Staying compliant is one of the most important tasks for your payroll team to follow, as not staying compliant can lead to penalties, fines and even businesses having to close. Taking the time to identify frequent payroll mistakes or challenges your staff face, is an important step in understanding whether your company is staying compliant or not. Due to this we’ve created a checklist of steps you should follow to ensure your payroll team is staying compliant with the latest rules and regulations.
1. Are there any general issues or mistakes being made in your company relating to payroll?
When completing payroll manually, there are a few mistakes or issues that can arise. These can be things like incorrect payments to employees, submitting information late to HMRC and problems with auto-enrolment. These issues can lead to fines and penalties and can even force businesses to close if they’ve made too many mistakes.
General issues and mistakes made frequently can result in a loss of staff due to the instability of pay and your business’s lack of organisation.
If you find your business is making mistakes like these it may be worth moving to outsourced payroll as this can help support you in staying compliant.
Due to this you may want to present a business case to your company on why they should outsource payroll. Read our blog about writing a winning business case for outsourcing payroll so that you can impress your stakeholders and start solving your payroll problems.
Are you using digital payslips?
Using digital payslips helps save money, resources and provides easy access to payslips for employees. Providing digital versions of payslips allows staff to access them through email or a login, preventing loss of payslips and data theft. This will also make it easier to manage remote workers’ payslips as they won’t need to be mailed to them, helping to save money and time, as well as having positive impacts on the environment.
Furthermore, automating this process will minimise errors, as data and rules and regulations are included within the software, making it easier for your company to stay compliant.
Allowing staff to access them when and where they want, makes it easier for staff to spot mistakes and for businesses to rectify them quickly.
Are your employees personal records up to date and accurate?
This may seem obvious, but it’s important to make sure your employees personal records are up to date and accurate.
Providing online logins for your employees to access their payroll information will make it easy for both you and your staff to update personal information, as it can be accessed from anywhere at any time. This will also minimise the risk of making manual errors, such as misspelling names or entering bank details wrong.
Allowing employees to update their personal information will also help you stay compliant with GDPR as data can be seen by as few people as possible (i.e. the staff member and the payroll team).
Ask employees for feedback
Getting feedback from staff gives you the opportunity to identify any issues or complaints that have been made relating to payroll. This is an important step in ensuring you stay compliant as you can gain an in-depth understanding of mistakes or problems your company and staff are facing.
This won’t just have a positive effect on your compliance but will also improve staff retention and productivity as they’ll feel as though you care about them and want to rectify any mistakes that may have been made.
Do your staff understand the steps needed to stay compliant with the latest rules and regulations?
Making sure your staff understand the steps they need to take to stay compliant with the latest rules and regulations, should help to minimise any future mistakes.
This can be done by providing training and reviewing internal processes to see if they comply with the latest rules and regulations and whether they’re running smoothly and effectively.
Payroll software helps you stay compliant as they take the latest rules and regulations into account when completing automated tasks, meaning you just need to focus on inputting the correct data into the system.
To learn more about upcoming payroll changes for 2023/24, read our blog.
How can Payescape help you stay compliant?
Here at Payescape, our easy-to-use payroll technology allows you to enter employee details, create custom monthly reports and give employees access to a self-service portal to manage their personal details.
