What are the top features and benefits of payroll software?

From the benefits of payroll software to choosing the right software for your organisation, we cover everything you need to know about payroll software

To help reduce admin and increase efficiency, HR teams can turn to HR software, but what can payroll teams do when they also want to reduce admin, costs and improve efficiency? Similarly, the answer lies with payroll software. Payroll software can help you streamline and manage payroll processes and ensure that people are paid accurately and on time. Before turning to payroll software, however, you need to be aware of what the software can help with, what you need to be looking out for when choosing the right payroll software, and more.

Features of payroll software

The standard features of payroll software which you need to be aware of, include:

• Online payslips, P60s, P11Ds, and P45s which employees can access anywhere, anytime
• Configurable calculation routines
• Legislative compliance, not only HMRC but extended to Minimum Wage, average holiday pay, gender pay gap and other calculations
• Fully automated pensions auto enrolment processes with the help of pension payroll software
• API integration with your other business systems
• Detailed reports and payroll analytics
• Consultancy to support your process mapping and workflow improvement

The key benefits of payroll software

• Saves time – Payroll management software automates the payroll processes, which means the system can perform all types of payments for your employees including hourly pay, overtime, commissions, bonuses and more – reducing the risk of errors – and allows cut-off dates to be closer to pay day
• Reduces costs – Payroll runs can be completed in a shorter amount of time, which reduces the number of resources needed to process payroll, and therefore reduces your costs. The money saved can be better spent on improving people performance instead
• Keeps data secure – Personal details including bank details, date of birth etc can be stored securely within the system and cannot be accessed by anyone outside of the organisation. With payroll teams still working remotely, and having to process payroll from their home office and computer, the software adds security to the data and information you are working with
• Ensures compliance – With all payroll-related data stored in one place, payroll teams can easily ensure that all employee records are up to date – software can provide an audit trail of important decisions and changes to employee records – and can find the documents they need when having to comply with the latest payroll legislation
• Improves accuracy – Payroll software reduces the number of errors in your payroll, which helps ensure that accurate payslips are generated and keeps employees satisfied
• Year-end support – The tracking, recording, and reporting that you are able to do with payroll software means that you can save time when it comes to end-of-year payroll tasks and you can easily find what you need
• Integrate with HR – By integrating payroll software with your HR system, you can improve collaboration between both HR and payroll, ensure that all sensitive data is stored in a single, secure system, and quickly access data for reports (eg gender pay gap reports)

Choosing the right payroll software

When choosing the right payroll software for your team and organisation, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• What is my budget?
• Do I want software that can grow with my organisation?
• Do I want it to integrate with other systems?
• What necessary features does it need to have?

When looking around, you should also ask vendors some questions, including:

• Is the software easy to use?
• Does the software comply with the latest payroll legislation?
• Is the software accessible on the cloud?

These questions can help you find a payroll solution that best fits your organisation at present and in the future, but don’t forget to also view software demos and read customer reviews.

Want to find out more about Ciphr Payroll – our powerful, reliable, and scalable payroll software? Contact us at [email protected], call 01628 814242.