Human Resources and Payroll Systems Requirements - Essay Example

Name: Institution: Instructor: Date: Report Requirements document and user specifications In a payroll system, the user has to come across the following: Obtaining the identification number of the employer often regarded as the Tax Id of the employer. This number is necessary when checking employee state agencies (Steinhoff). Identifying contractor obligations required when withholding income taxes, Medicare taxes or while paying unemployment taxes. Taking care of the employees’ paperwork. This will ensure that the employer withdraws the appropriate income tax. Deciding the pay period which will encompass distinguishing between bi-monthly or monthly or even weekly. Handling of thee employee compensation time. Entailing tracking employee working hours in addition to business deductibles like retirement benefits and health premium plans (Steinhoff). The choice of a payroll system. This will entail choosing from outsourcing or in-house options. Management of the payroll system. Choosing between individual monitoring or getting an accountant. Getting record keeping ability. This is because various state and federal laws need employees to keep record of tax forms, amounts and dates of tax deposited. Reporting on payroll taxes. These payroll reports on tax are required by appropriate authorities depending on an annual or a quarterly basis. These user requirements gave way to a detailed research and scrutiny of various systems used by a number of business institutions so as to come up with a good payroll system. In-house and commercial packages methodology approach Commercial packages Commercial package software can also be identified as selecting package software and it has an intimidating task. This is because of the way you are supposed to select the package such that you are able to attain the buy-in of the available users of the package and also ensure that you have selected the right one. Some of the main consequences of selecting the wrong package include; there can be a negative impact on the employees’ confidence, the package costing five times as much as its normal cost thus being costly compared to the previous price the project had and also the failure to use the shelf gathering dust thus the software becoming "shelf ware" (Steinhoff). Using R2ISCSM Criteria In order to determine whether a software package is able to certify your needs, it is important to analyze the five key decisive factors. The short form of these decisive factors is R2ISC and they are: Requirement Current - The package ability to meet needs currently found in your business. Requirement Future -The ability of the package to adopt and certify the incoming needs for the business. Implement ability - The simplicity in the package implementation. Supportability - The simplicity in future support of the package (Steinhoff). Cost - the cost incurred in the package ongoing maintenance and its implementation. In-House package Planning - The project is well defined to get a clear picture, requirements should be gathered and then development process is planned. Design - So as to be sure of the in-house delight users applications, influence the design concepts of interface Development - In-house application development and in business application, you eliminate the most from tools. Deployment - Through the application distribution service you establish your own enterprise and within the enterprise you distribute in-house applications. Suitable potential systems Payroll system The payments made to employees and the deductions made from these payments such as taxes are the payroll. However, there is the system which keeps the record of the payments done and also it does the calculations thus ensuring correct entries and it is known as the payroll system. The provider or payroll system you choose should be able to carry out all calculations of the deductions and payments done (Steinhoff). In-house electronic payroll - the payroll software is used to give information in terms of a report on your payroll electronically, keep records for employee in a computer, automatically calculate deductions made and payments made. Outsource your payroll - Payroll bureau or an accountant can be paid as a payroll provider in order to take care of some or even all of the record-keeping, reporting and calculations (Steinhoff). Cost-benefits identified and return on investment Commercial In-house electronic payroll Cost control Familiarity Ownership Reporting without extra cost Employee trust Unplanned Communication Outsourcing payroll system Contingency planning Space saving Disaster recovery Staff saving IT support Recruitment and Maintenance and the provider deals with it The risk Business continuity: in most cases, the systems for in-house payroll have a number of failure single points, and it is mostly found in businesses with less than 1,000 persons. Some businesses are small such that they cannot justify more than one person for managing their payroll hence ends having only one person for its management. However, it turns out to be risky especially when the manager for payroll is not available since they have to wait for him to be on hand. Functional gap of the payroll system and the strategies for addressing this gap In-house computerized payroll The disadvantages of the system include: The software has to be bought and maintained whereby a lot of money is required; there might be a need of payroll staff and this will mean that there should be salaries or wages, benefits and applicable overtime payments for the employed staff which will also depend on the your payroll size; for the security purpose, there might be a need for you to pay a software engineer to computerized the system thus keeping the access to the system for specific employees; lastly, there might be a need for the staff to be trained due to the software complexity and incase of glitches in the system there should be a technical support who are also supposed to be paid. Outsourcing payroll It might be somehow difficulty to recognize a problem encountering the payroll system until the payday since the provider is not on site. In addition, the system does not have personalized support which is provided by a computerized system of in-house. It might be difficult to get an immediate assistance if there many clients to the provider. The employers are expected by the Internal Revenue Service to be responsible for payment errors or federal tax deposit even if they are made by the third party (Steinhoff). Addressing gap One of the employees should be selected to be on-site liaison thus stay crosschecking the work of the provider or double-check it. Payroll system implementation plan -The plan will include: Establishing Payroll type Pay date allocation Establishing time keeping method Training payroll staff Integrating payroll and finance department Organizational impact and issues of management change Payroll persons or full payroll staff can be hired considering the size of the company whereby if it is a matter of one payroll person, the owner can purchase software which is affordable like QuickBooks and if there is a need of staff then the computerized system for in-house is suitable despite its cost. This system can be Ultimate Software. The computerized system for in-house payroll is better than a manual payroll system you are able to access the staff for an onsite payroll (Steinhoff). To avoid problems in payroll, it is advisable to use payroll system which is from external. The method of using this payroll system is greatly increasing and this includes benefits administration, including taxes and outsourcing all the payroll duties you have to a service by payroll. Only a small amount is required for the entire payroll dispensation can be handled under the payroll service thus do away with the payment of a payroll staff benefit and salaries need. It is important to set up pay frequencies and a pay date. For instance, there are hourly workers and the most suitable pay frequencies is biweekly or weekly and for the salaried workers it is suitable to pay them semi-monthly or biweekly. The method to be used in time keeping for example, a time clock, should be well decided since it must be complete and correct. If it is necessary, the payroll staff should be trained about the payroll system. In addition, if the payroll system is complicated, for instance the Ultimate Software for in-house system, it is advisable to hiring expert to educate the payroll staff about the system. There should be a test to the staff members on how to run the payroll before running it at the first time. The test will identify glitches in the system. The finance department and payroll department for the organization should work together. Tax matters and wage reporting are responsibilities for some payroll personnel. All in all, payroll accounting and tax issues are handled in a finance department in some companies and in this case the two departments should be working together very well (Steinhoff). Project timeframe Project research Project Analysis and structuring  Project implementation and testing 1 – 4 Weeks  Data gathering and quantitative hypothesis 2 – 3 Weeks  HRIS meetings and Hypothesis testing 3 – 4 Weeks  Client presentation and implementation Human resource requirements Spending minimum time dealing with paper work. Increasing time spend while enhancing strategic objectives of the organization. Introduction of a single source remedy which offers full employee data automation. Addition of flexibility and control in the payroll process. Achieving consistency and accuracy in an attempt to control risk across the system. Termination of fees given to bureaus enabling first hand payrolls. The members of the HRIS project team of implementation and their role A HRIS (Human Resource Information system) package occupies a group of managers or analysts from the different departments affected in Employee Relations, Payroll, Training, HR, Benefits and many others (Steinhoff). During the preparation of the team on its reviews on HRIS features and evaluation criteria, the employees are able to learn a lot on the values and goals of the different departments. The Benefits department may be after an enrollment process which is more streamlined, the HR department works towards ensuring an improvement in employee data report and the main concern of the payroll is regulatory reporting and the paycheck calculations of the system. The more the team goes further to explain the selection criteria, the members of the organization are able to learn more among themselves and through this way they may be able to realize some outcomes of the messy business processes. An adorable HRIS quotation explains how rotten data can be collected to makeup customer value added support and service making profound difference among human beings (Steinhoff). Key Performance Indicators and Performance roles of the payroll system Cycle time for payroll processing Cycle time for payroll errors to be resolved Disbursement of a certain percentage of payroll that consist of retroactive pay modifications The pay slip overall production cost is average per pay run Percentage of payroll payments which are premature: the number of payments made to employees but too late or are not at all made as a total payments percentage to employees The statutory returns to be submitted in time: the cases where statutory returns are handed in the right time The total percentage of payroll disbursed has payment Percentage of Payroll payments which is manual Cases of filing statutory returns that are accurate: Number of cases in which the statutory returns authorities file is accurate The cost of the systems payroll process as percentage of total cost of the payroll Contractual limitations and obligations Through an agreement, you sign a contract with another identity, whereby a two-way obligation comes in. The contract be an exchange of goods or services whereby you give them to your and in return you are paid (Steinhoff). Both of you are bound by the signed agreement made for the contract and in any case you fail or your partner fails in performing the contract as agreed he has to compensate for the other one. Vendor’s installation and delivery information The delivery of the payroll package will be done through an agent. The agent will have installation and user guide well written for the vendor. The package will be in a compact disk and the user will be entitled to run the compact disk via his or her drive then follow the installation wizard till the finish button appears. Back up service The backup service will be provided through calling number provided in the user guide in addition to an extra software package of the payroll system to be provided in a compact disk so as to aid in recovery in case of data loss. Support and Training Strategy An exclusive and detailed guideline is provided in the user guide with an extra step by step guideline to be provided by the available agent during delivery. The training is scheduled to be not less than one week. (Steinhoff) HRIS monitoring methods Systematic evaluation and monitoring of system plan Identification of needed resources during implementation Prioritization of activities on need and resource availability Dissemination and documentation of evaluation and monitoring activities Coming up with recommendations on evaluation and monitoring activities Deficiency or anomaly identification and correction This payroll package will have inbuilt error identification and correction procedures through employee database query. Error messages will be sent alongside correction measures to correct the anomaly which has occurred. Reference Steinhoff, Jeffrey C. Human Resources and Payroll Systems Requirements: Checklist for Reviewing Systems Under the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. New York: DIANE Publishing, 2000. Read More