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One-Minute Guide to Payroll Success

Pre-empting errors in your payroll

The stacks of paperwork and huge amounts of data to analyse can often make payroll feel like a thankless task. One mistake has the potential of weakening employee trust and losing your company thousands of pounds in penalties and charges.

Making some small changes to your payroll function to pre-empt these mistakes can give your payroll teams their confidence back, instil employee trust in you and save your teams hours of time correcting annoying errors.

Try out Connection’s recommendations for a more timely and accurate payroll process:

Calendars at the ready!

Be aware of all your deadlines, including those set out by HM Revenue & Customs, forthcoming legislation changes, and your pay run dates.

Keeping up with changing legislation can often be a challenging task for teams who run their payroll manually - proving to be a drain on time and resources. Ensure that your payroll system comes with automatic updates – harmonising your functions with the latest legislation changes

Check once, twice and again

Carry out necessary payroll checks, not only when inputting data, but also when making calculations, completing HMRC forms and when e-filing.

One of the most prevalent errors that can be eliminated through the use of checks, is the allocation of incorrect tax codes.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has calculated that, last year, as many as 4.5 million employees may have had too much tax taken from their pay as a consequence of being allocated the wrong code, and that HMRC may have to refund as much as £1.6 billion.

Automate your payroll

Using payroll software to support your team can help stop manual errors from slipping through the net - one of the most common being miscalculating pay.

By introducing payroll software, you’ll be able to make your calculations in a fraction of the time than it would take to work out manually. Some payroll software can also integrate with timesheet systems – so that employee attendance and any overtime can be logged accurately.

That’s not all, automating some or all of your payroll function will mean that your team will spend less time doing administration and more time completing other core tasks to add further value to the business.

Testing, testing...
Test wherever possible. Especially when submitting forms. If you're using a payroll system, many packages will let you make a test submission beforehand – so you can be rest assured that your forms are submitted on time and correctly.

Find out how Ceridian can help you deliver timely and accurate payroll by calling 0800 733 337.