Benefits of Payroll on Cloud

by Sandeep R. Software developer

Human Resource Management is the most important aspect of any organization. Employee record management, leaves management, attendance and payroll are the most important HR functions for any organization. In today’s globalized world, most companies have moved to work as de-centralized organizations having several business units based in different locations across the globe. De-centralization helps any organization to be more mobile, effective, global and modular to reach business opportunities in local regions. The increase in number of business unit locations increases the requirement of having localized HR professionals to manage local employees and HR functions.

Running HR processes in de-centralized organizations can be a nightmare if you do not have right technology solutions to support HR functions.

Conventional HRMS, which is usually installed on servers which are physically located in one geographic location and makes it difficult for HR professionals to access information for employees who are based out in different geographic locations. In case if HRMS is implemented centrally at one location to manage all business units, the single location HR system processes face issues like not understanding localized HR needs and processes of the remote business unit.

Cloud based software, as we all aware is picking up popularity these days, promotes more accessibility, flexibility and customizations as per localized business units & locations. Today, we have various cloud based solutions available for Human Resource Management e.g. online employee management, multi-lingual systems, online leaves management, learning management and many more.

Payroll being the most critical function of HR is still lacking exposure to cloud. Global HR Cloud offer this niche software on cloud called Cloud HR, which contains online Payroll processing along with other standard functions like employment management, leaves & attendance management & claims management.

Benefits of using Payroll on Cloud

 HR professionals & Employees can access your Payroll Software from almost anywhere in the world via internet

 You don’t have to invest time and money in running payroll manually. Payroll on cloud is more robust and accurate.

 You can configure and set-up different payrolls for each different business unit located in different locations without any extra cost and headache to hire HR professionals for each location.

 More collaboration, as employees can access pay slips and self-service functions online anytime anywhere, and using any device e.g. computer, tablets, mobiles etc.

 Low operation cost, as you don’t have t o worry about managing in-house servers and technical team to manage your software.

 More Visibility across the organization. Managers can view summary reports online for the entire de-centralized organization at one place.

 For SME, pay-per employee model helps them save lot on their HR function expenses.

Drawbacks of Cloud based Solutions

 Your organization’s data is hosted on servers outside your organization’s premises.

 You are dependent upon thirds party software-as-a-service for HR functions. So select your vendor carefully, who can provide you prompt support in the hour of need.

 Data is hosted on cloud, so make sure you have regular backups of your data in case of any hardware or software failures.

 Check security standards to ensure you data is highly secured.

 If you are scared enough by now, let me tell you that all of these drawbacks have practical solutions and can be overcome. So it is very important to know how to select the right cloud. Read next section.

10 Things You MUST Ask Before Choosing Your Cloud

1. Is your software configurable as per business requirements? The most important factor in choosing a right software is to evaluate “Is this software fulfils my organization’s business needs and/or configurable as per requirements?”

2. Which Cloud Hosting are you using?

While choosing cloud, another most important thing is to know on which cloud hosting your software instance will be hosted. Amazon Web Services for example is one of the most reputed, secure and reliable cloud hosting providers across the world. Private or self-managed cloud hosting can be dangerous as you will be purely dependent upon your vendor.

3. Is sensitive data encrypted in database? All employee and organization data is usually saved in database. If vendor’s technical team can access database, then probably they have access to sensitive information that your organization may not like to share with anyone outside your organization. So it is utterly important to have this sensitive data saved in encrypted form.

4. Who all can access the information in vendor organization?

If you have a vendor managing your software on cloud, then probably they have access to your data and credentials. Make sure you have proper agreement and terms signed so that no one from vendor’s team be able to access your software instance on cloud.

5. How to do you ensure security and intrusion threat? Make sure your vendor has proper security standards in place and monitor & checks security loop holes regularly.

6. Where and how the data backups taken?

Check whether regular automated backups of data are taken and saved at secured locations.

7. What is your risk mitigation & data recovery plan? Check how your vendor supports the failures. Computer hardware can fail anytime no matter how many measures you may take. Evaluate how fast your vendor can restore everything in case of any incidents causing interrupted services.

8. Do you provide support 24x7? Make sure your vendor provide support 24x7 for any crashes and critical issues. If not 24x7, then at least during your business working hours.

9. Is it easy to use with minimal training?

No matter how good is the software, if you find it difficult to use, then actually it is of no use. You will end up spending more time and money rather than saving. The software on cloud should be absolutely EASY-TO-USE. The software screens should be customizable and adaptable as per your organizational needs.

10. Last but not the least, is it helping in saving cost? Cost is one of the crucial factors. We all understands that cloud based software is a service and to be paid as per subscription agreement. The overall running cost MUST be lesser than your cost of operation without this service.

For more detail visit: Singapore Payroll