For a moment, let us revisit our memories a bit. A few decades ago, our mode of communication with each other was by way of inland letters or post cards. And in need of any urgent messages, we used the telegrams. But things changed drastically over a period of time with the advent of technology when people adapted to emails, mobiles, Wi-Fi, etc., which proved to be much efficient, faster and cost effective. Inland letters, post cards, telegrams became redundant.
Using the same analogy in a payroll function, why should we then lag behind by sticking to manual processes when there is lot that can be achieved in half the time by adapting to technology.
Let us take a simple example of distributing payslips to employees.
There is no doubt that payslips are important as employers are expected to distribute payslips to provide a break-up of what is being paid to them. But imagine a manual process where payslips need to be printed, folded, inserted individually in envelopes or covers, sealed, address of employees to be mentioned on each of the envelopes or covers, posted or couriered to employees, etc. There is also no guarantee that the right payslips have reached the right employee as mistakes could happen at either payroll end or courier end. All this again involves cost and enormous amount of efforts from the payroll department. Manual payslips also pose a huge risk factor in terms of privacy and confidentiality.
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From an employee’s point of view, imagine their predicament to store manual payslips or to approach payroll time and again for copies of payslips in the event they misplace the originals. Moreover, paper payslips won’t last long as they may tend to fade away or get destroyed over a period of time.
Again, technology has come to the rescue here. Modern payroll softwares support employee self-service portals where the payroll department will simply give epayslips/upload soft copies of the digital payslips month on month and employees can independently view it at any given point of time. They can email it, print it or just store it for any future references. Since the portals support independent secured access of payroll information to each employee, the data privacy and confidentiality is maintained at all times. There are umpteen number of benefits of disturbing electronic payslips.
Additionally, if employees wish to apply for loans or any financial assistance, they can simply email their electronic payslips to the bank in support of their documentation. Some softwares provide consolidated pay statements to avoid viewing multiple payslips.
So, clearly there is no doubt that technology has great advantage over a manual process.
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