Suppliers would do well to take holistic view
THE payroll software market is fiercely competitive, which is evidenced by there being 35 members of the Payroll Authors Group, including local and international players as well as some banks that process payrolls for clients.
“Among these members there are about 25 software suppliers that develop their own systems,” says Teryl Schroenn, Accsys CEO.
She says payroll software suppliers should focus on ensuring they have a stable product that is always compliant with everchanging statutory requirements.
“But we are also focusing on areas such as employee selfservice, mobility and dashboards that allow managers to manage and maintain the payroll.”
She says today’s payroll and HR systems need to have a modern look and feel and simple graphic oriented screen layouts and user interfaces that allow users to navigate around the functionality easily. The systems design also needs to be modular and parameter driven to make it easy to add and customise functionality.
She says the software also needs to be easily integrated with other applications the company may be using.
“For example, companies expect to be able to import and export information between their payroll and HR systems into a spreadsheet application.”
Sandra Swanepoel, sales director at Sage VIP, says the main challenge for software suppliers is to keep up with technology. This requires huge investment, and there comes a point where the software supplier has to completely rewrite its software.
She says it took Sage VIP four years to rewrite its payroll and human resources system.
“We are still maintaining and adding functionality to the old system, but giving customers the option to convert to the new one.”
Swanepoel says the company is investing in connected services and cloud applications, because customers want to move in this direction. An example of a connected service is where an alert is triggered to remind the payroll administrator that the licence of one of the drivers employed by the company is due for renewal.
“The alert would appear in a pop-up window on the administrator’s screen, even if they are not working within the payroll system at the time.”
She says another example of connectedness is that the payroll administrator can check if an ID or bank account is still valid while loading a new employee.
Rob Bothma, industry specialist at NGA Africa, says companies expect the payroll and HR software they are using to be web enabled so that the payroll and HR administrators can access it and manage it from anywhere.
Web enablement also allows employees to access and update their personal information and monitor the progress of their leave applications, instead of having to interact with the payroll or HR departments. These are essential requirements in tenders for new payroll and HR systems today, says Bothma
“If you cannot deliver this functionality then you are not in the game.”
He says at least 70% of companies are still using traditional batch payroll systems, but many of them are interested in being able to allow employees and management to access payroll and HR functionality from anywhere.
“This is a good motivation to implement the latest systems.”
Bothma says companies should also consider that if they put their payroll and HR systems in the cloud they can be accessed from anywhere on a mobile device.
He says there is an increasing trend towards focusing more on human resources as a whole as opposed to just focusing on the payroll function.
“Companies want solutions that will assist them with managing the life cycle of employees from when they are recruited to when they leave their employment.”