How To Implement Remote Payroll Operations Effectively

Shifting to remote work means your payroll operations must undergo a major overhaul. Failure to adapt to these changes might lead to some serious complications and liabilities for your organization later on. You need the right tools and strategy to overcome the challenges of processing payroll for remote teams.
According to Pew Research Center, 54% of businesses plan to continue working from home in the coming years. This just shows that the remote work setup is here to stay. Hence, it is high time that you reevaluate your current operations and make sure that you are ready to accommodate the needs of your remote employees.
With that, here are some tips on how to implement an effective and efficient remote team payroll operation for your business.

1. Leverage the right technologies

With today’s technology, you can now fully embrace digital transformation for your entire payroll operations. From tracking attendance, computing for payments, and the actual payment itself, you can now do everything virtually and remotely. You just need to invest in the right technologies to make it happen. Some essential tools you should consider investing in are:

• Payroll management solution

• Attendance tracking system

• HR software

• Payment processing software

Another tool worth mentioning is PayStubCreator. It provides your employees a digital pay stub for each paycheck they receive. This gives them insights into how much they are receiving each pay period. As a result, they have a better sense of their compensation, pay rates, gross earnings, benefits, and deductions (such as taxes and insurance). This helps boost transparency within the organization. Likewise, you can also use it for tax purposes.

2. Centralize data and documents

Going digital also means going paperless with your records and documents. This makes it easier to organize and manage your financial records without going to the office. Most importantly, digitizing files makes data more accessible and shareable within the company. This allows your payroll team to get the information they need to process payments at their own convenience.
Nonetheless, you can further streamline data sharing and collaboration by creating a centralized database for all your files. This will make it easier for you to keep track of all your data and make sure that everything is updated accordingly. Consider investing in cloud storage or cloud-based software for your payroll operations. This will allow you to upload and download documents and data into a single platform that everyone (with authorized access) can access.

3. Track attendance and work hours

One of the main concerns with remote with is tracking employees’ attendance and work hours. Many business owners worry about the accuracy and integrity of the hours that their employees clock in during work. Others struggle to monitor break times, overtimes, and under times. You might even overlook leaves and absences. As a result, you might end up overpaying or underpaying your employees in the process.
To avoid such errors, you should implement a timekeeping strategy suitable for remote work. For example, you can require your employees to use time tracking tools as soon as they log in for work. This will record their work hours and can even monitor their activities for that day. Some top global payroll providers can even track leaves, absences, and holidays, and automatically incorporate them into their computations during pay periods. Through such tools, you can make sure that you are paying your remote employees correctly.

4. Revise policies accordingly

Your old company policies might no longer be applicable once you switch to remote work. For one, you need to keep in mind your compliances such as taxes and labor laws. This is especially important if you plan to recruit employees from different parts of the world. Every area has its own tax policies. This will dictate how much you need to deduct in your employees’ salaries for each cut-off. It will also affect how you create their income tax returns if they ever need one. Other things to note are the holiday pay rates, mandated compensations, and benefits for employees.

You should also evaluate your internal policies related to payroll including policies on timekeeping, leaves, and absences, and bonuses. It will also be useful to classify your employees according to the type of contract they have with your company. For example, full-time employees might have different rates and work schedules compared to part-time ones. The same is true with freelancers or independent contractors.
Optimize your payroll team by making sure that you have the right people for the job. Make sure to include people with the right expertise, skills, and background. You can check out this finance vs accounting article to find out who is more suitable to handle your payroll operations.

5. Automate workflows

With the right technologies, you can also start automating your payroll process and workflows. Take this for example. If you pay your employees by the hours, you can use software to keep track of their work hours and then automatically compute how much they will be paid for the day, the week, or for the month. It can also consider factors such as overtimes, leaves, holiday pays, and bonuses in its computation. This way, you won’t have to manually go through all this data for every pay period.
Automation can also go beyond data entry and computing capabilities. You can use it to schedule the release of salaries and wages for each employee. This way, you can skip the rigorous process of coordinating with the bank to write checks or send deposits into your employees’ respective accounts. You can check out some of the best global payroll solutions to find out what other aspects of your payroll operations you can automate.

6. Determine payment method

The days of putting money in a brown envelope and distributing it to your employees are gone. Nowadays, there are more convenient and streamlined ways of giving out salaries and wages to your remote teams.
One of the most common payment methods is direct deposits. This is where you send payments directly into their respective bank accounts. You can even have it scheduled at the bank so that salaries are automatically released during a pay period.
For those who hire people internationally, there are some worldwide payroll services that you can use. This allows you to take into account different currencies, conversion rates, and compliances when sending out payments outside your country.

7. Integrate where you can

With remote work, all aspects of your business are now virtual. That means you will end up using several solutions at once. Aside from your payroll solution, you might also use time-tracking tools, project management solutions, HR software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, and more.

Create a streamlined and immersive digital workplace experience by integrating your solutions together. Doing so ensures seamless data sharing within your networks. For example, connecting your desktop time tracker with your payroll solutions will make sure that you have the needed data to compute for your employees’ salaries correctly and accurately. Likewise, you can integrate your payroll solution into your accounting software to better keep track of your business’ general cash flow. Check out which of the top global payroll providers are compatible with your current digital system.

Going digital with payroll

According to the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals, 78% of payroll professionals believe that technological advances will make individuals and their payroll team more effective. As your business shifts towards remote work, it is high time that you explore how technology can optimize your remote payroll operations. To give you a headstart, check out the check stub maker.