5 Ways Payroll Integration Strategies Will Positively Impact Your Business

Utilizing a unified system increases efficiency and reduces compliance errors

Benefits and payroll integration provide overall process efficiency and transparency, reduce costly compliance challenges, and offer an overall better employee experience.

In years past, many companies completed HR-related tasks in silos. While payroll services were coordinated by one department, another team administered employee benefits, with personnel and other HR functions handled separately by another. 
 

According to EY, HR inefficiencies in small- to medium-sized businesses create more than $250,000 in unnecessary and unintended costs. Using too many disconnected systems to manage employee information leads to potential errors in data, multiple teams entering the same data into different sources, and compliance risks.

Due to the critical need for data continuity, accuracy and security, enterprises are now integrating these functions through benefits providers that offer payroll integration software. By utilizing a single, unified system to handle all payroll, benefits and other employee administrative needs, businesses of all sizes can solve multiple issues, while creating efficiencies and reducing compliance errors. 

Let’s take a closer look at how payroll integration strategies impact your business:

1. More Efficient HR Process

Benefit integration means employers have fewer data points to manage. When benefits and payroll share one platform, employee updates are pushed to a digital ecosystem that allows HR administrators to focus more on their strategic functions and business responsibilities and less on data entry or data management. Carrier integration means HR administrators can cut out the step of sending data or files to multiple carriers, which creates a more secure and consistent process. Consolidated billing takes bills from different carriers and combines them into one easy-to-read and reconciled bill.

2. Employee Engagement

According to Pew Research, millennial employees—those turning 24-39 this year—are now the largest segment of the workforce and are driving technological change to make work more efficient. A recent audit from the technology industry signals that two-thirds of millennials and the younger Gen Z workers—those turning 23 and younger—consider an organization’s embrace of technology and innovation as an important factor when choosing an employer.

Payroll benefits integration offers the technology that younger employees are looking for in an employer. Employees not only can access their pay data and history alongside their benefits information, but can often also complete open enrollment on the same platform. 

3. Compliance

Regardless of your location, integrating payroll and employee benefits data helps employers maintain compliance with federal and state employment guidelines and regulations. For example, for those employers based in the U.S., compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a top priority and concern.

Data that was once housed in two separate technology silos is now aggregated with one point of entry that can be tracked for compliance purposes. 

When an employee makes a change, payroll administrators can easily see when that change was made. Integration demonstrates how the changes affect both payroll and HR and easily allows for the oversight and correction of mistakes before they have an effect on the employee’s payroll or benefits. Integration also allows the employer to provide audits when necessary, and easily pull the data from both systems to ensure accuracy and compliance.

4. Reporting

Strategic benefit and payroll integration consolidate reports from multiple systems. Businesses can efficiently pull benefits and payroll data into one report making it easier to create custom reports. 

Additionally, with employee information readily accessible, business leaders can make effective and agile decisions when it comes to their workforce. Reports can showcase total earnings, the employee’s manager, and most recent performance rating, and use the report to support the performance review process. 

Similarly, employees who leave the organization and get their last paycheck will automatically change their status on headcount and benefits reports.

5. Benefits and Payroll Integration Success

Benefits and payroll integration offer many advantages for businesses by reducing administrative costs, hassle and errors, while improving compliance, freeing up resources, and contributing to overall employee satisfaction.  

Nicholas Rossi is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Kelly Benefits Payroll responsible for new business development and marketing. In this role, Nick is responsible for leading all aspects of the sales organization by implementing innovative strategies that drive growth and brand awareness for Kelly Benefits Payroll. In addition, Nick is responsible for ongoing client relationship management, sales operations and enablement, new product development and workers’ compensation. Visit https://kellybenefits.com/ Connect Nicholas Rossi