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Who is covering your payroll over Christmas?

With Christmas only a few weeks away, there’s a lot to do both personally and professionally. If you have a team, you also need to manage a very hectic time for payroll. So ask yourself these 2 questions.

Question 1:  Who will manage the payroll while the usual person is on leave?
The Christmas/New Year period is a popular holiday time for all team members. So what do you do if the person who usually prepares the payroll is on holidays when the next pay period is due?

  • Do you ask that person to interrupt their leave?
  • If you are usually responsible for payroll preparation, will your family be happy if you return to work while they’re all having fun?
  • Do you have a backup person to run the payroll or are you planning to train someone new at one of the busiest times of the year?
  • If you are using a substitute, can you trust they are up to the job?
Leaving your payroll preparation in the hands of one person – no matter how trusted they are – is a risky strategy. While you may be able to plan for annual leave, you can’t prepare for sick leave or resignation. That’s why Numeric Eight always has 2 people across every client account. It means our clients never have to worry about their accounts or payroll.


Question 2:  How do you manage the additional payroll preparation workload?
This time of year is always busy as requests for leave can significantly increase the payroll workload. For example:

 

a) Before leave can be granted, holiday leave requests need to be checked to ensure staff have sufficient leave available. Unless you have great systems in place, this can be a very time consuming task.

b) If the Christmas lead up is a busy time of year for your business, you may have some team members working longer or more hours than usual. Conversely, if this is a quiet time of year, you may have team members working fewer hours than usual. Every change to working hours will impact your payroll processing. Are you geared up to manage this increased workload and the implications for superannuation, overtime etc.? 

c) You may have staff who do not have sufficient accrued holiday leave and are willing to take unpaid leave instead. This anomaly will also complicate processing your payroll.

You can’t make mistakes with payroll
Payroll preparation is often complex and there is no room for error. That’s why all Numeric Eight clients have 2 account managers to take care of their accounts. It means our clients are never affected by things like annual leave or staff changes.

If you want an end to holiday payroll stress, talk to the team at Numeric Eight. Call 02 9437 1785 or email