It is a fact that payroll management can be a thankless job. Did you get an opportunity to thank the payroll people working in your organization for crediting the salary on time or for calculating the provident fund or income tax deductions properly? Having a payroll company is similar to running an electric company. None of the consumers is thankful to the power company when they are receiving an uninterrupted power supply. But if there is a power outage even for a minute you will hear consumers swearing at the supplier. Here are some trends of a top-quality payroll professional.
1. Analytical Skills
You can teach payroll but not intelligence. Any good payroll professional will be analytical and he always can synthesize different facts, make a hypothesis, and arrive at the right conclusions. When companies are hiring people for payroll operations, they evaluate their problem-solving skills. They will pose certain numerical or logical riddles and check if the person has the enthusiasm to resolve them. They will check the person’s approach for reaching the solution as well.
2. Statutory Compliance Knowledge
You are going to meet several payroll professionals that do not have sufficient knowledge of various payroll practices and statutes that govern the payroll process. Unfortunately, several professionals reduce the payroll process to upload HR data to software and download reports for the HR or finance team. The payroll professionals must have good knowledge of key statutes such as the PF Act, Income Tax Act, Payment of Bonus Act, and ESI Act, etc. If you are looking to expand your business in Canada for instance, there are certain complexities involved. You can select a PEO Canada for navigating both provincial and federal laws.
3. Good Communication Skills
There is no denying the importance of communication skills for any payroll professional. You may come across situations when payroll personnel are required to explain calculations to their senior managers such as the head of HR or finance, or even the CEO of the company. If his communication skills are not up to scratch this payroll person can easily lose his credibility in the eyes of stakeholders.
4. Process Orientation
One of the significant determinants of payroll efficiency is the extent to which this worker is committed to the discipline. Good payroll professionals work with well-defined payroll calendars with specific time limits and dates. They will adhere to the company policies and seek authorization in writing for exceptions. This pro is going to submit and store all supporting documents such as approval emails and receipts for audit.
5. Diligence
You are required to be committed to accuracy while working on payroll. However, mistakes may take place even when the payroll team is using terrific payroll software. The overall payroll process needs to be developed in a way that the mistakes are identified when they take place before payroll finalization. Top-quality payroll professionals develop extensive checklists for the verification of payroll output and go through this checklist every month diligently. A quality procedure for payroll must check if the payroll output is reflecting the input properly. It must ensure that the compliance requirements are met.
6. Confidentiality
If the payroll professional is not careful about the maintenance of data confidentiality, no amount of security systems, non-disclosure agreements, or security certificates are going to help. We have all experienced emails going to the wrong recipients, haven’t we? Any payroll professional has to treat both employer and employee information with great care and make sure that this info does not reach unauthorized recipients.
Conclusion
Any payroll professional must have the capability to work under pressure. He always has to face delays in the arrival of inputs and is forced to work under strict deadlines as a result. Everyone must have seen delays in the arrival of compensation revision decisions, but despite all the delays in the input these professionals have to make sure that the payroll output is delivered right on time. Keep in mind that even though the payroll function is a bit underappreciated, it is not unimportant. Mistakes in payroll processing can be expensive. Delays and incorrect payroll calculations can lead to fines from the authorities, employee dissatisfaction, and audit qualifications.