High profile cases across education, health and hospitality have shown that payroll malfunction can cost millions. Yet 94% of organisations said they didn’t consider risk when implementing their payroll system. Over 50% admitted that their payroll systems and processes weren’t built for their current needs.1
1 Source: Ernst & Young. Global Payroll: Myth or Reality? April 2013.
Smart organisations understand the risks and whether their systems can handle them. Start managing risk by examining your payroll set-up.
Security breaches
Confidential payroll data contains some of the company's most sensitive information. Is your data safe? Internal and external security measures should focus on systems, staff and technology. This includes looking at data-sharing, privacy, access and training.
System failure or data loss
To keep business running you need to be able to pay employees. Testing, backup and data recovery processes safeguard data both in the cloud and on-premise servers. Do you have robust backup and recovery plans for disasters or system failures?
Business knowledge
Often there’s only a few people in your organisation that understand the ins-and-outs of your specific payroll and its workarounds. You need to protect the knowledge surrounding your systems’ running, configuration and maintenance.
Business fit
Once in place, an organisation’s payroll processes and systems tend to remain as such for years… even after the business needs have changed. To reduce inefficiencies, evaluate your systems and processes to see if they still stand up.
Non-compliance
Tax compliance is a vital part of payroll, with serious consequences for errors. You need confidence that you’re 100% accurate, every time. Has your system kept up with the many changes to tax legislation, awards and agreements?
Soft costs
Payroll costs extend beyond your headcount. You might be unwittingly leaking money and resources via wastage, double-handling or inaccuracies. Examine areas such as time capture, manual tasks, spreadsheets, information integrity and reporting.
Fraudulent activity
Companies say 13% of the fraud they experienced is through their payroll.2 Are your approval processes, workflows and duties watertight? Do you have alerts and mechanisms to prevent leave, hours or bank details being tampered with?
2 Source: PwC. Global Economic Crime Survey: The Australian Story. 2014
An external assessment of your systems and processes can help you identify your organisation’s core strengths and weaknesses.
The Verde Payroll Health Check entails a full review of your Payroll setup. The outcome of the Payroll Health Check is a comprehensive checklist, including guidance to assist with compliance with NZ legislation as well as recommendations for increased security and efficiency.
The Verde Payroll Health check consists of a review of your payroll processes as well as an overview of your Payroll configuration and system setup, including:
"Mcfall Fuel Ltd have been using the Greentree HR payroll system for a number of years and recently enlisted Verde to complete a “Health Check” of the HR System. Since the Holidays Act is a very complex piece of legislation, we felt that it was crucial to have the Health Check to make sure we were 100% confident in the system and its set-up and was compliant with the Holidays Act. After re-reading the Holidays Act recently it has become clear that as Employers, it is crucial that we understand the Act and also understand how it is applied in our HR system. Verde have been extremely active in this process and have helped me have a clearer understanding. They are always available to help if we have any questions and now the Health Check is complete have given us 100% confidence going forward." - Shona Thompson - McFall Fuel