Running a business has never been so complicated and challenging. As our sped-up life changes by the day, expectations and requirements are hitting never seen highs in a transformative environment. Companies need to deal with various tasks internally to make sure their operations are running to the highest standards. However, outsourcing some activities such as payroll can boost business performance.
Recently businesses have considered outsourcing operation snippets for many reasons; beyond reducing costs, a specialised company—because of extensive experience accompanied by elevated focus—can handle specific operations more accurately. Therefore, by outsourcing payroll services, a business can reap many benefits.
Nowadays, payroll administration has become the centre of many conversations due to the importance of its role in a company’s life. Payroll is the corner piece of the relationship between an organisation and its employees. Payments to staff must be prompt to nurture a healthy working environment and increase worker loyalty—not to mention that companies are legally obliged to remunerate their staff on time. These requirements urge payroll operations to run smoothly and think thoroughly when choosing an external payroll provider.
Outsourcing is a viable option, but not in every scenario. Businesses often separate strategic from non-strategic activities, and as company payroll is a non-core activity, departing it from in-house operations is less of a complicated process. What is more: Outsourcing them is beneficial.
Increasing focus and morale
Contributions by an outsourcing partner come from the very nature of its role: Such a business sells focus on an activity that internally may be considered as unessential, a non-core task. Therefore, the organisation can focus more on its core activities while the outsourcing partner takes care of payroll.
Additionally, morale can be boosted. Wasting internal expertise on non-essential tasks usually spurs poor attitudes and poor performance. A firm can save all this when it outsources payroll.
PayrollMalta’s dedicated team focuses on handling payroll queries while placing a particular emphasis on providing the best customer care possible to you and your employees.
Saving funds and time
On the one hand, outsourcing payroll operations eases the very payroll of the company; staff can either be reduced to cut costs or reallocated with an increased and undisturbed focus to drive more added value and boost business performance. Excellent payroll talent is challenging to come by, however. If the person responsible for payroll within the company leaves, becomes sick or is away on an extended leave, it may considerably pressure the company.
Payroll bureaus—being highly specialised—are more effective and work faster with a limited amount of mistakes. This saves valuable time for the company that outsourced payroll activities and spares priceless resources. Likewise, outsourcing payroll offers boosted financial flexibility and can help improve a company’s cash flow.
PayrollMalta, as a payroll administration partner, offers a comprehensive source for all employee salaries, working hours, leave entitlement and tax-related information. We provide our partner companies with an up-to-date list of employees with the function of adding new employees and removing those no longer in employment.
We run calculations for your business, including salaries and benefits due, leave and sick leave, and tax and social security contributions. PayrollMalta generates electronic payslips sent to the employees in emails and transfers direct payment to employees’ bank accounts accurately.
At PayrollMalta, we have a fully fledged team working together to offer the best and most seamless payroll service possible.
Transferring accountability
By outsourcing payroll, you set the areas of responsibility in stone by the contract, eliminating grey areas. As the organisation pays for the services of a specialised payroll firm, expectations and requirements are established, recording accountability with fiscal implications. Internally, creating such a scenario is often impossible.
As the payroll business bears accountability, it has the knowledge to afford to come under such pressure. This way, the company outsourcing payroll can indirectly become the possessor of a set of experience that it might not have internally.
PayrollMalta guarantees that all taxes and payments due are correctly calculated, filed and paid on time, avoiding paycheck errors and late payment penalties.
We also take time to liaise with relevant government entities and can manage submitting monthly and end-of-year forms to the Commissioner for Revenue as necessary. We keep up with the latest employment law and regulations and inform our clients and guide them to implement the changes required for their employees’ salaries.
Mitigating risk
In-house payroll operations can increase exposure to regulatory authorities and potential fines. Keeping an in-house payroll team up-to-date with the rapidly changing legislative environment and pursuing compliance is a hard race to run.
Data privacy is also an emerging concern, not only in payroll but in any other vertical. In the European Union, aligning with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) severely pressures companies, touching upon handling payroll data at an elevated level. A payroll administration company—thanks to its expertise and undisturbed focus—already has a corporate procedure in place for processing such data.
Not to mention the need for educating staff to fend off malicious cyberattacks that can infiltrate a sensitive payroll database by the click of one stray link in an unwanted email. A specialised payroll company already has a state-of-the-art system sporting top-notch cybersecurity levels, and its professionals are aware of cybersecurity.
Payroll systems are increasingly in the crosshairs of cybercriminals, who are always on the lookout for identity theft. The employees of the company also pose a significant risk to the unintentional (or intentional) mishandling or leaking of sensitive data. Being bound by a contract, an external company takes full responsibility for tending to data privacy weaknesses.
PayrollMalta considers the security, safety and reliability of our partner company’s data as our top priority. We utilise industry-leading software and hardware solutions to store and protect your data.
Overcoming concerns
No benefits come without potential risks, everything has downsides. However, in the knowledge of such challenges, one can prepare to mitigate possible perils.
Poor quality control can be remedied if the firm makes sure that the company responsible for the outsourced payroll activities are up to their standards. The bidding and screening process may be lengthy—if the right steps are made in this initial period, it is time well spent as this initial investment will bear fruit in the long run.
Change is always difficult, and employees might feel uneasy about some part of the operations being outsourced. Nevertheless, such hard feelings are remedied as soon as employees experience better payroll services right at the first payment handled by the payroll firm. Streamlined internal communication can help staff understand and onboard with the benefits of outsourcing payroll, giving them further authority and ownership.
Pundits discourage companies from outsourcing core activities, while they vouch for the outsourcing of non-core tasks such as payroll services. Keeping a barely functioning set of payroll operations in-house hardly makes sense. It hinders productivity, burns money and time, disrupts focus and may taint staff loyalty and morale.
