A lot is expected of the modern payroll administrator. Besides having to stay ahead of legislation on both tax and HR, GDPR, the new Holiday Act and more, the modern payroll administrator also has to ride the digital wave.
Naturally, and quite fundamentally, the modern payroll administrator is still expected to ensure correct pay on time for all employees – but it is also expected to be done ever more efficiently.
Many digital opportunities have opened up in the last couple of years, not just in payroll, but also where data comes from and where it is passed on to.
As a payroll administrator, it's important to know these opportunities and be able to advise and guide your colleagues, management and customers, so that other functions can also find ways to save valuable time with the right integrations with the payroll system. Besides the time saved, the right integrations can also help improve quality.
The payroll process is basically quite simple, with data input, the pay run, data output and reconciliation. But everyone who works in payroll administration knows it isn't quite that simple.
As a payroll administrator, you also need to be able to deal with new topics, not just the narrow payroll process. Here it's important to ask yourself: how can I offer added value to my stakeholders by getting the payroll system to work as well as possible with “neighbouring systems” such as finance and time registration systems?
Integration points with neighbouring systems
Data input may come through a time registration system, where hours and absence are collected and approved. This data then has to go into the payroll system, where it is processed and becomes gross pay, tax, ATP, net pay and so on. Then the individual entries have to be posted, which usually happens in a separate system. The systems may each be optimised for their own process, but to optimise the payroll process as a whole, the systems have to be integrated and talk to each other.
So not only does the modern payroll administrator need to know each of the new digital systems coming onto the market in payroll-related areas, they also need to know how the systems can talk to each other most effectively for the benefit of the whole process.
As part of the process, it's also important to include checks all the way through. That way, you can catch any errors and sources of incorrect pay as early as possible.
The modern payroll administrator can do a lot to optimise their own work by using the many new digital options on the market, but it also challenges habits and attitudes such as: “That's not how I usually do it”.
Great credit to the payroll administrators who have jumped on the cloud, become modern payroll administrators and are reaping the rewards of the many integration options, saving themselves and their companies lots of time – and to everyone else, an invitation to come along: there's room for many more!
