The Benefits of Combined HR Payroll Software for Startups

Although your HR and payroll teams might be completely separate in your organisation, we can all agree there’s a lot of overlapping admin.

So, it makes sense to consider combining these two functions within one piece of HR payroll software. Doing this can save you time and resources (which are both at a premium in small businesses!) and improve the employee experience — not to mention the synchronised data you’ll be able to access.

What is the connection between HR and payroll?

Both HR and payroll functions are similar in that they involve employees in your organisation and collect important information about each employee to complete payroll tasks like paying wages or HR tasks like recruiting and onboarding staff.

Although they’re two separate functions, they must work collaboratively to achieve the best outcomes, i.e., happy employees, access to accurate, reliable employee and payroll data, and more.

What are the benefits of an HR payroll system?

There are many benefits of a combined HR and payroll software, particularly for small businesses; here are just five:

1. HR and payroll processes become more streamlined

As a small business, you might not have the resources (or the time) to maintain two separate systems. Every business process must be streamlined to ensure maximum efficiency, and you can do that with a combined HR payroll system.

2. Improved employee experience

Choosing a payroll provider that combines HR and payroll into one system means employees can self-serve through a single employee portal. They can log on, access their digital payslips, update important contact information, and oversee 1-2-1 catch-ups without contacting your HR or payroll teams. There’s nothing more long-winded than asking your employer to share your latest payslip if you misplace it or don’t receive it. 

Combined software like this reduces reliance on these teams to perform simple tasks, freeing up payroll and HR functions to focus on more important tasks.

3. It’s more cost-effective

If you’re paying for two subscriptions, you can reduce business expenses to just one subscription cost. One subscription means no more maintaining two systems and no more training staff on both, either. Instead, you can get familiar with one dashboard and enjoy one login. If your new software is cloud-based, you can access it from anywhere. Making managing payroll HR processes even easier.

Psst. PayFit is a 100% cloud-based payroll software, just so you know.

4. Better reporting capabilities

By centralising your payroll and HR data in one place, you can generate more comprehensive reports filled with accurate information. This will help you understand the true cost of your payroll and HR resources, allowing you to make data-driven business decisions about resource allocation and cost optimisation strategies.

5. Saves you time

With payroll and HR software like PayFit, you can automate up to 90% of your payroll tasks, so you’re no longer wasting time carrying out manual calculations for pension submissions or distributing payslips to every employee. Instead, you can focus on value-add tasks like analysing pay disparity or better understanding resource allocation. 

Combined software means you access automated data updates, so you can be confident that the data you’re looking at is accurate in real time. Wasting time manually updating spreadsheets is something you can leave in the past.

What features should I be looking for in HR and payroll software?

There are so many features out there, so much so that researching HR and payroll software can easily become overwhelming. Before comparing features, your first port of call should be to figure out what features you’d use and benefit from most as an organisation.

We’ve grouped some of the most popular features of combined HR and payroll system software to help you determine what you need and don’t need.

Annual leave and absence management

Tracking and managing leave and absences can be challenging — keeping track of who’s off when and what that means for their monthly wage can quickly become a headache for both HR and payroll teams. 

PayFit’s self-serve employee portal makes booking time off a doddle for employees. Once the employee requests leave, the manager receives a real-time notification to approve or reject. Keeping the process quick and simple for both parties.

And the best bit? Our software automatically calculates holiday pay, so there’s no need to do any manual calculations.

Syncing to complete your tech stack

Syncing your tech stack means data is perfectly synchronised, and processes are more efficient. Consider finding an HR payroll system that syncs seamlessly with your accounting software (like PayFit!) to automate your payroll journals or market-leading pension providers to process pension submissions.

Digital payslip management

The era of paper payslips is over, with many employers embracing the digital alternative. Digital payslip management eliminates unnecessary admin that can slow your payroll solutions teams down—say hello to automated payslip creation and distribution. 

Our self-serve employee portal empowers employees to learn more about where their money goes, how much annual leave they have remaining and other helpful information. They can also quickly download a copy of their contract, P11Ds and P60s.

At Payfit, you can also customise your payslips to include your branding colours and logo, retaining that touch of personalisation.

Employee performance reviews

Reviewing employee performance is critical for any organisation. Regular reviews can help identify training needs, improve employee engagement and present an opportunity to collect feedback and suggest improvements.

With PayFit’s performance review campaign feature, you can create and run customised campaigns to suit any type of performance review — exit interviews, anonymous leadership reviews etc.

With built-in tracking and automated reminders, this feature will cut down on unnecessary admin for your HR team. 

Intuitive onboarding process

Onboarding employees can be tedious. But employees who’ve had an exceptional onboarding experience are 2.6 times more likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace — so a lot hangs in the balance to get onboarding right! 

The good news is that your onboarding experience can be streamlined from within our Payfit HR portal. You can create onboarding checklists for employees to follow based on their position seniority, the team they’re joining, or where they’re located. This makes the process as clear and streamlined as possible—and collecting required documents is easy, too, as employees can upload and store them in Payfit for future reference.

The checklists don’t just end with employees; you can also create an HR checklist so you don’t miss any important tasks.

An intuitive onboarding process is essential; it makes the employee experience much more pleasant and your job easier, too! We’d call that a win-win. 

Before you go…

Changing your payroll or HR software provider is always a big decision, so it shouldn’t be one you take lightly. Consider which features you’d benefit from and which you don’t have access to currently before researching your options and choosing a best-fit provider.

Book your free demo to see our intuitive payroll and HR features in action.