12 Best Payroll Software Platforms in 2024

Getting paid on time is every employee’s right.

Given the amount of hard work and dedication they invest in their work, it becomes more of a responsibility for their employers to ensure fair and timely remuneration at the outset of a pay cycle.

Earlier, teams manually managed payroll processes via spreadsheets or point solutions. Some even outsourced their payroll processes to third-party agencies, adding to the overall confusion and delay of salary rollouts.

The ordeal was done away with payroll software that enabled employers to manage their payroll much better and ensure each employee was paid correctly, maximize employee satisfaction, and create a strong employer brand.

How? Let's find out!

An untimely and scattered payroll process can weaken an employee's trust, which can lead to an increase in employee attrition. Payroll software enables you to set clear timelines for your pay runs (dates on which salary gets credited) and disburse pay slips in advance for a relaxed pay cycle.  

While narrowing down the best payroll software for your business, you should analyze your company size and the core features of each software and pricing module. To know which payroll software fits your business, read our compilation of different software for different business segments.

Payroll software automates payrolls and other important HR functions like employee onboarding, time tracking, benefits administration, attendance tracking, leave management, and tax filings. 

It eliminates the hassle of managing employee databases in silos by centralizing them in a unified platform, to streamline pay cycles, export data to accounts or finance, and balance HR activities. 

There are disclaimers for different sorts of payroll needs of a company.

For small and mid-level segments, tracking individual employee performance and monitoring hiring cycles is imperative. Companies at this level are more concerned with retaining employees and crediting them for the number of hours they work.

For mid-sized business segments, seeking that initial bank shot in the talent market can be a challenge. Investing in an overall human capital management (HCM) solution that overlooks talent acquisition, HR, and accounting processes along with payroll management can foster a strong reputation and a positive word of mouth that reduces turnover, keeps existing employees motivated, and improves retention.

Large enterprises or multi-national companies have more complex payroll requirements. Apart from processing salaries, they need a comprehensive software solution to execute several HR tasks like employee onboarding, bonuses, computation of appraisals, contract renewals,  withholdings, international hirings and pay equity.

1. RUN Powered by ADP

RUN Powered by ADP is a cost-effective payroll software designed specifically for small companies. Packed with a suite of workforce-related tools, it’s a go-to software for HR professionals looking to manage, automate, and ease in-house employee operations.

With RUN Powered by ADP, you can easily calculate employee taxes with built-in smart tax tools. It is an easy-to-use payroll management platform that comes in with add-ons like garnishment services, third-party employee hiring, and so on to make the entire process a breeze.

RUN Powered by ADP features 

RUN Powered by ADP is known to facilitates payroll operations flexibly along with a supreme HR assistance and customer success team for both early-age startups and experienced firms. 

• Customized dashboards to create unique, employee-specific projects and workflows

• Automate Direct Deposit for timely credit of salary and perks
• Time, attendance, and leave management to streamline employee work hours
• Auto-deduction of taxes to comply with state and federal laws
• HR helpdesk to assist new hires during employee onboarding
• Benefits administration to track employee expenses in a few  steps

• Ziprecruiter extension to post up to 100 job vacancies
• Ease of navigation for smooth usage of the platform

RUN Powered by ADP pros and cons

With a user-friendly interface and extensive add-ons, RUN Powered by ADP simplifies both payroll and accounting operations in a few clicks.  It covers some more great components along with a few cons below.

Watch the full video review

RUN Powered by ADP pros

• Easy to create payroll packages
• Real-time reminders for pay periods
• Easy navigation and personalized user interface
• Value-added HR services at a reasonable price
• Workers’ compensation insurance

RUN Powered by ADP cons

• Manual pay addition for employees working on a per-hour model
• Lack of pricing transparency
• Limited HR support at the base level.

Run Powered by ADP pricing

Run Powered by ADP offers payroll pricing information based on company size and service requirements. You can easily ask for a custom quote from their website here and get tailored pricing information to find your best fit.

RUN Powered by ADP pricing plans are available on request.  You can either receive the information on pricing by calling the customer service number that is mentioned on their official website. They also offer three free months for companies that subscribe to any of their payroll packages for three consecutive months. This advantage is only limited to companies with more than 99 employees.

2. Gusto

Gusto provides an entire gamut of cloud-hosted HR and payroll services like Direct Deposit, insurance administration, time and attendance tracking, PTO management, recruitment tools, and certified helpdesks. There’s no wonder why Gusto is chosen as one of the best payroll software options. It has also been the best-ranked payroll software for countless years in a row.

Gusto features

An organization’s growth depends on how they treat and respond to its employees. Gusto offers end-to-end employee management and employee performance monitoring over a fiscal quarter or year. Apart from an automated payroll facility, here’s a list of features that Gusto promises:

• Full-Service Payroll to outsource your small business payroll practices

• Unlimited payroll runs to calculate employee wages and factor out company taxes

• Local, state, and federal tax filing for IRS deadlines

• Time tracking synced with payroll for compensating employees correctly

• Time and attendance management to record employee absences and overtime hours
• Hiring and onboarding features to attract fresh talent

• International contractor payments in over 80 countries for global payroll management

• Insights and reporting dashboards to monitor key performance indicators of employee service
• Health and wellness benefits for health and wellness policy reimbursements
• Employee benefits to manage benefits packages including overtime, medical insurance, vacation, or profit sharing

Gusto's pros and cons

Gusto has been said to be the numero uno cloud HR solution for small businesses. However, it falls short of a few features when large organizations integrate it into aspects of their business.

Gusto pros

• Simplified HR portal for the new hire onboarding experience
• User-friendly with a comprehensive UI 
• Seamless payroll operations management
•  Clear, concise, and responsive web browser layout
• Email provisioning and de-provisioning included

Gusto cons

• Weak management of employee benefits
• Unavailability of multiple plug-and-play solutions to track reimbursements

Gusto pricing

Gusto has different pricing options for different payroll packages that grow with company size. Each payroll package includes a pre-loaded set of tools to automate different HR processes. 

For businesses that hire contractors and not W-2 employees, Gusto charges $6/mo per person for a full-service payroll with no monthly base fee. For others, here is an in-depth structure of Gusto pricing to give you a fair hand on which plan can be your go-to problem solver:

Gusto paid plans

Gusto’s official website mainly features three payroll-based subscription plans, all of which equip your HR and accounting departments. 

Simple: At a $40 base fee plus $6/mo per employee, the Simple Plan offers:

• Free trial
• Full-service payroll with W-2s and 1099s
• Employee profiles and self-service
• Gusto-brokered health insurance administration
• Employee health and financial benefits
• Integrations for accounting and time tracking
• Friendly support

Plus: The Plus Plan costs $80 plus $12/mo per employee. Apart from the above features, plus plan provides:

• Next-day Direct Deposit
• Time tracking and PTO management
• Hiring and onboarding tools
• Project tracking and workforce cost reports
• Team management tools
• Performance reviews 

Premium: Get in touch with Gusto’s sales team to learn about Premium’s exclusive pricing for larger teams. Along with the above features, the premium plan offers:

• In-house HR resource center
• Compliance alerts
• Certified HR pros
• Dedicated support team

You can also customize your Gusto plans with powerful HR add-ons. This information can be found on the official website.

3. Rippling

Rippling is a comprehensive and secure employee management platform that adapts to the norms of your organization. Be it HR, accounting, finance, or IT, it brings all systems and data together in a few minutes.

With rippling, you can set up employee onboarding workflow in seconds, benefits administration, 401K, and health insurance in a time span of 90 seconds! Be it integration with third-party apps like Google Meet, Slack, or MS Teams, Rippling pushes data to the ERP within a single click!

Rippling features

Rippling enables you to automate, streamline and scale your workforce operations with ease. Through the centralization feature, you can bring all your processes together and allow maximum transparency between your peers. If you’re looking to establish an employee-driven culture, Rippling is all you need.

• Unified workforce directory to store, organize, and manage employee information
• Unified analytics for easy payroll report generation
• Onboarding/Offboarding automation for better employee experience

• Workflow automation to trigger communication workflows

• Documents and e-signature management initiated by application programming interface (API) connectors for quick signatures

• Rippling mobile app to run payroll any time, anywhere

• Integrated with payroll and PTO to self-supervise deposit-related processes

• Federal state and local tax filing for internal revenue service (IRS) purposes
• W2, W4, 1099, and new hire filing to eliminate manual dependency

Rippling pros and cons

Rippling is an ideal HR information system for small and mid-sized business segments. A better evaluation of some pros and cons of this payroll software below set a clear framework for informed decision-making.

Rippling pros

• Ease of access to payroll information
• Reasonable pricing plans
• Professional employer organization (PEO)  assistance

Rippling cons

• Weak graphical user interface (GUI) compared to others
• Missing chat function in the employee portal

Rippling pricing

Rippling’s core platform starts at a base price of $8 to $35/month. Within the $35 plan, you get 500 plug-and-play integrations.

For every employee add-on, it charges $8/month. If you subscribe to full-service payroll, you can enter employee and bank information to initiate pay runs. The time and attendance software extension cost an additional $2/employee.

4. Paylocity

Paylocity is an all-in-one cloud-based payroll service provider. To find solutions for the employee, it is unwaveringly committed to easing the set of daily HR tasks in an organization. This platform can do everything from automating employee wages to filing quarterly or yearly tax returns to tracking employee hours.

Paylocity features

Paylocity is a lucid solution for organizations looking to completely automate their payroll processes without any external administrative team. Below is a little summary of what you can get.

• Automatic payroll entry for each employee
• Time off accrual for calculation of employee leave
• Direct deposit of compensation as due
• Pre-tax deductions to mitigate compliance risks
• Check/W2 printing and delivery to file federal, social security, and state taxes
• Automatic tax payment to the Internal Revenue Service  (IRS) for a particular financial quarter or year
• Expense management to submit expense reports and track reimbursements
• Web and mobile compatibility for ease of access and user-friendliness
• User, role, and access management to provide authorization of select data, features, and objects based on user roles and groups. 

Paylocity pros and cons

Paylocity’s comprehensive product suite delivers a unified platform for HR professionals to streamline their acquisition and retention processes. It also manages core areas of payroll, talent, and workforce planning, while boosting an automated HR experience and high employee engagement.

Here is a lowdown of Paylocity’s pros and cons to help you analyze this software's aspects for future consideration.

Watch the full video review

Paylocity pros

• Easy to use reporting dashboards
• Agnostic operating system (OS) 
• Early disbursement of compensation
• Accurate time and attendance tracking

Paylocity cons

• Employee onboarding is weak
• The paid time off (PTO) section is a bit complex 

Paylocity pricing

Paylocity believes in building a complete quote chart for companies including employee strength, payroll frequency, and the number of modules of interest.

 

To obtain pricing information for Paylocity, you can visit their official website and request a customized demo. 

5. Deel

Deel is a cloud-based software platform that provides holistic HR and payroll support. The tool is used to automate onboarding, exit interviews, pay cycles, documentation and other workflows for full-time as well as part-time employees. The system offers a panned view of different verticals in an organization, team structure,  legal policies and team events.

Deel features

With Deel, users can enlist job vacancies, automate refrerral workflows and globalize employee hiring to set new standards of technological flexibilty.

• Global hiring that helps shortlist cross border applications and resume
• Risk and compliance support to be on page with changing company rules and regulations
• Payroll automation for clients, freelancers, employees and independent contractors.
• Financial integration to build salary offers, CTC, bonuses and so on.

Deel pros and cons

Deel is a macro-level HR software that is suited for companies with decent employee size. To know whether it actually suits your business, analyze it's pros and cons to know how much dollar value you will receive. 

Deel pros

• Performance and reliability 
• Pay disbursement and expense reimbursement
• Payroll entry automation and ease of employee withdrawal 

Deel cons

• Takes long to set up account information or record.
• Swift tax for international transfers.
• No Tax related guidelines for contractors working with external companies

Deel pricing

Deel has a transparent pricing structure that anyone on the web could see. It gives no hindrance to companies who carefully spend their money on tech.

The simplest of Deel plans is Deel HR, which is free of cost. 

1. Deel HR:  The deal HR package is ideal for small startups who are unable to allocate their source capital towards payroll management and use manual solutions. This platform runs payroll workflows for upto 200 people. Some features include:

• Employee onboarding and electronic document support
• Attendance management
• Global reporting

2. EOR:  With Deel EOR, you can spread the word for open positions across entities in 100+ countries

• Payroll, income tax, withholdings and W-1099 support
• Employee referral portal support
• Streamline salary calendars for international employees.

3. Deal contractors: This plan is used to collaborate with contractors who can take up projects and work on a "hourly" basis. It offers foreign exchange support and conversion rate information for smooth payoffs. 

• Onboard contractors in minutes
• Store, share, and modify country specific documents
• Avoid violation of employee code of conduct, state law, federal rules, and compliance guidelines.

6. Remote

Remote is an ideal compensation management solution for your full-time or contract-based employees across states or countries. No matter where your team lives and works, this software processes international payroll, benefits, taxes, stock options, and compliance in a proctored manner to ensure fluidity. 

Remote features

Remote adheres to global compliance standards in HR and payroll processing. It hosts employee data from across the world on a cloud server which can be easily accessed by a company in a particular location. It diversifies workforce planning with a raised global standard.

Let’s understand some more features in detail:

• Global payroll management platform for a diverse workforce community
• Self-serve onboarding to managing employee documentation, offer letters, and contracts
• Easy approval of payroll in one click for timely pay runs
• Global employment solution to hire talented workforce from across continents
• Full stack global infrastructure to maintain policies and guideline violations with a trusted network of law attorneys and HR specialists
• Seamless employee transitioning to expedite training and documentation processes
• Best in class local benefits and perks for employee satisfaction and happiness
• Personalized support on HR-specific queries from an expert associate

• One low flat rate to allocate your budget wisely

• GDPR compliance to mask important employee data and manage user permissions for optimum security
• Dedicated security team to monitor applications and infrastructure closely to prevent data theft and system hacks

Remote pros and cons

Remote is tailored to meet and solve the requirements of small business segments. Read below so you can decide if implementing Remote is a good move for your business. 

Remote pros

• Excellent employee handling
• Easy and responsive interface
• Smooth and painless remote employment
• Efficient with good UX

Remote cons

• Hard to reach customer management
• Authorization requests take long
• Expensive for add-on features

Remote pricing

Remote software works on one flat price rate to support business types with different budgets. The basic plan starts at $349 per employee per month. If you pay a year’s fee of $299 in advance, you can get a discount of 14%.

Remote free plan

In the Remote free plan, you can handle the entire local employment process of contractors across international borders from start to end:

• Automated payments and payroll in multiple local currencies
• Built-in legal compliance management
• Remote IP Guard for intellectual property and invention rights protection
• On-demand visa and immigration support
• Benefits management and administration in every country
• Annual statutory employer reports
• Payments to third parties, including tax authorities and insurance providers
• Full delegation of in-country employer's legal responsibilities to Remote
• Round-the-clock customer success team to help you with your queries.
• Unlimited seats

Remote paid plans

Employer of record: starts at an annual fee of $299/employee/month and a monthly fee of $349/employee/month. 

This plan allows you to hire employees in countries where you don’t have established branches. Other features include:

• Managing payroll obligations of international employees
• Tailored employee benefits for different countries
• Remote’s special assistance from HR or legal experts
• Optimum security and user management 
• Protected intellectual property and invention rights

Contractor management: $29/contractor/month

This plan allows you to oversee your entire contract management lifecycle and make necessary changes as per cross-hiring with respect to roles and responsibilities. Other features include:

• Pay contractors on time in their local currency with zero exchange fees
• Hire international contractors and provide necessary guidance on labor laws
  
• Manage all employment documents in our secure platform
• Automatically generate 1099s for US contractors
  
• Automatically approve recurring contractor invoices with one click

7. ADP Workforce Now

ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-driven HR solution that adapts the way you run your payroll management. It features a number of integrations regarding HR management, talent acquisition, payroll services, and benefits.

ADP Workforce Now features

ADP believes in simplifying the arduous journey of drafting an employee’s payroll through a set of the following features: 

• Comprehensive HR suite to manage your payroll, time, HR, hiring, and benefits under one roof.
• Automated service workflows to enter data once and prepopulate it into all running processes.
• Error detection to reduce mistakes with real-time warnings.
• Data masking to protect your organization from malicious activities and unauthorized user access.

ADP Workforce Now pros and cons

ADP Workforce Now is designed to understand the nuances of a large enterprise and enable them to scale its HR operations and other departmental processes. Let’s understand some pros and cons in detail.

Watch the full video review

ADP Workforce Now pros

• One-stop shop for all things payroll and HR
• Easy management of process workflows
• Recruit candidates, publish job offers, and track new hire progress

ADP Workforce Now cons

• No Single Sign On (SSO) function
• Increased application downtime.
• Weak support guidelines

ADP Workforce Now pricing

ADP Workforce Now hasn’t divulged information regarding their pricing as of yet, which is usually the case with most of the premium software selling platforms.

To know more about how to use ADP Workforce now as your HR and payroll solution, get in touch with their sales team for a detailed pricing quote.

8. isolved

isolved is an HRIS and payroll software solution specializing in cross-border payments. Their HRO partner network includes more than five million employees and 145,000 employers across 50 states. It works on a cloud platform and simplifies everyday HR operations in an organization by tracking employee metrics. isolved is an intelligent software solution that also establishes personal connections with employees to some extent. 

isolved features

isolved streamlines employee journey and HR processes and connects people as a part of a global community workforce. Its use cases spread across domains, regardless of specification. Its features focus on building a workforce culture that empowers employees to be the best versions of themselves and work together to maintain the company's stead in the market.

• Automatic direct deposit management, pay cards, and on-demand wage access for timely submission of employee salaries
• Automatic tax filing and payment to agencies to solve the hassle related to TDS calculations and penalties.
• Integrated reports on cash requirements, historical payroll data, W-2 notification, and tax deposit notices
• Advanced analytics and in-depth reporting to highlight key data metrics regarding budget, taxes, and workforce satisfaction

• Personalized job search to shortlist, interview, and hire eligible candidates.

• Onboard and develop features to personalize the new employee experience

isolved pros and cons

isolved caters to the requirements of small and mid-market business segments. However, it encompasses a different set of features that are executed in different ways in different domains. For example, healthcare doesn’t necessarily need “onboard and developing” as much as it needs “personalized job search.”

Implementing payroll and HR software is a tricky decision that should be taken only after factoring in all possible pros and cons.

isolved pros

• Amazing customer service
• Great mobile optimization of the website
• Affordable pricing plans

isolved cons

• Challenging UI to navigate
• Long response time and page load time

isolved pricing

isolved doesn’t publicly discuss its pricing plans for products or services they offer. Usually, a detailed proposal is drafted from the business representatives after initial contact.

To know more about which pricing plan is best for your business challenges, you can submit your details on their official website.

9. greytHR

greytHR features

greytHR is a multi-utility integrated data environment that companies can use to power their leave management system, expense tracking system, punch in and punch outs and electronic tax filing and payroll system.

• Leave management system to supervise employee leaves and leave compensations
• Attendance tracking system to process salaries at the end of the month
• Variable incentive or bonus updates on CTC
• Payroll management for employees to manage information
• Employee self-service to put requests for approvals, apply for leaves and access income tax-based forms.
• Real-time feedback from fellow peers, HR managers or reporting managers

greytHR pros and cons

The backend operations of greytHR are critical, due to the extensive front end it generates. It is important for companies to know whether a particular software fits in with their needs or not with pros and cons.

greytHR pros

• Multi-cloud user interface support
• web interface support
• Pre-tax deductions and tax calculations

greytHR cons

• No Mobile App
• Difficulty in regularizing attendance

greytHR pricing

greytHR has four major plans that selectors can choose from based on the scale of their workforce and the need for automation.

greytHR offers a free plan known as greytHR starter. This plan includes the creation of basic pay calculations and an employee basic portal, which has limited features. The pricing structure of other plans is as follows:

• Essentials: The greytHR essentials plan is priced at $42 per month offers core process automation, leave application support and contract management.
• Growth: The greytHR growth plan offers additional features like automated attendance, task management, accruals, cloud hiring and so on. It is priced at $66 USD per month.
• greytHR enterprise:  The enterprise plan comes with additional AI-powered integrations like chatbots and AI word assistance and supports bulk payroll entries and import/export of Excel databases. It is priced at $90 per month. 

10. Paycom

Paycom is an employee-driven payroll technology that covers the whole brain functioning of the HR department. Apart from automating payroll operations, it extends the serviceability of its prototype with a self-service portal dedicated to employees.

Paycom features

With Paycom, you can automate every recruitment-based process of your company from start to end. During employee onboarding and service, the Paycom portal provides assistance to complete all HR-based formalities as well as prompt fund documentation.

Paycom sets itself apart from other payroll software solutions with the features discussed below:

• Single point of contact throughout the implementation process for seamless onboarding
• Time and labor management to create work schedules and manage absences
• Pre-integrated talent acquisition portal for finding new talent
• Pre-tax deductions to deal with income tax liabilities
• Reporting and dashboards for maximum transparency between stakeholders
• Performance and reliability to improve business performance and spur employee productivity

Paycom pros and cons

Paycom’s goal is to provide a centralized employee database to streamline HR training, finance, and accounting processes for internal stakeholders of the company. Let’s see if users think they reached that goal.

Pros pros

• Centralized HR functions
• User-friendly
• Performance management 

Paycom cons

• Weak language support
• Complex user interface

Paycom pricing

To find out more about Paycom, register for a personalized demo on their website and measure which plan can automate your HR and payroll operations.

You can also request a personalized demo where a dedicated team member will walk you through the entire experience of managing your HR  processes via Paycom.

 

11. Justworks

Justworks is a user friendly and adaptable payroll, benefits and employee insurance platform which helps you bring all workplace processes, approvals and designations under one roof. 

Justworks features

Justworks is a job assistance, referral, payroll, management and welfare portal which helps design cross-border hiring workflows, automates consulting areas and keeps productivity tools at a stone's throw. 

• Intercountry employee hiring flexibility
• Employee benefits and insurance convenience for a large group of employees
• Policy, legal and compliance management 
• Employee mental health care and medical aid
• Payroll organization that saves time on building manual workflows
• Auto check-in and check-out and biometric authentication

Justworks pros and cons

Being people-oriented resonates with the use case of Justworks. But it does come up with its own list of pros and cons.

Justworks pros

• Expense management
• Time tracking
• Salary structures 
• Reports and analytics
• Enrolment planning

Justworks cons

• App freezing
• Limited API integrations
• Long processing of employee deposits.

Justworks pricing

Justworks has two major pricing editions on a per employee and per-month basis. 

 

1. Justworks Basic: The justworks basic plan is priced at $59 per month per employee which offers a herd of features for smooth human resource management.

• HR consulting and HR suggestion portal
• Employee benefits, pre-tax deduction, W2 and 1099 and tax calculation
• Harassment training and prevention
• Live chat and voice support 
• Unemployment insurance and grievance redressal
• Payroll integration and vendor and contractor payments
• off cycle payments and conversion rate support

2. Justworks Plus: This is an advanced version where you can configure more features within your HR dashboard. Apart from the above mentioned features, the additional features are listed as under:

• Medical insurance, dental and accident insurance
• Life and disability insurance
• Health and wellness perks
• Fitness memberships
• International contractor payments
• PTO management and fuel reimbursement support

12. Keka HR

Keka HR is a cloud-based account management and employee user portal where you can publish pay slips, send holiday alerts or simplify leave approval processes. It also maintains employee documentation, ID proofs, official information and compensation hikes or deductions in a single portal.

Keka HR features

Keka HR is a secure payroll and banking services platform where you can easily upload bank information, activate withholdings and track spending or manage budgets. 

• Automated payroll and incentive calculation for quick updation of employee's salary packages.
• Compensatory benefit inclusion based on the level and designation of employees.
• Loan tracking and EMI management
• Built-in calendar accessibility
• Policy and compliance management for legal fluidity
• Attendance, PTO, and time tracking
• Ease of tax return filings
• Leave adjustments and leave encashment 
• Expense reimbursement and report generation

Keka HR pros and cons

Keka HR has redefined HR and accounting by integrating workflows using a comprehensive interface that allows everyone in the company hierarchy to have visibility into core departmental operations.

Keka HR pros

• Mobile app support
• Employee wellness
• Team support
• Easy UI integration

Keka HR cons

• Limited chat functionality
• Language barrier

Keka HR pricing

Keka offers three separate dashboards, for HR and payroll management, professional service automation and a hiring platform.

The pricing plans are as follows:  

• HR and payroll platform: The plans within this platform are the foundation (priced at $95), Strength (priced at $135), growth ($190), and startup (custom pricing)
• Professional services automation: To get information on the PSA platform, contact Keka HR customer representative.
• Hiring platform: The Keka Hire - Pro plan is priced at $20 and Keka Hire - Advanced is priced at $34 USD.

Learn more about payrolls and payroll software

Payroll is the process of calculating employee salaries for a specific time period. Payroll is also known as employee wages, which are consistent payments made to the employees in return for their services to a particular public or private organization.

Payroll is a broader term of remuneration that encompasses several different components, like the cost to the company (CTC), gross pay, garnishments, provident fund, income tax, or performance variable. 

What is payroll?

Payrolls are employee remunerations calculated on an hourly, weekly, fortnightly,  monthly, or yearly basis by organizations. The entire calculation of payroll should be accurate, which is why it’s carried out solely by the human resources department.

Companies link with local, national, or international banks to transfer salaries from the company’s official account to individual employee accounts. Payroll is delivered via different modes of payment such as cash, pay cards, check printing, direct deposit, or National Electronic Funds Transfer.

Companies also calculate and withhold tax payments from the employee's gross pay, and then deduct the amount to send over to tax agencies.

Benefits of payroll and payroll software

Even the businesses minting the most profits have the possibility to run into losses. Strategizing your employee payroll in a way that the perks can be shared by employer and employee equally can make you last longer in the business market. If you deliver on your promises and keep your employees happy, their word of mouth can mimic a whole flash drive of marketing campaigns.

Many entrepreneurs integrate payroll with accounting and bookkeeping platforms to simplify transactional procedures. Some other notable benefits of running a payroll include:

• Convenience in managing employee attendance, deductions, compensations, and taxes without having to calculate on your own
• Handling of employee compensation, insurance premiums, benefits, reimbursements, wage garnishments, W-2s, 1099s, and withholdings through strategic outsourcing solutions
• Staying up-to-date with new tax codes to regulate statutory government policies and mitigate penalties
• Aligning with state and federal legal obligations without paying any legal fees
• Syncing payroll software with Google Calendars to monitor employees working hours, meetings, schedules, and overtime information to adjust pay stubs
• Manage user permissions to authenticate role-based access to personal employee databases for optimum security
• Giving employees a sense of agency by letting them supervise their information and salary details through self-service portals
• Optimize opportunity costs of a company by investing the time spent  with HR processes in an alternative revenue generation strategy
• Reimbursing employees who spent their own money on company-related expenses
• Create detailed payslips with ease and export them to the employee HRIS for access. Many platforms come with predefined templates for payslips to enter your information.
• Set up real-time push notifications to notify your employees about important tasks and submissions
• Accord the highest IT security standards in your network architecture through advanced data masking features of HR management and payroll software
• Cross-appoint other professionals in the HR department for talent reproduction
• Hire a talented, qualified workforce across countries to widen your employee base

How to effectively use a payroll software

Payroll software is usually managed by HR or accounting professionals who understand the pay flows and other commissions of payroll like arrears and professional taxes.

Payroll platforms adapt to the current company compensation and HR processes, eliminating manual calculations completely. However, you will have to do a few steps to start using payroll software.

• Sign up and onboard: Launch the setup.  It’s important you get the setup configuration right in the first go, as you won’t get a chance to redo it afterward. You can always modify existing payroll information if required. 
• Enter employee information: Enter the list of employees, freelancers, and contractors who work for your organization, along with CTC information, pay period, and pay dates. After this, simply enter the number of working hours along with the type of service (regular, contractual, part-time, remote).
• Enter employee records: Click the name of an employee to open an application form where you can input contact information, identity information, salary or hourly rate, or the number of allowances. Since most payroll sites support direct deposit, you may also need to enter the individual bank account details of each employee.
• Import accounting data: Use the ”bulk download” feature of payroll software and export the accounting data via a .csv file. During the import process, the system runs an internal compatibility check and maps the labels to columns of the payroll form. It eliminates the hassle of dealing with inconsistent data types or outliers while trimming the data. 

Once the import is complete, the system shows you a preview of the employee payroll. In case you have already compensated your employees in the past, the system will prompt you to enter dates and past clearance amounts to ensure the payroll calculation is fresh and accurate.

Tips and tricks of payroll software

Running an effective payroll management process is the key to your employees’ contentment and company growth. Payroll compensates employees for the work they do for an organization. Accurate calculation of payroll requires a deep analysis of different components involved in it. 

Let’s go over some tips and tricks for navigating payroll challenges and minimizing the risk of errors:

• The primary key to distinguishing between different employee records. Businesses can get an EIN from the IRS to track payroll progress and file income returns.
• Budget allocation through payroll software that offers forecasting features to quantify expenses over a fiscal year. This ensures the availability of enough cash and cash equivalents to pay employees.
• Employee contracts classify their job types into categories like full-time, consultant, or part-time. Classification gives complete information about the salary components of a particular employee.
•  Effective time and attendance management to keep track of the number of clock hours of an employee. Some payroll software offers real-time geolocation tracking that limits where employees can log in.

• Payroll workflow for a specific pay period to help employers control cash outflow and ensure unbiased practices within the organization.

Best practices of payroll software

While implementing your payroll operations using payroll software, you may feel a few organizational shifts in the overall functioning of your business. To adapt to a newer, faster way of running employ payroll, here are a set of best practices to follow:

• Keep a track of company tax deadlines. Every payroll software is embedded with tax configurations to ease your tax stress.
• Take your time with figuring out various processes and guidelines for your organization to iron out inefficiencies across departments and ensure pay equity.
• Voice your employees' concerns and prioritize what they feel about the company's current welfare practices to set new industry benchmarks.
• Be benevolent to employees who reach the peak of their performance in terms of rewards, bonuses, or at least, recognition of efforts.
• Monitor employee performances across departments with advanced analytics tools and declare learning or upskilling initiatives to fuel productivity.
• Assist new hires in a kind, patient manner and run them through their set of responsibilities in detail.
• Streamline HR inductions to make them feel at home.
• Safe keep employee documents, including offer letters, pay slips, and Form 16s, even after they resign to maintain the confidentiality of their information.
• Be on good terms with employees after they resign. Be responsive to their queries regarding exit formalities and FnFs to leave an evergreen impression of a great company.

Choosing the best payroll software for your company

Every company has different payroll needs. However, payroll is more than calculating employee wages - it’s a critical dimension of running a permanent business. Other than workforce management, you need to ensure companies perform their financial, accounting, and HR obligations on time and set aside funds for the remission of taxes.

Let’s understand the different payroll options that one can look for while choosing the right payroll software:

• Integrated employee self-service portal for employees to access their daily routine tasks, reviews, manager feedback, peer communication, and leave balances.
• Automatic payslip add-on for employees that serves as proof of the salary they draw every month.
• Payroll runs a setup feature to balance and reconcile bank information within a scheduled time range and deliver direct deposits.
• Easy to navigate user interface to help the in-house teams navigate through different processes easily and iron out workforce-related issues and concerns.
• Complaint redressal for employees to address any wrongdoings, ill behavior, or harassment issues they face. Giving them a platform encourages them to come clean and not shy away from explaining critical matters.
• Backend administration to optimize and streamline the financial bookkeeping and income statements of a company.
• Survey templates are a must through which an employee express their appreciation or dissatisfaction regarding their training, upskilling, welfare, perks, and salary-related processes.
• Automatic tax management to mitigate tax penalties and potential debts.
• Year-end report generation to visualize employee metrics related to performance, attendance, payment, and deductions. Download and export features should also be provided for the exchange of employee information with accounts and finance departments.
• Advance user management to provide authorized, role-based access to employers and mask sensitive employee information to prevent data thefts.

Payroll software: Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Is the payroll system cloud-based?

Payroll systems can be on-premise or cloud-based, depending on the server requirements and the number of employees in a company. Cloud-based systems can be easily accessed by employers scattered across borders.

Many HR and payroll software providers combine the latest technology with traditional payroll practices to present a cloud solution that is more secure and modern than an on-premise solution.

Why do we need payroll software?

Payroll software helps protect your business from spending a lot of time, effort, and labor on HR and pay-related tasks. It protects your business from employee anger over paycheck delays and keeps the right kind of tabs on each employee to work out compromises and improve performance.

Who needs payroll software?

Payroll software is an important inclusion in small, mid-sized, or enterprise businesses operating in a fast-paced environment. It is a must-have software for conducting processes like automatic talent acquisition, interviews, and onboarding to make your overall HR management hassle and stress-free.   

It helps gain a competitive edge against companies who engage in the manual heavy lifting of payroll and tax calculations and optimizes your overall company productivity.

Does payroll software completely eliminate the need to use Microsoft Excel?

A payroll system doesn’t completely eliminate the need for paper, but it definitely helps an organization understand and take care of its employees better. Even if your staff is adept at Excel calculations, it’s a waste of time and resources.

Robust payroll software automates employee pay on scheduled dates while maintaining decorum with tax agencies to cut costs.

Why should a company offer a web-based payroll portal to employees?

Online or web-based payroll portals allow employees to view important salary-related information and make necessary changes to their profile without bothering the HR department.