Why Should You Automate Your Payroll Immediately? [Expert Insights]

How you manage your payroll matters more than ever. 

Times are tough. In fact, much tougher compared to even a few months ago. The economic recession, rising inflation, and an employee shortage are challenging for many businesses. 

As a result, in the current environment, an outdated, inefficient and unautomated payroll solution will cost your business too much. 

Payroll errors, delays, difficult-to-read payslips, poor information flow, lost trust: this is not something you want to risk in an employee’s market where finding and retaining qualified employees can be extremely difficult.

Download our FREE guide to avoid costly payroll mistakes, assess your payroll and identify areas for improvement!

Why should you automate your payroll immediately: Q&A session with Anna Jagiello

If the thought of implementing an automated system gives you a headache, here’s one important fact.

Automated, mistake-free payroll is not another cost or an extra hassle. It’s what your business needs to save money and retain your employees. 

Keep reading to learn more!

#1. Why is it challenging for so many companies to build an efficient payroll system?

Anna: In the ideal world, HR employees would spend the majority of their time on building a great company culture and developing solutions that improve employee satisfaction and candidate experience. 

All this will strengthen your employer branding and it will be much easier for you to attract and convince top talent to work for your company. 

Unfortunately, the real world is far from perfect. The truth is that the majority of enterprises struggle with HR and finance-related problems.

Now think about your organization. Does your HR department waste a lot of time on repetitive admin tasks? Do they have to correct plenty of errors every single month and face the consequences of them?

You probably know what I’m talking about. Even if you outsource your payroll, you still need to spend plenty of time and energy on collecting and preparing all the necessary payroll data. 

So it’s not easy at all, especially due to constant payroll changes. Consider employee rotation, changing pay rates, calculating overtime pay, bonuses, and reporting. 

You also need to stay on top of contracts (new contracts, amendments, and terminations) as well as employee documentation and changing data. Of course all this information should be appropriately formatted and regularly updated. And there’s always missing data!

It can get even more complicated. Imagine if payday falls on a holiday, weekend, or when your key staff is away. Delays (and trouble) are almost certain.

Everything that I’ve described takes place practically every month. It’s like a never-ending story.

The majority of enterprises struggle with HR and finance-related problems. This can negatively impact employee trust in the workplace. As a result, companies can lose many valuable employees.

Anna Jagiello, Digital Product Expert

#2. What are the consequences of an ineffective payroll system?

Anna: If the whole payroll system and all the small departments responsible for managing payroll don’t work properly, expect more issues.

For example, if your employees don’t understand complicated payslips, they will ask you lots of salary-related questions. This will put an extra burden on your HR team, who will need to spend time on investigating individual cases, responding to employee queries, and correcting potential errors.

In effect, they will have even less time and energy to manage current projects. This is likely to cause further delays and errors. This will in turn negatively impact employee trust in the workplace. They may also lose trust and confidence in how their HR departments work and manage payroll.

As a result, companies can lose many valuable employees. This will of course complicate things further. After all, it will be necessary to recruit new team members, prepare new documents, and process extra data. 

All this will significantly reduce the time that could be spent on nurturing your workforce and building employee relations. This vicious circle clearly demonstrates the significance of the effective payroll system for individual employees as well as the company as a whole.

Ready to take your HR strategy and business to the next level? Plan 2023 with this HR Calendar and improve employee retention!

#3. What are the benefits of automated payroll for big companies?

Anna: Now imagine a company with an effective and efficient payroll system that pulls employee data automatically. Additionally, this payroll software calculates salaries correctly and generates fully transparent and easy-to-understand payslips.

As a result, employees don’t have to question their salaries and your HR team members can focus on building positive work relationships. Moreover, employees get paid on time or even sooner than expected. This improves employee satisfaction and the employee life cycle.

The end result? Your company can be recommended as one of the best employers. For sure it will be much easier for you to attract top talent. Sounds pretty good, right?

So payroll automation reduces manual work, the amount of spreadsheets, and the number of human errors. It helps your HR department work in a much more effective and efficient way. Automated payroll also helps you keep your data in a secure system. As documents aren’t sent and forwarded via email, expect improved data flow in your workplace.

As a consequence, your HR department can focus on employees and employer branding.

Payroll automation reduces manual work, the amount of spreadsheets, and the number of human errors. It helps your HR department work in a much more effective and efficient way.

Anna Jagiello, Digital Product Expert

#4. Many companies find the implementation of a new payroll system complicated. Is it really the case?

Anna: Even if you haven’t considered a new payroll software provider and/or you fear the implementation of a new solution, think about it twice:

• Can your company really afford (more) problems with payroll? 
• Is it really a good idea to give up the benefits of modern technology? 
• Does it really make sense to use your HR team’s time on manual data entry, salary calculations in Excel spreadsheets, correcting payroll errors, and dealing with high employee turnover?

You probably know the answers to those questions.  

More and more companies think it’s necessary to simplify their payroll systems. There’s a big chance that your competitors have already automated their payroll.

Symmetrical can offer you a new automated payroll platform. It can help you migrate your data and implement the Symmetrical solution from start to finish. As a result, this smooth and hassle-free payroll software implementation won’t put any extra burden on your staff.

On a final note, maybe you’re one of those lucky employers who have no payroll issues. Or maybe your payroll processes are far from perfect or could work better. Either way, feel free to contact one of Symmetrical’s payroll experts for a FREE consultation of your payroll system (without commitment). 

Symmetrical’s experts will either congratulate you on your success or will give you advice on how to make your payroll system more effective and cost-efficient.

About Symmetrical

Symmetrical is the first payroll solution you won’t hate. We enable fast-paced companies to onboard at scale and run their payroll invisibly. To run your payroll hassle-free, contact our experts to learn more!

Karolina Kulach

Senior Content Marketing Expert (HR & Payroll)

I'm a non-fiction writer, content manager and a passionate digital content creator. I have a huge interest in topics related to employee experience and employment trends in the world of Payroll & HR. I'm also a well-travelled individual with international education and work experience gained in London, Scotland, Poland and Germany. In my spare time I buzz with creative content ideas, including funky rhyming poems.