Generally, 85% of Payroll Processing can be Automated; What About the Rest? 

If you assume 20% is spent on data follow-up, analysis, and reporting, the remaining 15% of the process absorbs 65% of the payroll team’s effort. 

This time and effort applied to the 65% of activity releases more productivity capability for the business.

So let’s say we have 3 FTEs in payroll; 2 FTEs could be released for more labour-driven business productivity programs and processes that will improve overall labour $cost savings. 

To save on this overhead, the more efficient and comprehensive the processes from onboarding to rostering, timesheet processing with automated award and leave entitlement processing, and employee self-serve capability, the more efficient the processes. 

Manual Payroll Processes that are often leading to unproductive off-system calculations, interventions and data

It is the last 5% to 15% of the payroll process absorbing 65% of the time and effort, including:

  • Employee rostering and timesheet approvals undertaken by different managers for each employee, separate engagement 
    • With each manager only having approval for the employee’s engagement under their control
    • Chasing up on non-presented or incomplete compliant approved and accepted timesheets 
  • Employee shift broken into more than one engagement that may include:
    • Different shift positions, tasks, billing associations, payroll base and penalty rates and allowances, as well as location and cost centre, 
    • The two separate engagements may attract consolidated overtime penalties or not
    •  Leave accruals may vary based on the worked time in each engagement
  • Leave accrual and payment as a secondary payroll process, usually a separate payroll activity
    • That are often for shift workers and the like, dependent on the roster and timesheet information 
  • Manual break-up of engagements reporting
    • with cost presented in different formatted reports 
  • Different engagement general ledger and other account code allocation
    • for accounting and finance
    • for STP and other statutory reporting 

Automation via the timesheet is the key to enabling the capturing of the 65% productivity opportunity

The timesheet is the key point for data capture, with the flexibility of 100% compliant award interpretation capability, which can deliver the productivity and $cost saving in payroll processing, for example:

Multi-engagement rostering and timesheet

The timesheet is the responsibility of the department manager to process, which can include more than just the start and finish time of each of the team members working 

Different times, locations, cost centres, positions, tasks, and events (customers), and units produced in the engagement each staff member worked on.

An efficient Employee Self-serve capability of roster and timesheet notification posted to their device for acceptance sign-off 

Payroll Ready Validation 

The payroll team should be able to identify missing data to process the payroll for all team members 

  • Missing timesheets where the employee has a roster
  • Missing critical employee data
    • Bank Account
    • Tax File number
    • Super fund details

Shift workers’ leave accrual based on actual times worked for each pay period, not a default amount 

Shift workers who work different shift times and lengths on different days in the payroll cycle, i.e. need special leave conditions.

  • Accurals need to be based on the Ordinary Times Worked (OTE) on each shift accrual basis
  • If the employee’s Tuesday is a 5-hour shift this week and they take leave, the reduction of their leave should be only the 5 hours, not a 7.6-hour deduction 
  • If the team member requests leave  in the ESS portal, the leave should be able to be requested and approved by managers for the 5 hours  

Leave request posted directly to their roster for supervisor acceptance that will be published to the employee ESS portal

Timesheet rate to be modified for specific employee shift 

The timesheet authorisor can modify the payroll in the timesheet for automated payroll processing  

       Other business specific interpretations

Every business has non-standard interpretation needs, including specific employee pay conditions and payment variations

  • Employee modified to standard pay rates 

  • Employee cycle rosters and timesheets over a longer than pay run period for:
    • Multi-pay period overtime automated award interpretation application 
      • 38 hour overtime converted to 152 hour overtime over a 4 week period 
  •  Additional automated leave accrual 
    • If an employee works more than a specified number of weekend days, they gain the additional leave accrual 
    • If they work under a 38 hr week and actually work 40 hours and accrue additional TOIL leave 
  • Other leave accrual options 
    • Based on time worked, or
    • Time elapsed, or
    • Pay run, and
    • A different personal accrual rate 

          The last 15% of payroll is often beskoe for the nominated employees that will need to be interpreted for them

The integration of the timesheet with payroll is a must-process to achieve the level of compliance and efficiencies desired                  

Frequently Asked Questions 

Do all staff need to complete the timesheet process?

In short, yes, we recommend all staff, including salaried employees, complete a timesheet

Why is rostering an important part of a system?

Rosters need to be built based on the employee’s contract and modified only with the employee’s permission. If this permission is not granted, times outside the employee’s standard hours in many awards must be paid as overtime.

What steps are required if you have a comprehensive award interpreted payroll from the timesheet?

  1. Run the diagnostic summary to identify missing data and rectify the records 
  2. Execute the payrun where the system will undertake all of the interpretation of the payroll
  3. Review the executed payroll, and if you find a discrepancy, delete the executed payroll, make the needed adjustments, and re-execute.
  4. Commit the pay run
  5. Process the     
  6. Process the payroll banking EFT file to your bank
  7. Run the in-system STP reporting to ATO 
  8. Run the payday superannuation and pay the amounts 
  9. Run your general ledger upload to the finance system
  10. Run your internal analysis reports