By Anke Mogannam
Every organization has the same goal: an error-free, efficient, and effective payroll department. But ways to accomplish this goal vary, based upon industry, an organization’s internal priorities, and culture.
For some, establishing strict deadlines for when employee timesheets are turned in is important for the sake of efficiency and cost control. Such organizations may have rules that, for example, forbid cutting checks in the middle of a cycle. Other organizations, especially those with a large service aspect to their operations, may be more flexible. Either way, make sure that all stakeholders know what to expect from the payroll department. When do timesheets need to be submitted? Who approves them? Who is notified if an employee goes on leave? All has to be published—otherwise, how will people know if they are doing something wrong?
Precisely because no standard approach works for all, organizations need to carefully manage expectations about how payroll works, and what the rules are. Once you have established what the payroll rules of engagement are, then you need to make sure all stakeholders are appropriately accountable. Even organizations that take a more flexible approach to payroll processing should establish clear lines of responsibility. Employees need to know what they are responsible for doing; managers likewise. The demand for accuracy in payroll is rigorous. That’s why balancing, auditing, and segregating of duties is critical. These steps ensure you minimize error rates, and can also help avoid off-cycle payments. Ideally, you separate duties so the person entering timecard data is not the person who balances the number of timecards with the payments going out. Then yet another person should audit the data to make sure it is correct. Having two—or even three—sets of unbiased eyes on numbers is not just a luxury, but a necessity for making sure you don’t have 2,000 timecards but 3,000 payments made.
Whatever choices an organization makes, however, Cloud HCM solutions offer modern technology that can help ensure that payroll is completed on-time, with accuracy, efficiency, and effectiveness. Payroll Dashboard proactively bring payroll information directly to the user in real-time. Checklists allow users to configure payroll processing steps and assign owners and deadlines. Wizards match the way you run payroll addressing your unique practices. Learn more how you can take your HR and Payroll application to the cloud.
Anke Mogannam brings more than 16 years of marketing and human capital management experience in the technology industries to her role at Oracle where she is part of the Human Capital Management applications marketing team. In that role, Anke drives content marketing, messaging, go-to-market activities, integrated marketing campaigns, and field enablement.
Prior to joining Oracle, Anke held several roles in communications, marketing, HCM product strategy and product management at PeopleSoft, SAP, Workday and Saba. Follow her on Twitter @amogannam