Automated Payroll Systems

Compensating employees accurately and punctually is an essential aspect of running a business. However, payroll management can be perplexing, particularly for small business owners lacking a dedicated payroll department. Automated payroll systems alleviate this burden, which can otherwise feel overwhelming. Enter the era of automated payroll solutions.

An automated payroll system streamlines payroll-related tasks, making the process significantly more manageable. In this article, we will explore the benefits of automating payroll functions, how to automate payroll processes, and how to select the most suitable automated payroll solution for your business. 

What is Payroll?

Payroll is the business function of remunerating employees. It involves calculating employee earnings, accounting for payroll taxes, and employee benefit deductions. Payroll may also encompass maintaining financial records of employees, distributing paychecks, and tracking annual wage data. Although payroll is indispensable for every business, the costs and effort required to learn these processes are substantial—precisely why automating payroll is advantageous.

What is Payroll Automation?

Payroll process automation involves streamlining payroll processing tasks through an automated system to enhance efficiency. 

So, what is an automated payroll system? Automated payroll is a method to simplify the process of paying employees. Payroll automation software saves time by automating tasks such as filing taxes, processing direct deposits, generating payroll reports, and calculating tax withholdings. Without payroll automation, these processes would be significantly more time-consuming. You can delegate payroll responsibilities to the automation software and focus your efforts on business growth.

Benefits of automating payroll processes

We’ve already touched upon some of the benefits of automated payroll, but let’s delve deeper into them.

Greater Efficiency

Much like the earlier point on productivity, an automated payroll system bot will complete payroll tasks much faster and with fewer resources than equivalent manual processes. For single tasks, such as salary processing, this can be invaluable. However, when automated payroll systems are implemented across several payroll automation processes, they can deliver dramatic efficiency improvements for your business.

Enhanced Productivity

Humans inherently struggle with repetitive, process-driven work over extended periods. This situation inevitably leads to a loss of focus, mistakes, and a decline in productivity. Automated payroll systems are immune to these issues. If calibrated correctly and following a sound process, they will diligently work through the assigned task until completion, far faster than their human counterparts.

The productivity gains extend beyond just the tasks assigned to an automated payroll system. By freeing your payroll professionals from repetitive, manual tasks, you also allow them time to focus on the more complex and rewarding aspects of their role, particularly those requiring problem-solving or human interaction. Your bottom line will benefit from staff working on higher-value tasks, while your employees will experience greater job satisfaction —itself a productivity booster.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Automated payroll systems deliver an almost unrivaled return on investment. Research from both EY and Deloitte found that the average time to achieve ROI was less than a year. These systems also benefit from comparatively low operating expenses (OPEX). Automated payroll systems can easily integrate with your existing payroll processes and systems, without the need for an expensive or time-consuming overhaul.

Cost Reductions

Perhaps the most apparent advantage of an automated payroll system is cost savings. 59% of respondents to Deloitte’s Global RPA Survey reported cost reductions after deploying automated payroll systems for their payroll process automation.

These cost savings could stem from increased efficiency, as automated payroll systems simply complete the process faster. Alternatively, they could result from reducing the expensive and disruptive errors that tend to occur naturally in the payroll process. Automated payroll systems can even deliver value in other areas of HR by freeing up payroll professionals to work on alternative projects and reach their full potential.

Reliability

The simplest benefit is the reliability of automated payroll systems in automating payroll software solutions. Due to their relatively simple nature, an automated payroll system is unlikely to suffer extended outages, particularly if hosted by a cloud provider with guaranteed uptime. Unlike manual processes, automated payroll systems will continue operating even if the office is closed or other business areas are experiencing disruptions.

Compliance and Accuracy

The first advantage is compliance. Automated payroll systems have been proven to boost regulatory compliance within businesses. According to Deloitte’s Global RPA Survey, 92% of respondents saw an improvement in compliance after implementing automated payroll systems. This is particularly useful for payroll departments, where compliance with statutory tax reporting is not only essential but often time and resource-intensive.

Closely tied to this, automated payroll systems can also enhance the quality and accuracy of your HR functions. Again, responses to Deloitte’s Global RPA survey support this. 90% of businesses surveyed cited accuracy as a noticeable benefit of adopting automated payroll systems.

Employee Satisfaction

An automated payroll system improves employee satisfaction by reducing time spent on repetitive and manual processes. Payroll teams are then free to focus on more value-added tasks, helping to reduce workload and stress for employees. Additionally, as it is more accurate with administrative tasks and reduces payroll errors, employees spend less time fixing issues with functions such as wages or tax rules.

What makes a good payroll automation system?

Payroll automation software that’s worth its money should fulfill several criteria. Here are the main features and characteristics every automated payroll system program should have.

Scalability

Scalability is an important criterion when choosing an automated payroll system software. Even small businesses should plan for when their headcount will be higher than at the moment. Business growth is one of the main objectives of any organization. Therefore, it’s important to have automated payroll system solutions that can scale along with the business.

User-friendliness

No matter how many great features a payroll automation software offers, if it isn’t easy to use and operate, it won’t be of much use to the business. If payroll managers need ages to navigate through the different automated payroll system functions before finding what they’re looking for, it defeats the purpose of making payroll more efficient.

High level of automation

A rule of thumb when evaluating payroll automation software for automated payroll systems is the less manual work needed, the better. How well a payroll automation software can fulfill its main purpose (i.e., making payroll more efficient) highly depends on how many processes can be automated. Consequently, the broader the range of automated payroll system capabilities, the higher the level of automation.

Summary

An automated payroll system simplifies tasks such as calculating employee earnings, accounting for payroll taxes and employee benefits withholdings, filing taxes, processing direct deposits, and generating payroll reports. Even though a lot of payroll automation software for automated payroll systems is available, most of them have predefined templates and are not highly customizable automation tools.

This is where Robylon AI comes into play. Robylon AI empowers users to build AI assistants that deeply understand their needs and can guide, help, and take action using plain English. Users can record the tasks they want to automate and provide that recording as input to automate the rest of the task, thus creating their own customized workflow for automating payroll processes. With features like Actions & Workflows, Usage Analytics, Triggers & Schedulers, and an Integrations Ecosystem, Robylon AI streamlines tedious processes, executes cross-platform actions, and provides valuable insights.

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