WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO OUTSOURCE YOUR PAYROLL?

Imagine this, you have spent lots of money and time training your in-house payroll team, only to find come January they are resigning and moving on. The very thought of having to re-train a new employee on extremely confidential matters may send you running for this hills, however, this should also be the catalyst for you to reach for the phone and get in touch with an outsourcing payroll company that will suit your needs and give you peace of mind.

So when is the best time of the year to reach for that phone to make that one call that could save you a lot of hassle? While is the no best time of the year to outsource, we at Propay Partners generally recommend our potential clients to go live no later than January to have a clean slate of the new calendar year and segregation of responsibility for year-to-date task. January is suitably the best time to go live with your payroll which will give you a clean start to not only your payroll but also your taxes since the cut off for the tax year is December. Based on this, you should be locking down your preferred outsourcing partner latest by September of the previous calendar year.

Once you have locked down your choice, in October, we will start with the implementation. This simply means a data migration and configuration to study your payroll policies to enable us to migrate your data into our system. By November, the system should be ready for a test run and ironing out any crinkles the system may present. The final part of the system test will be in December, where we will do a parallel run con-currently to match the results and to be sure nothing is amiss. And by January, your payroll is ready to go live, which should start you off in the new year with a peace of mind. A few factor to take into consideration when deciding to outsource, is the readiness of your resources. Depending on the size of your company, 2 to 4 months is the time window allotted to go live.

In general, the best time to consider the outsourcing option is when you find it difficult to host your payroll service, or if you have experienced substantial problems. As a decision maker you need to ask yourself, how much is your time worth? Do you really need to spend your time tending to the payroll needs of your company or would your time be better spent doing what you do best – growing your business. When outsourcing your payroll you are assured at least 5 things – time saved, money saved in the long run, enhanced security, compliance with government regulations and the expertise of professionals.

Through various case studies through our 16 years experience, we have found that as a company expands into international waters, their payroll needs undoubtedly becomes more challenging by the sheer force of understanding new requirements and new compliance obligations. This will unequivocally place an even greater burden on payroll managers in meeting compliance regulations.

In the extremely competitive business world that it is today, companies take outsourcing seriously as it is fast becoming a necessity than a choice. For those who feel that outsourcing comes with risks or low-quality standards stand to lose out on critical results and industrial foothold. Outsourcing has become an imperative need for businesses not only in the way they transfer operational responsibilities but, with the deepening of ties, are also obliged to build better partnerships with vendors for the journey ahead.

Manish Mehta

Co-Founder of Propay Partners

Manish is a frequent contributor for New Straits Times, SME Magazine, The Edge and others. He has also spoken at seminars organised by the ASEAN Strategic Leadership Institute, Marcus Events and was also interviewed by Business FM radio station.

Passionate, energetic and soft-spoken, Manish is well-loved by colleagues within and outside the company for his highly systematic and process-driven work. Under his leadership, Propay Partners has grown in leaps and bounds and continues to expand in the ASEAN region.