The Benefits of Automated Payroll Processing

What is Automated Payroll Processing?

Payroll processing is an essential part of any business. Needless to say, it’s probably one of the most time-consuming parts of your weekly tasks as well. Whether your business is small, medium or large, there is no doubt in our minds that anyone spending their time manually processing their employee’s finances would benefit from an automated payroll process.

At Shoebox, we’ve come across plenty of clients that have found themselves up late triple checking and finalising paycheques for their employees, so take comfort in knowing you’re not alone! When you and your business are just starting out, it makes perfect sense to save costs where you can and do these kinds of tasks yourself. After all is said and done, there’s nothing better than being able to focus on the day-to-day matters of your business that bring you more satisfaction and customers, especially as your employees and business grow!

Sound too good to be true? Here is some more information about how you can benefit from having a payroll system in place at your business:

More Time To Focus On Other Tasks

More likely than not, as a business owner or manager, you are juggling a lot more than just processing payroll weekly. When that is the case, it can be challenging to train someone else to learn your payroll process.

Automating this process means you can devote more time to other tasks; meaning you can spend time on duties like growing your business, training new staff and building customer loyalty; rather than worrying about how much money is coming in each day and who will be doing the books at the end of the week. 

In a 2017 article by Sage Group, it was found that repetitive admin tasks like invoicing, paying taxes, chasing payments, and more can consume over 500 hours of your time! By setting an automated accounting software to take care of your payroll, timesheets and hours: you can finally channel your energy elsewhere in your business without worry.

Reduce Work-Related Stress Levels

Stress is a normal part of life, but too much stress can affect not only your personal health but the health of your businesses. If you or your team are experiencing high levels of stress at work concerning pay, automated payroll processing can help by reducing your overall workload; by automating tasks, so they’re not dependent on human intervention, and some even provide functions to help track time spent on each task/project/job. 

Since the pandemic, 82% of leaders within companies big and small are increasingly experiencing heightened levels of work-related stress and are at risk of burnout. That’s why we think one of the best ways to mitigate this is simplifying your payroll processes to give you and your team more peace of mind and energy to focus on less menial tasks.

A Great Way To Reduce Costs

Payroll processing is a great way to reduce business costs for a few reasons. Firstly, if your business has grown to the point where you can no longer personally manage your employee’s payroll, automating the process can help you avoid hiring full-time payroll staff and allow you to contract out the bookkeeping as needed. 

These days, the best in business software options like MYOB, Xero and Quickbooks offer free support services and resources if you have an active subscription agreement with them or have purchased their product in the past year. In some cases, they even have additional support packages and classes you can buy as needed rather than pay for 24/7. 

If you’re trying to save money and make sure your resources are being spent in the most efficient ways possible, automating your payroll process is one surefire way to keep the task consistent and easy to track. This leads nicely to our next benefit of payroll processing software: improving cash flow and budgeting.

Improves Your Cash Flow And Budgeting

Payroll processing is a great way to reduce costs and improve your cash flow. Depending on your needs and subscription, software like MYOB, Xero and Quickbooks can be used to manage and track your entire business’s budgets and cash flow.

By having a complete overview of payroll, client billing and other income in a single software, you can visualise and streamline your cash flow within a central platform and take advantage of the automated tools in each software. If you’d like to see what we mean, check out this great video from Xero that explains how you can manage your cash flow using their software! 

There’s nothing better than being at ease and having everything in the one place.

Peace of Mind Payments

There’s nothing more important than feeling secure and sure that your employees are being paid equitably and on time, every time. You can rely on automated payroll processing to ensure your employees are paid correctly and send emails with their payslips from the one software. The frequency and reliability of paying your employees on time is extremely important.

Understanding the automated payroll process in Australia can sometimes get complicated; however, most awards, enterprise agreements, and registered agreements will need to specify when your employees must be paid (weekly, fortnightly, or monthly). If it doesn’t, employees must be paid at least monthly. Rather than manage pay dates, timesheet approvals and emailing payslips yourself, you can rely on automated payroll processing to ensure that your employees are paid correctly and on time.

Programs like Xero even allow you to add toggle options in timesheets for holiday hours, overtime and regular pay! Meaning you have the confidence and knowledge that you are complying with all relevant employment laws related to minimum wage and holiday pay.

It’s not hard to see why setting up an automated payroll process is the best way to save time, resources, and manage your employee finances. 

The best part about using any automated payroll software is that it can simplify and streamline payroll processes and other financial tasks like client invoicing, profit and loss reporting and much more! 

We know that learning a new technology or overhauling an older system can be daunting; if you’d like to explore your options and get some assistance in automating your payroll processing and software, reach out to the Shoebox team today!