Your payroll resolutions for the new year

New year’s resolutions can divide people into two camps. Those who love to start the new year with a clean slate and fresh goals, and those who’ve lost all optimism and scoff at their naivety. Understandably, there are cynics. Changing your behaviour is hard and more often than not, these resolutions fail. The resolutions most likely to fail are those that are too vague with no clear path on how to achieve them.

If you’re setting resolutions for your business or job this year, then break them up into manageable and uncomplicated steps. You’ve likely heard of SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time limited. If you’re looking to improve your business, for example, the payroll service you offer, then using this established tool is how you can go about it. Rather than simply saying “I want to make my payroll services better for clients” or “I want to reduce the time I spend on payroll”, decide on specific goals which will help you achieve this.

Achieving payroll goals for 2022

1. Provide an employee app for your clients
This one is a specific, easily achievable goal that can help you provide a better payroll service to your clients. Employee apps have risen in use in recent years and are popular among employers and employees alike. Thesaurus Connect, the cloud add-on to Thesaurus Payroll Manager, includes one and your clients will immediately gain extra value from it. Their employees can book their annual leave through the employee app, view confidential documents, and use it to view their payslips. From a marketing perspective, an employee app can also have multiple benefits. The extra value if offers can encourage customer loyalty, and its frequent use by clients and their employees can increase awareness of your business.

2. Offer clients instant access to reports

Similar to the goal above, this is a simple and achievable step that you can take to improve your payroll services. By using Thesaurus Connect, you can offer your clients access to payroll reports whenever they like. This can be more convenient for your clients and can reduce the amount of back-and-forth communication between you and the client.

Once you finalise payroll on Thesaurus Payroll Manager, the report will automatically become available for the client to view via their Thesaurus Connect self-service portal. Your clients will also be able to use the portal to access a number of preprogramed reports, as well as any other payroll reports which have been set up and saved on the payroll application.

3. Spend less time on manual entry

By setting this goal you can reduce the overall time you spend on delivering your payroll services. How can you go about this? First, decide where you want to reduce manual entry. For example, how you pay employees is a good place to start. By using a payroll software which is integrated with a payments platform, you can send wages on behalf of your client to their employees instantly. This means you no longer need to spend time creating bank files. To learn more about the integration with Modulr, click here. 

4. Review your GDPR compliance

It’s always advisable to review your compliance with GDPR and ensure you’re keeping your client’s payroll data secure. By keeping on top of this, you can assure clients that security is a priority for your practice. Make sure the data you collect is the minimum amount required and remember to provide your clients and their employees access to their personal information. Again, an employee app can help with this. Using Thesaurus Connect, employees can view and update their personal information, whenever they like.

Discover more:

Now that you’ve decided on what steps you can take to improve your payroll services, make sure you have the right payroll software and employee app to support you. Book a demo today to discover more about Thesaurus Connect. 

To keep up with the latest payroll news, check out our new Bright website. There, you'll be able to register for any of our upcoming payroll webinars and download our payroll guides.