The Obvious Benefits of Payroll Integration

Payroll Integration January 11, 2023

Priyanka Bhadani

Writer

The Top Benefits of Payroll Integration

Payroll integration is a system that allows both human resources and payroll staff members or payroll service provider professionals to access the same employee data. Integrating payroll avoids the need for duplicative paperwork and reduces unnecessary redundancy in tasks.

Integrating payroll optimizes the usage of labor costs and time for payroll service and human resources staff members. Additionally, liabilities are minimized through integrated payroll as sensitive employee information is universal across departments and as a result, much more secure.

Integrated payroll avoids the need for two separate departments to individually collect and hold the same sensitive employee data. Sensitive employee information is necessary for processes performed by human resources and payroll staff or a payroll provider if a business has contracted an outside third party company to handle payroll responsibilities.

Sensitive data can include employee ID number, salary, and status. Various examples of these essential human resource and payroll business processes include-

Employee onboarding
Retirement plan
Payroll tax
Health insurance
Workers comp

For both small business and large corporation owners, integrated payroll has significant benefits. As a result, many small businesses and large corporations across the United States are utilizing payroll integration in their own business practices.

Top benefits of a payroll system that is integrated include-

1. Accessibility

Instead of one department having to borrow a physical employee file from another department, integrating payroll can provide a cloud based digital file that both departments can easily access. A cloud based employee file decreases the likelihood of a physical file being misplaced or otherwise compromised as it transfers between department staff members.

Another accessibility benefit is that both departments can access employee information simultaneously if need be. Especially during employee onboarding efforts, it is much more efficient for multiple departments to have access to the same information instead of having to wait for one department to finish up with an employee's file first.

For example, during the employee onboarding process, human resources may need to go overtime attendance protocol with a new staff member at the same time payroll services like a payroll tax or a retirement plan needs establishing. In this situation, payroll integration would save both human resources and payroll time and effort.

2. Savings

Whether a small business or large corporation, decreasing human resources and payroll time spent on duplicative tasks results in significant labor cost savings. However, cost savings extend beyond administrative costs.

Office supplies and storage space are also areas where small businesses and massive companies alike can save money through integrated payroll systems. This is true whether employee data is kept onsite, offsite, or on a cloud based platform.

It is important to note that some companies incur more costs than others when failing to integrate payroll. For instance, when considering a small business that has invested in an offsite storage space to store employee data.

Every time that the human resources department or the payroll department needed to access employee files, both time and resources would be unnecessarily expended. Or even a larger business that keeps employee files onsite would require double the filing cabinets and files utilized for separate human resources and payroll department staff members.

3. Management

The organizational capabilities that integrating payroll affords businesses massively benefit management tasks. Due to employee information being stored in one centralized location, it is much easier for management staff members to access.

As such, management reports from a payroll system will supply multiple reporting formats. Management can easily compare costs ranging from employee onboarding expenses to retirement plan providers with both their industry peers and competitors.

Additionally, holding a single copy of employee data avoids conflicting sets of documentation. This is true regardless if employee data is cloud based or held in an alternative format.

4. Revisions

A great benefit of integrating a business's human resources and payroll system is automatic revision capabilities. Instead of staff members needing to update employee information across departments, there is only one version that automatically updates for many cloud based programs.

When human resources staff members update an employee's file, the change is reflected automatically for payroll staff members. Similarly, when payroll staff members or a payroll provider updates information in an employee's file, human resources will automatically be able to access revisions.

The ability for staff members to access a real time version of an employee's file avoids miscommunications and costly errors. Both the security and quality of employee data is optimized when there are not multiple versions of the same employee information being handled.

Updated information can range from workers comp information to time attendance violations. When every staff member has the most up to date information about employees available, the entire business is positively affected.

Key Takeaways

Payroll integration allows both payroll and human resources professionals access to the same employee data.
Benefits of successful payroll integration range from increased accessibility to automatic revisions.