Percentage of new payroll specialist jobs down, again
According to Indeed.com, the number of new job openings under the “payroll specialist” title is down more than 15% from last July. The average salary for payroll specialists postings as of July 2009 is $36,000, which is 38% lower than average salaries for all job postings nationwide.
Here’s a sampling of salaries for various payroll-related jobs available now:
Payroll and Staffing Assistant
$50,000
Payroll Tax Specialist
$42,0000
ADP Payroll Specialist
$33,000
To see more data about payroll specialists jobs available to day, click graphic below.
Data from indeed.com
Add comment July 6, 2009
Do your employees know buddy-punching is fraud?
If a co-worker/friend asks you to clock in for her, do you do it? Payroll professionals know better. They know that buddy-punching isn’t a favor you do for a friend, it’s an act of fraud against your employer – one that could get you fired at least, in prison at worst.
But do your fellow employees know that buddy-punching is fraud? It can be a difficult conversation between an employer and the employees, but consider this: More than 70 percent of companies suffer losses of up to five percent as a result of buddy-punching. The good news is, there are sure-fire ways to stop it.
Automated time and attendance software can solve the buddy-punching problem. First, it eliminates the opportunity. Every employee has to log in with their own password, and because the password allows anyone who knows it to know other information besides time and attendance, there are built-in incentives to keep it private.
Beyond that, you could choose the card-swipe option – only the holder of the employee’s card could “punch” them in. Or to make buddy-punching absolutely impossible, many companies are opting for biometric time and attendance solutions for the ultimate in security.
iEmployee offers each of these options for time and attendance, plus the online tracking system improves payroll accuracy and eliminated the need for paper timesheets or punch cards.
To learn more about the perils of buddy-punching, download our free white paper ‘How to Stop Budget Leaks.”
Add comment July 1, 2009
Fight payroll fraud with prevention
In this latest payroll scam, a woman in Philadelphia reportedly falsely claimed to work between 22 and 32 hours a day. Her employer, Ophthalmic Associates ended up paying her $991,486 more than she was owed. You can read the news story here.
Wow. I wonder what her hourly rate was. How does something like this happen?
Well, as you know, it’s happening everywhere. According to research conducted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), U.S. organizations lose an estimated 7 percent of annual revenues to fraud.
Employees use a number of methods to scam wages from their employers. Commision schemes, salary schemes, and the dreaded ghost worker and buddy punch schemes can slowy drain an employee a few thousand dollars at a time. We found this useful list of schemes to watch out for on ConstructionBusinessOwner.com. It’s worth a look.
As you might guess, the best way to fight payroll fraud is through prevention, and technology and automated time and attendance structures can go a long way in showing employees that you’re serious about fighting fraud.
Add comment June 29, 2009
Great opportunity for payroll professionals to give back
One of the best ways to celebrate National Payroll Week (September 7-11) is to volunteer for Money Matters National Education Day.
The fact is, they don’t teach financial literacy in public schools. Most kids don’t learn about deductions, withholdings, W4s and more until they get their first paycheck – and most of them are pretty shocked by the realization that their paycheck is smaller than they thought it would be.
So to help arm more kids with the information they need about their paychecks, the American Payroll Association produces Money Matters National Education Day, urging payroll professionals across the country to talk to local principals about volunteering in their schools to teach a short lesson in Paychecks 101.
APA makes it simple to sign up, offering a lesson plan, a letter to your principal, and more guidelines for a successful volunteer experience. This from the APA site:
“Money Matters National Education Day was an unbelievable experience,” said Judith Kay Hahn, CPP, PHR. “I spoke to more than 300 students, grades 9-12, and I truly believe the students were very interested. I used the handout and spoke about gross and net pay, mandatory and voluntary deductions, the withholding system, W-4’s…”
Click here to learn more.
Add comment June 25, 2009
10,000,00 paystubs and counting
If you laid 10 million iEmployee paystubs end-to-end… Well, that would be a really long string of paystubs.
Here at iEmployee we celebrate the paystub – not ours, yours! That’s because each and every paystub our customers process means we’ve saved a payroll professional time, stress, and headaches. When we reached the 10-millionth paystub mark in May, a wave of high-fives rolled around the office. We’re just kinda geeky that way.
“We’re excited to reach this milestone,” says Nate Pruitt, vice president of sales and marketing. “It’s a reminder of how much value our software brings to payroll professionals around the world.”
And the paystubs keep coming! We’ll let you know when we get to 20 million.
Add comment June 23, 2009
Payroll adminstrators: “Swine flu? Bo-ring.”
Swine flu, layoffs, changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act … this has been a tough year to be optimistic. And yet if you look at the responses to polls on the above topics, payroll and HR administrators don’t seem to be worried much at all.
According to polls conducted by CCH….
45% of respondents said they weren’t worried about swine flu when the poll was conducted in May
48% said there hadn’t been any changes to executive pay in light of the recession in an April poll
80% said that changes to ADA were either not going to affect them or they didn’t know what to expect in a December poll
You can see more polls and results here. Go ahead and weigh in!
Add comment June 22, 2009
We were there! American Payroll Association’s Chapter Exchange
iEmployee's Nate Pruitt and Jeff Vogt bond with APA Chapter presidents
This is the second year that we sponsored the American Payroll Association’s Chapter Exchange event – and what an energetic group of professionals! We were excited to have the opportunity to meet many of the front-line leaders of the regional chapters.
The APA’s Chapter Exhange offers chapter leaders the opportunity to “exchange” ideas for promoting membership in their chapters and growing unity among all chapters. For us, it was an opportunity to meet many of our customers and get to know them on a different level. That is to say, we had fun.
Nate Pruitt with our AmEx Winner Jennifer Unocic from Big Lots
Throughout the event, iEmployee gave away gift cards that escalated in value. We also gave out T-shirts and other fun iEmployee items, and did some serious bonding with the attendees.
We are already planning on sponsoring the Chapter Exchange event in 2010. Thanks to Susan Garcia, APA Chapter Relations Manager, for sending us these pictures.
iEmployee's Nate Pruitt and Mike Galyen at APA Congress
Add comment June 18, 2009
“Comply with me, comply, let’s comply today…”
Photo from APA Facebook page
We just couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to link you to the lyrics from this huge hit at last month’s American Payroll Association Annual Congress in Long Beach, California.
Get the full lyrics on the APA’s Facebook page. In the meantime, here’s a snippet…
“Comply with me, comply, let’s comply today
If you can use some payroll news
There’s a place for you at APA
Comply with me, comply, let’s comply today…”
Add comment June 16, 2009
The benefits of SaaS for time and attendance tracking
More companies are signing up for SaaS or Software-as-a-Service applications because they save money and offer a simple implementation. When it comes to time and attendance tracking, a SaaS solution can be the ideal way to get up-and-running and achieve a fast return on investment.
iEmployee SaaS Advantages
iEmployee Software-as-a-Service payroll solutions reduce IT burden and costs, and enable you to achieve economies of scale in deployment, service, management, and ongoing support.
Implementing our Time and Attendance software is a fraction of the cost of traditional on-site hosted solutions. Consider the following iEmployee SaaS benefits:
Lower Up-Front Cost: SaaS is subscription based, with no software or hardware to buy, install, or upgrade, no license fees, or additional investment in building IT infrastructure and resources.
24-Hour Monitoring: Our servers and applications are monitored 24 X 7 via sophisticated automated tools to ensure you are provided with the most reliable service possible.
Painless Maintenance and Upgrades: iEmployee performs maintenance and automatic upgrades (to both the servers and the iEmployee application), freeing our client’s IT resources from the burden of planning, implementing, and testing in house, so their expertise can be repurposed to more strategic areas. Our timely upgrades ensure that users have instant access to the latest innovations at no extra cost.
More affordable: The monthly subscription rate based on user volume makes budgeting more consistent.
Flexibility: New application features and functionalities can be added and activated quickly as your business demand changes.
Quick to Install and Easy to Use: iEmployee applications can be deployed in a few weeks. The client gains easy access to the applications any time, any where over the Internet. Users can simply log in and start using iEmployee Time and Attendance solutions without investing in extensive training, resulting in faster learning curve and higher user adoption rate.
Seamless Integration: iEmployee offer customization capabilities and easily integrates data with our client’s existing third-party payroll software.
Better Return on Investment
While non-mission critical applications for payroll and HR are often pushed to the back of the IT schedule, the ROI of automated time and attendance can be quickly and easily achieved, thereby justifying the organization’s investment.
Because iEmployee time and attendance is a SaaS solution, it offers an economical, low-risk, and quick alternative to traditional on-premise hosting. The competitive edge of SaaS over the traditional hosted-software model allows companies to scale without adding costly infrastructure. Not only does iEmployee offer that quick return your company needs now, it can keep up with your company’s growth in the long-term, and pay back your investment many times over.
Want to know more about SaaS? Click here and choose “Chat with a Product Specialist” for more information.
Add comment June 16, 2009
Four Ways to Streamline Payroll
As companies tighten their budgetary belts and scrutinize profit and loss sheets, they will look increasingly to payroll professionals to account for resources in their departments.
Processing delays, missed deadlines, and re- keying errors can literally cost your department thousands of dollars a year and countless wasted hours. This translates into tighter profit margins and less opportunities for growth. Moving to an e-payroll platform can help reduce the time, money, and man-power needed on unnecessary manual procedures. This will increase productivity and free up staff to pursue more strategic tasks, giving employees more control of their information. Pushing for streamlined payroll processes will give your company the ability to make better use of the resources that are already available and drive growth for the business as a whole.
1. Bridge the data gap
When it comes to measuring productivity, it’s the little things that count. If you have had any experience with working with payroll software systems in the past, you will no doubt have experienced the need to jump from one standalone system to another. This is because most companies run their payroll, HR, general ledger, and tax reporting processes on different applications.
That’s why reason, systems integration should be the first priority of any well-run payroll department.
The benefits of payroll systems integration are far-reaching and immediate. By making diverse components of your payroll related business practices work together, you allow for significant performance gains. Some of the more obvious advantages include:
- No double entry – Eliminate the double input of data between HR, payroll, and benefits departments.
- Real-time data – Eliminate the need to transfer data across applications. Information is automatically updated which keeps up-to-date figures for reports.
- Simplified routine requests – Allow employees to review their own personal data by integrating with an automated services solution.
- Save time – Alleviate need to double-check figures with other departments. Have more time to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Many companies are choosing to tie their systems together with a Web interface capable of connecting islands of automation. Others are deciding to go with complete Web-enabled packages that give them instant support in a comprehensive suite of services, without the need for hardware or software. These services tend to be more cost-effective and put the risk of rollout success on the vendor.
It is best to be fully versed in this kind of time- saving software as these applications are becoming more and more popular. Payroll staff will be called upon to analyze their data and examine trends as their usage increases.
2. Go with the flow?
Nothing is more annoying than having an important deadline looming and having to wait on two or three other people before you can complete your task. How can you ensure that you get the support that you need to keep the wheels of your operations moving?
Workflow automation programs help you keep track of the progress of any requests you make by recording the time the request was made and when it was completed. Safeguards can be put in place whereby a manager is contacted if a reply isn’t received by a certain time. This gives employees the added peace of mind that critical tasks will be dealt with promptly and saves the hassle of having to chase people down.
3. Push for progress
While it is important to consider the needs of individual employees when organizing payment methods, ultimately you have to keep the big picture in mind. Companies are looking increasingly to payroll professionals for advice on how to optimize resources and cut costs. The greater the direct deposit adoption rate, the greater the savings.
Some companies have achieved adoption rates of up to 98 percent by using raffles, contests, sweepstakes, and promotions to encourage participation. Others have stopped delivering checks in person to employees, instead mailing them on payday, which provides an incentive to use direct deposit because you receive your check sooner. Still others require all new employees to use the direct deposit system.
To achieve the desired efficiencies, it is best to gear your solution towards your company’s culture. Although your eventual goal is for the universal adoption of the system, it will require small, gradual steps.
4. Track labor more effectively
One of the most common payroll errors is not meeting labor compliance regulations. It is easy to lose track of PTO when there are so many functions that come under the payroll umbrella. Unfortunately, this is a costly mistake that can eventually cost the company heavily in lawsuits.
Most companies have solved this problem with time and attendance software that allows employees to monitor their own schedules and enforces the policy equitably. This also reduces the burden on you and your managers and eliminates PTO abuse.
For more information about how to streamline your payroll process, contact an iEmployee product specialist.
Add comment June 15, 2009
