Page 102 - Essentials of Payroll: Management and Accounting

Payr oll Best Practices
for transmission only the most recent version.This is a boon to the pay-
roll staff, who might otherwise receive old forms that do not contain
key information, thus requiring them to contact employees to gather the
missing data, or even forcing employees to resubmit their requests on the
current forms.

In addition,the system can automatically send along an extra instruc-
tion sheet with each distributed form so that employees can easily fill out
forms without having to call the payroll staff for assistance.
An automated fax-back system can be expensive, so you should
determine all costs before beginning an implementation. The system
includes a separate file server linked to one or more phone lines (for
receiving touch-tone phone requests, as well as for sending out forms to

recipient fax machines), plus a scanner for digitizing payroll forms. The
best way to justify these added costs when servicing a large number of
employees is that the system saves a large amount of staff time.Without
enough employees to justify costs, the system should not be installed.
Be sure to leave enough time in the implementation schedule to
review the variety of fax-back systems on the market prior to making
a purchase, as well as for configuring the system and testing it with
employees. If the system has an option for document requests both by
phone and computer, then implement one at a time to ensure that each

variation is properly set up.

Cost:
Installation time:

Give Employees Direct Access to Deduction Data

A major task for the payroll staff is to meet with employees to go over the
effect of any deduction changes they wish to make,calculate the changes,
and enter them into the payroll database.This can be a particularly time-

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