What are the Most Important Features of Cloud-based Payroll Software?

Before the onset of any payroll software, pay calculation and preparation of payslips, reports and tracking pay updates were all done manually. Spreadsheets offered some convenience until the launch of payroll software, which automated the process of paying employees. Companies build these software solutions to track and store information essential to ensure proper payroll management.

With today's workforce being ever so diversified and decentralized, payroll services have become just as much challenging and complex. Most companies today - big and small - use cloud-based payroll software for their HR and payroll needs. Cloud payroll systems play an integral role in human resource transformation by automating complex and time-consuming processes and freeing up the valuable time of HR managers.

While cloud-based payroll software has made life easier, certain aspects help a business reap more benefits. Here are some must-have features that your payroll software should offer:

Attendance is the key aspect that decides what an employee gets paid by the end of the month. Whether your workforce is based in an office space or working remotely, the Time and Attendance feature in payroll software is a great solution for tracking attendance and hours worked by each employee.

The capabilities of this tool go beyond just punching in and out. They can alert the employees if they ever forget to clock in or out and notify them that they have entered overtime hours. Managers can analyze how long the employees have worked on a particular project.

Some systems, like Ramco’s payroll software systems come with geotechnology capability that determines the locations of employees, thus restricting where they can and cannot clock in/out. The system should support pre-built integrations with leading HR / ERP systems to ensure seamless data flow.

If your HR team is burdened with all the tasks involved in filing and calculating taxes, it can lead to delays and errors, resulting in legal ramifications. But with a software solution that can effectively store information and calculate employee tax contributions and deductions, you can avoid the hassle of audits and fines.

Pro Tip - If your company has a remote workforce, you should look for a service provider who offers multi-state and multi-country tax filing capabilities.

Suppose you are dealing with a diverse workforce that follows different work models, in that case, you will need a software that can manage payroll on local and international levels and across branches and divisions. At the same time, it should also oversee and pay all your full-time, part-time and freelance employees on time.

For a business that oversees large operations, the software should be able to manage payroll data across multiple systems, track payroll costs across countries and business units, and provide multi-language and different currency features.

If your cloud-based payroll software has a compliance management feature, it will automatically update any legal changes, ensuring your payroll and tax information meets the latest requirements of employment laws. Along with automating updates, your software should be capable of notifying you of any non-compliant entries, reports that are due or any missing information.

An analytics feature allows you to see if your system is running efficiently. It helps you to draw reports that tell you about time and attendance, where errors are occurring, the accuracy of your payroll system and where, why and how you are paying your staff. This will help your finance team complete audits and assessments.

Using payroll software can help avoid errors that occur with manual payroll calculations and data entries. This will impact all your financial calculations, be it employee salaries or tax filing. The software's advanced technology will eliminate human intervention minimizing the margin of error—no need for all those Excel spreadsheets.

Another advantage of having cloud-based payroll software is that it allows you to customize pay slips, reports and design templates. You can easily set your parameters in the dashboard and are free to use any template available. This facilitates easy access to essential data and information. It also enables you to determine who can access the payroll software, its data, and your management's online interface.

One of the major benefits of having a cloud payroll system is that you can safely access payroll information from anywhere. As it has a huge database, you can store as much information as you want. There's no device restriction, and you can even access it using your mobile phone.

An automated payroll system helps complete activities on time, minimizing errors. With all of its features, your system should give you and your payroll department a huge sigh of relief.

If you are unsure about moving to a cloud-based payroll system, you can even outsource your payroll services initially to take the load off your internal team.