Get started with an efficient working day
Are you spending more time than you need to on payroll administration?
Heavy work processes, a lack of overview and manual data entry are among the big culprits that can make payroll work a heavy, time-consuming task.
It doesn't have to be that way!
Fortunately, no major organisational or system changes are needed in the company to optimise payroll work. With small automations and better use of your digital systems, you'll save the most time day to day. In this guide, you'll get tools to get an overview of your current setup, and 4 steps to get started on making payroll administration more efficient.
1 Get an overview of your current work processes
The first step to optimising payroll work is to describe your current work processes. By writing a process description of the payroll-related tasks in your working day, you can see the scope of the tasks and quickly spot any inefficiencies in your workflows. You've probably formed habits and routines for what you do, when and how, and so you don't think much about the tasks from day to day. Sketching out and mapping your own routines and workflows can therefore be a difficult exercise, and seem like a daunting task to get started on.
It is important, though, that you prioritise this exercise. One of the pitfalls of working on routine is that you forget to look critically at how a task is done and can miss potential opportunities for optimisation. By writing process descriptions for the company's payroll processing, on the other hand, you get some distance from the task and become more aware of the time-consuming processes in your working day. Perhaps already after this exercise you'll discover a number of workflows that are inefficient, and get an idea of where to start optimising and making things more efficient.
How to get started
The first exercise on the way to a more efficient working day is a difficult one, and that's no coincidence. This step sets the framework for the rest of the optimisation task, and it's important that you take your time. Be practical and methodical about it. Try describing tasks over a pay period, for example a month, which typically has the same cycle, with the heaviest load in the days leading up to payday. Keep a diary of all your payroll-related tasks, describing each task's purpose and how you would normally solve it.
Checklist for describing work processes:
- Input to payroll – what input do you get from other departments or employees, and how
- Processing – what do you (and anyone else in your payroll function) do with that input
- Systems – which systems do you use for processing
- Approval and validation – who approves what, and how
- Output – what happens after the pay transfer
In Zenegy, the pay run is built so that you can start a pay run for the next period very early. That lets you keep updating the pay run with the data available – for example registrations and other input to payroll – and the pressure in the run-up to pay week is kept to a minimum.
2 Payroll input and output
If you work as a bookkeeper, payroll administrator or in another role in payroll administration, you know that payroll processing starts with payroll input, which is processed in a payroll draft and ends with payroll output, which then has to be processed.
Payroll INPUT
Variable payroll input is everything that affects the following month's pay run. It can be anything from timesheets, time and absence registrations of various kinds, holiday, severance pay, out-of-pocket expenses, bonuses, mileage logs, overtime and much more. All this input is sent to payroll administration for processing, and can come from individual employees, from different departments or perhaps a combination of both. Most of the potential for efficiency lies in the variable payroll input, so it's important to look at how it's processed.
If the many pieces of payroll input arrive in an unstructured, sporadic way, you, as the person responsible for payroll, can quickly lose track of what needs to be registered and how. If, for example, you receive absence registrations by email and expense receipts as crumpled slips of paper, it takes focus and a great deal of manual data entry. The more information that has to be entered and processed manually, the greater the risk of errors and the more time it takes. Read more about digital registrations
Get an overview of payroll input
Start by getting an overview of the different payroll input you need before the deadline, and the format it arrives in. You'll quickly get a picture of the workflows that are your biggest time thieves, and which you can start making more efficient. Consider whether you should introduce other processes and guidelines for how payroll input is delivered to you – and possibly in which format.
One thing is certain, and that's the benefit of moving away from manual processes and using digital tools to register variable payroll input. You save far more time by letting employees, for example, register their own out-of-pocket expenses or mileage, and at the same time you're better placed to make a correct pay transfer on time, without having to spend time correcting any errors in the next period's pay run. It's important to build some good, effective checks into your payroll process. If all payroll input and data is registered digitally in the system, you can do a relatively quick and effective check of the pay run before the transfer.
With Zenegy's deviation report, you decide the deviation margin for the pay run yourself. The system checks for deviations compared with the latest pay transfer and alerts you to changes you need to be aware of to make sure the transfer is correct. You can also download a wide range of reports (SKAT, bookkeeping, pay run and payment reports and many others) as well as draft payslips, which make it easy to check the pay run with a view to minimising errors.
Payroll OUTPUT
Payroll output in the company is defined as what happens after you've transferred the pay. That's the pay transfer to your employees and payments to pension providers, SKAT, holiday funds, ATP, parental leave funds etc. These transfers typically happen fully automatically if they're set up between your payroll system and your bank. Payroll output also has to be delivered to the accounts department and processed. If you spend your resources collecting payroll output data for specific reports or formats to be used in your finance system – there may be time to save by looking at options for transferring data automatically between the payroll and finance systems.
A digital payroll system with an open API makes it possible to connect the payroll system to other systems and tools used in the company. Typically, there will be no need to export payroll output manually to an accounting system. Data is transferred automatically between your systems, and the accounts department can then carry on processing the payroll data directly from the finance system. There's even more potential for optimisation in connecting more tools to the payroll system, so data can be delivered to and from it. Depending on your type of business, it's not unusual to use different tools to optimise the company's functions. That applies, for example, to time registration, shift planning, productivity and HR systems etc.
In Zenegy, there's a wide range of API integrations with bookkeeping systems and other systems that can be connected, so you can work across all your systems.
3 Map out payroll and give yourself a head start
Be prepared for changes inside the company and in the market, and give yourself a head start early in the payroll process. If you want to improve your payroll and work processes and make them more efficient going forward, it's important to structure as many payroll tasks as possible. Draw up a monthly and an annual wheel – and keep it up to date with the things you know about. That way, you get a better overview of the tasks ahead, so you're always prepared for the busiest periods.
Draw up a monthly wheel – the payroll process is often identical from month to month
By drawing up a monthly wheel, you can define your fixed routines and specific tasks for the month, so the payroll process becomes easier. It lets you build in checks of input data as early in the process as possible, so you don't have to handle all the administrative tasks at the end of the month. With the monthly wheel, you can describe the different months and their activities in detail. That means you can use the wheel as a checklist in future, and so work more efficiently and reduce the risk of errors.
Draw up an annual wheel – both internal and external factors affect the pay run
Many staff functions, including payroll administration, can benefit from creating an annual wheel, as the wheel gives a complete and unique overview. By drawing up the annual wheel, you help yourself gather all the internal and external factors that affect the pay run. In the wheel, you note all recurring events in the company and other general factors that repeat every year – so you can quickly and efficiently get an overview of the year's most important tasks.
The internal factors could, for example, be annual pay adjustments or bonus payments in the company that are fixed every year. There may also be external factors, such as changes to the collective agreement, new rates from the public authorities, etc. By drawing up an annual wheel with all the events, you get an overview of the things you need to pay particular attention to during the year, and can use it to plan your time going forward.
4 Make the most of the digital options
It may not be new for your company to look into digitalisation to make existing work processes more efficient. Unfortunately, the payroll function isn't the first area that comes to mind when options are looked at, and it's most often overlooked when companies aim to digitalise their work processes and make them more efficient.
If you've completed the first steps, your eyes have probably already been opened to the great potential for optimisation in the payroll function. Modern payroll systems focus on exactly this, and offer a wide range of time-saving solutions that the old payroll systems find it hard to implement.
So give your payroll system a check-up and take a critical look at the existing processes. Break with the motto “this is how we've always done it”. There may be valuable time to save by letting the systems take care of the manual workflows. That can be anything from the obvious features, such as being able to integrate with existing tools, to the smaller details in the payroll system that make the pay run and the working day easy and automated.
After the first exercises in this guide, you'll have a good starting point for clarifying your wishes and needs for an efficient working day, and you'll be better equipped to challenge your current solution and perhaps look for flexible solutions from other payroll systems.
Have a chat with Zenegy's consultants about your needs and options with Zenegy Payroll. Get started with Zenegy here
At Zenegy, we work to bring in a digital working day and an efficient way of working for both payroll administrator and employee. Our customers, who include both smaller and larger companies, see significant time savings in their working day by switching their payroll system to Zenegy, where both a better overview and the automation of manual processes result in time savings of up to 30%.
Nor do you need to implement expensive IT solutions to adapt the solution to the company's needs. In Zenegy, every feature is an option in the setup that can easily be changed in the company profile if things change in the company.
Features our customers particularly like:
- Bulk updates of payroll data
- Digital registrations
- Approval flow
- Deviation reports
- Digital documents
- Employee app
- Interactive payroll
- Real-time data in the payroll draft
More efficiency with Zenegy payroll and HR
Your tasks and processes can become even more efficient if more functions are brought together on one platform. Zenegy has a wide range of solutions to make administrative work less time-consuming.
Zenegy is a modern payroll and HR system that makes it easy and clear for the company's payroll function to manage payroll and HR tasks. Our modern, user-friendly system optimises and automates the company's manual tasks, so you can focus on the tasks that create value in your working day.
The Zenegy Employee App gives employees a far better payroll experience, and insight into and an overview of their own pay. This means that the vast majority of questions and requests can be handled by the employees themselves, which saves the payroll administrator a great deal of time.
Because all registrations are digital for both company and employee, you'll no longer receive lots of emails and questions from employees about their pay, such as their holiday balance, absence, time registration and much more. With a 100% digital Employee App, you're spared manual data entry, errors and lost vouchers, out-of-pocket expenses, receipts and invoices.
Zenegy HR is a good complement to the payroll function and gives your company digital personnel administration, with better sharing and storage of documents, an overview of absence, and administration of issued devices and access for easier, more streamlined onboarding, among other things.
Read more about Zenegy HR here or contact us for a chat about your wishes and needs for optimisation.
Contact us or sign up for a free account and hear more about how your current payroll administration can be optimised with Zenegy.
