaptable to almost any industry! Contact us today for more information.   

Helping Businesses Modernize Their Payroll

As technology marches on, we’re right there — every step of the way. Since 1997, our talented and experienced team has been helping business owners modernize their payroll processes to maximize productivity and eliminate waste costs, all while increasing accuracy and reducing the likelihood of costly errors. In our modern era, we’ve redefined the concept of quality payroll services by combining cutting-edge automation with unsurpassed systems and software design to make payroll even more effortless, accurate, and manageable. This helps our clients see past the day-to-day details and focus on the big picture so they can get back to doing what they do best.  

Automated and Outsourced Payroll Saves Your Company Time

Instead of spending hours tracking, logging, and filing reams of meticulous payroll data each pay period, outsource the process to a trusted, proven provider and take full advantage of our industry-leading payroll solutions! Automated and outsourced payroll can vastly improve both the employer and employee experience by saving your company time, reducing payroll errors, managing employee benefits, and keeping sensitive data out of the wrong hands.   

Solutions for Payroll, HR, Benefits Management, and More

Our thorough and comprehensive business-oriented services include more than payroll solutions. We also offer industry-leading, scalable, and proven services for HR, employee benefits management, and more for businesses across nearly every industry. Our services are designed with adaptability in mind, so whatever your business needs are, we’re here to meet them! 

Contact Us Today for More Information

To learn more about the benefits of payroll outsourcing and how Horizon can help your business save time and lower costs, contact our top-rated team today for a free consultation.