7 top tips for

streamlining your
payroll processes 
Here’s what we’re going
to cover:
 Timesheets
 Payroll documents
 Holiday absence
 Statutory payments
 Overtime & bonuses
 Auto-enrolment
 Reporting
Timesheets
Time consuming and inaccurate


If you’re in an environment where employees
work different hours each pay period, perhaps
at different rates, then timesheets will be a
pain with which your payroll team is very
familiar.
@$%*x!
Just getting employees and managers to


submit approved information in a timely
fashion is troublesome enough, before the
keying of that data into your payroll system is
even considered.
Timesheets
If you’re using timesheet data to pay people then obviously it’s important
that it’s accurate – for your employer and for the employee.


Measure
If you start keeping tabs
on this process then it is
highly possible that you
will be quite shocked by
exactly how much time is
spent each pay period
collating timesheet data
and reconciling it!
• Are you confident that the
information submitted by employees
is accurate in the first place?
• Every time data is manually entered
into another system the risk of
mistakes caused by human error
increases
• It can be very difficult to pick data
apart and identify where a problem
occurred.

Now get help


Timesheets
Tip no : Improve the way in which timesheet
information is submitted to you
Use a format that supports direct import into your payroll system.
If you are currently using paper documents or double-entering data then this
will go a long way towards improving both accuracy and efficiency. You could
use:
• A spreadsheet that has been specifically
designed for the purpose
• Electronic timesheet software
• A time and attendance system
But which is best?
Timesheets
Which method is best?
Spreadsheets

 Cheap and easy to implement.

 Require either the employee or supervisor to have a computer.
 You can never be sure that the data being entered is accurate.


Verdict
Timesheets
Which method is best?
Electronic timesheet software

 Allow employees or managers to keep a tally of the hours being

worked and even what has been worked on during that time.
 May have authorisation features built-in.
 May be accessible via smart phone apps.
 More expensive than spreadsheets.
 May record the time automatically but usually the employee has
to record it themselves.
 May require customisation to get data into your payroll system.

Verdict 
Timesheets
Which method is best?
Time and attendance software

 Offer some great and innovative ways for capturing working

times; biometrics, smart phone apps etc.
 Records employee working times automatically so is very
accurate.
 Includes planning and authorisation features.
 Data can easily be imported into your payroll software (fully
integrated solutions are also available).
 Expensive to implement but the ROI can be excellent.


Tip: Download our guide to Building
a business case for software: some
tips for calculating ROI Verdict
Payroll documents
Time to say goodbye to your printer?
Printing, sealing and distributing paper
payslips and other payroll documents is an
administrative burden and expense that your
payroll team, and your business, could quite
probably do without.
The financial costs of paper payslips go way
beyond the paper that the pay information is
printed on.
Payroll documents
In calculating the true costs of producing paper payroll documents don’t
forget P60s and P11Ds as well as payslips!

Measure 
• The cost of purchasing sealing machines, printers and consumables.
• The energy required to run the printers.
• The time and energy associated with distributing payslips.
• The cost of stamps.
• Labour costs or bureau costs if you outsource payslip production.

Now get help


Payroll documents
Tip no : Move to e-payslips, P60s and P11ds
Many payroll software packages now include the facility to distribute secure
payslips via email. It’s quick, easy and free!
If you have an employee self-service HR system then you can also make these
documents available via a secure web-interface.
The beauty of this is that employees can view and print documents whenever
they need to: meaning your payroll team will be relieved of the burden of
being asked to provide copies.
This route may not be right for all employees of course, but if you restrict
paper payslips to just those that have no PC access then you’ll still be making
a considerable financial and time-saving.
Tip: Download our guide free guide
- Payroll: Reducing Paper Output
With E-Payslips, P11ds & P60s.
Holiday absence
A whole lot of paper shuffling…
What is the process for the booking and
authorisation of holidays in your business?
And how is this information submitted to the
payroll department and subsequently entered
into your payroll software?
In many businesses the holiday booking process
is still manual, causing lots of people a whole
lot of hassle.

Let’s take a look at a typical process…

Holiday absence
Here’s what a typical paper-based holiday absence management system
looks like:

 
Employee decides

Employee Employee passes

Form passed to HR

HR & Payroll manually
to book a holiday completes form form to manager and Payroll enter data into systems

 

?

  
Employee checks Employee checks Manager double-

Manager approves

Employee informed
entitlement colleagues’ plans checks entitlement or declines holiday of decision
Holiday absence
Of course there are lots of other things that can happen instead…

???

 

Employee decides Employee Employee passes Department is left Negative impact on
to book a holiday completes form form to manager short-staffed clients and employees


Employee doesn’t Employee doesn’t
  Employee goes on
Manager loses
check entitlement check colleagues’ plans form holiday anyway
Holiday absence
Paper-based absence management schemes are inefficient for
everyone…but especially for the HR and Payroll teams.
What with all the questions and
paper shuffling, each and every stage
of this process puts an additional
administrative burden on Human
Resources and Payroll staff.
Factor in calculating holiday
entitlements for non-salaried
employees that work irregular hours
and you’ve got yourself a full-on


headache! Find out how to get
rid of this hassle
Holiday absence
Tip no : Automate holiday absence management
The good news is that there is a much simpler way: that is to use a web-
based manager and employee self-service portal than integrates with your
payroll software.
• Relatively inexpensive to implement
• Save an inordinate amount of time across the business
• Are a great way of sharing tailored information securely
• Employees can easily see the holiday they have available to them and
check to see when colleagues are on holiday
• Managers can then approve the request online
And then…
The holiday is
seamlessly written to
the payroll database
without any need for
involvement from the
HR or payroll team.
Statutory payments
Getting the information you need to pay your
employees correctly every time.
Absences relating to sickness, maternity,
paternity, adoption, and more, are a fact of life
in any business.
Payment relating to them is also governed by
law, so it’s especially important to get them
right: non-compliance can be a costly affair.
Statutory payments
Tip no : Simplify and automate accurate statutory
payments
Who should the responsibility lie with? Ensure that processes for
recording and managing
Keeping tabs on statutory absence,
statutory absences in your
particularly sickness, and reporting it to business support getting the
HR or Payroll should be the responsibility necessary information to your
of line managers. payroll team or bureau and then
to HMRC in a timely fashion
The subsequent management of correct
each pay period.
payments is then the responsibility of
whoever is in charge of the payroll
process.

Now get help


Statutory payments
Give line managers the tools to ensure they get the process right.
A self-service HR system integrated with your
payroll software is the perfect tool for managers,
or in some cases employees themselves, to
record statutory absence information.
As self-service software is typically web-based it
is accessible from anywhere, meaning
information can be entered and shared with
relevant parties immediately without the delays
associated with more manual processes: these
often cannot be completed until the manager is
next physically in the office.
Statutory payments
Use process automation to ensure policies are followed through.
Workflows
Entering a particular type of absence via
self-service can be set to trigger
workflows to smoothly guide managers
through your company processes,
improving policy adherence. The absence
data can then feed directly into payroll.
Time and Attendance software
If you have a T&A system it will
automatically register when an
employee hasn’t turned-up, notify
the supervisor and prompt them to
take action– for example confirming
whether that employee is off sick or
just late.
When the employee subsequently
returns to work again the T&A
system registers this fact and can
automatically record an end-date for
the absence. Where your time and
attendance is integrated with your
payroll software this information is
shared seamlessly.
Statutory payments
How to stop worrying about statutory compliance.
Of course, even if you know about
statutory absences you will still need to
be confident that you are always paying in
line with the latest legislation.
If you use a respected payroll software
package with HMRC recognition you can
be sure that this is taken care of for you.
You will also need to ensure you have a
great interface between the software you
use to capture and record absence Tip: Visit HMRC’s website for a
information and your payroll system. Or list of HMRC recognised PAYE
better still look for an integrated HR and payroll software.
Payroll solution.
Overtime & bonuses
Tip no : Simplify the way overtime and bonus
information is managed and submitted


If every employee were paid the same amount
every single pay period then payroll would be
so much simpler wouldn’t it?
But alas, even once you’ve covered paying
people for the hours they’ve worked and the
hours that they didn’t because they were £100
absent or on holiday, there are still other
payments to be approved, recorded, made and
reported to HMRC - such as overtime or bonus
payments.
Overtime & bonuses
Overtime is an area that can quickly impact on a business’s profitability if
not tightly controlled.
It can also cause a sour atmosphere to develop
amongst a group of employees if it is felt that it
is not being fairly distributed.
Therefore your business’s overall aims should be
to:
• minimise the need for the use of overtime
through careful planning
• to have strict policies regarding its allocation
when it is required and
• processes in place to ensure accurate and
prompt payment through payroll.
Overtime & bonuses
Good planning equals less overtime to worry about…and that means using
the right employees for the job.
Time and attendance software can help
allocate the most appropriate employees based HR metrics 
on skills and availability. (Where zero hours A department that uses a lot of
contracts or demand scheduling is used this can overtime needs further investigation.

be invaluable.) Is there a recruitment or training

requirement that needs addressing?
A T&A system could also: Doing so could ultimately save your
business ££££s.
• Show where a plan hasn’t been adhered to
and why.
• Support the automation of authorisation
Tip: Download our free
procedures. whitepaper: Why do Companies
implement Time and
• Transfer authorised overtime payments
Attendance Systems?
directly into integrated payroll software.
Overtime & bonuses
Authorising and paying bonuses.

Paper based systems for requesting and

approving bonuses and other ad-hoc
payments can be problematic to manage and
to report on from an auditing perspective.
Again technology provides the answers.
A good manager self-service system may
include the facility for managers to request
such payments for their employees, with
additional authorisation stages built-in.
Once authorised, payments can
go straight through to an
integrated payroll system.
This results in a seamless,
paperless process that is not
only fully auditable but
incredibly efficient.
Auto-enrolment
Simplify keeping on top of your legislative duties.
Workplace pensions reform has so far only
impacted the UK’s largest employers. However
a great many more organisations will have
their auto-enrolment staging dates during
2014.
The rules regarding employees’ eligibility are
complex and each employee will have to be
assessed against them at every pay period.
Indeed a whole industry of “middleware” and
expensive consultancy services has sprung-up
around managing this process!
Auto-enrolment
Tip no : Automate the auto-enrolment process
If you have decent payroll software it is
doubtful you will require any additional auto-
enrolment solutions. Tip:
Beware of scare-mongering
Assessing eligibility is a function of the payroll tactics and investigate the
calculation and most market-leading payroll capabilities of your existing
software packages will include this payroll solution very
functionality, either as standard or as an carefully before being
option. tempted to shell out on
expensive “middleware” or
Some will also enable you to automate services.
communications with employees and
submission of data in a format to suit your
particular pension provider.
Reporting
Can you get your hands on the data that you need?
Imagine your FD suddenly requested a report
you weren’t expecting to have to provide; how
much absence is costing in the telesales
department, or how much overtime has been
paid over a specific period to employees
working under a certain supervisor in
manufacturing, for example.
How long would it take you to collate that
information?
And once you’d done so, how confident could
you be that it was accurate?
Reporting
Tip no : Get your reporting in order
The only simple answer here is the use of
technology.
The beauty of integrated Human Resources
technology, that encompasses workforce
management and payroll on a single platform, is
that it provides a strong strategic tool for planning,
recording what is actually happening, measuring
your business’s effectiveness at meeting goals and
identifying reasons that it isn’t.
Businesses using paper-based systems or a number
of standalone systems can only dream of achieving
this level of insight without an inordinate amount
of manual effort.
Next steps
We hope you’ve found this e-book useful
If you’d like to find out more about Carval’s integrated HR and Payroll
technology then why not:
• Visit our website
• Request an information pack
• Join a webinar
• Book a demonstration
• Or call us for a chat on 01908 787700