Do you still send or receive your payslips on paper?
More and more businesses are looking at every single business process to see where money can be saved. One of the biggest areas of expenditure both in time and effort is often in the production of payslips every month or week and the annual production of P60s.
Many large businesses have already moved their payslips into an electronic portal and/or to a secure electronic email solution, so as a small business what are the pros and cons for you and your employees and how do you go about choosing a solution?
For those of you who are unaware
A portal solution is a secure website where employee payslips and other documents can be stored. Every month, the employee visits the website, logs in, using their password and views their payslip online
An electronic email solution is when employees are emailed every month and informed that their payslip is ready for viewing. They click the link in their email and enter their password. They can then view a PDF of their payslips on their computer.
So how do they weigh up?
The pros of a portal
The employee can access their current and past payslip at any time, from any computer
A range of documents related to each employee can be stored online
It saves on print, paper and postal costs
It reduces the impact on the environment
The cons of a portal
Employees have to remember to get their pay details
Someone in HR needs to ensure a correct upload of pay details every month
The reduction in paper is only valid as long as the employee doesn’t print a copy of their pay details
The pros of electronic payslips?
The employee receives an email every time they are paid as a reminder to open their payslip
The PDF can be customised to look just look like a payslip
The HR team just print to a virtual printer instead of a normal one so it’s very easy to install and use
It saves on print, paper and postal costs
It reduces the impact on the environment
The cons of electronic payslips
The data isn’t stored automatically so if employees want to get back copies of their payslips, it’s harder to do so.
The reduction in paper is only valid as long as the employee doesn’t print a copy of their pay details
Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. The ideal solution is, therefore, a combination of the two, which indeed some companies now offer. This has the advantage of pushing the pay details to the employees every month combined with the advantage of storing easy to access back copies in a secure online portal.
Of course, neither will be successful if you don’t engage and communicate with your people. The most important part of the process is to be honest about why you’re moving this way – it’s cheaper, quicker and more secure and how it will benefit them: the business is healthier, they’ll get their pay details more efficiently and there is no risk of any data loss.
What do you think of the different solutions?
Do you send or receive electronic payslips?
As a business we provide both secure electronic payslips and an online archive. If you want to find out more visit our website: sslpost.com or call me or one of my colleagues: 08456 425 425
Dawn
