Reduce Corrections From Your Payroll Process
The payroll process is essential to ensuring that your employees are paid in the most efficient way possible. For the payroll department, there’s the added responsibility to correct any problems as fast as possible or face burdensome calls from managers.
In my experience working with a client’s payroll department, I witnessed firsthand the struggles that the payroll team had to go through to facilitate these transactions. The team’s actions were commendable in putting out the fires, but they never had the chance to solve the underlying problem.
In this case, the payroll team corrected errors before and during the payroll cycle. These corrections had to be made under very tight timelines to avoid sending a payroll check with errors. The most common reasons for errors were:
Incorrect time punchs
Forgetting extra hours worked
Selecting the incorrect work code
Managers not making the correction
The general theme was that the process and systems were set up in a way that made it easy to make errors. If you find yourself in a similar situation then it would be best to do the following:
Go through the process with the employees and managers
Identify where there are challenges
Work with your timekeeping vendor to allow for self-editing by users
Focus on making the process and timekeeping system intuitive based on the user
Highlight the true costs of having to correct timekeeping errors to the organization
Hold regular training on proper timekeeping
In many cases, employees realized they made a mistake, but the process forced them to involve their manager in the correction. Considering the workload both employees and managers had, it was difficult for the corrections to be completed on time. A critical solution is to take out steps in the process that make it difficult to avoid an error in the first place.
Minimizing timekeeping errors to prevent payroll discrepancies can be solved if provided with the right approach. Also, assume good intentions and work with your employees on how to best prevent errors from occurring, understanding the magnitude of the problem across the organization, and making it easy to make edits if an error does occur.
