Payroll management
Your payroll management tool helps with the administration of an employee’s financial records like the salaries, wages, bonuses, deductions, and net pay.
It ensures details like contact information, addresses, new benefits, salary increases, and promotions are updated as they change. Certain fixed and financial information is submitted to SARS twice a year.
You can use employee self-service tools to let employees update their details, beneficiaries, apply for leave, file expense claims, and more, which removes a plethora of admin away from the HR and payroll teams.
Legislative and payroll reporting
Beyond just generating automated payslips for employees, the right software helps small business owners to adhere to payroll legislation. An automated solution can calculate the complex formulas for the various statutory deductions and generate compliance reports.
Some of the deductions that need to be considered are: PAYE (the tax deducted from your employees), the skills development levy (SDL), Unemployment insurance fund (UIF). Other legally required contributions include the payments to cover Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases (COID). These contributions/payments are paid by the employer, not the employee.
Medical aid, pension, provident and retirement funds
Every business offers a selection of benefits to employees regarding paid leave, contributions towards retirement funds, medical aids, and making certain statutory payments. It is essential to know what is required by legislation and the additional non-compulsory benefits provided to employees.
You don’t have to contribute towards a retirement fund or medical aid unless specified in a regulating measure for that industry or agreed upon in the employment contract.
Data reporting & analytics
Use, measure and analyse all of your workforce data, which helps with workforce planning and managing non-compliance.
A solid audit trail should be a feature of your payroll software. Audit trails are beneficial because they can validate any unusual payments and can track changes to a payroll. Audit trails can also be used if there is any suspicion of fraudulent activities.
Leave management
Leave management is an important part of payroll and HR software. The software will help you to manage both annual, sick, family responsibility or maternity leave. Some software options also offer the option of self-service, where employees are able to apply for leave or download payslips themselves.
HR files management
HR document management helps business owners to manage the entire lifecycle of employee documents to ensure proper storage of required records. This has never been more relevant with the POPIA legislation coming into effect. POPIA requires that employers protect employees’ personal information.
New employee onboarding
Onboarding candidates and employees refers to integrating new hires into the organisation. HR software can help you manage the entire process from new hires, onboarding workflows and generate reports to get insights into employee performance.
Other features
Your software should also be able to handle tasks such as – handle annual, ad hoc and performance bonuses, travel allowance and reimburse kilometers, commissions and overtime, independent contractors and labour brokers, bursaries and other non-cash benefits.
