There are several economic benefits of making the change to paperless payroll and as more businesses make the transition toward paperless Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, more business owners are searching for the answer to the age-old question "how does this save me money?". So, here are some of the financial benefits of paperless payroll.
Save Money with Modern Payroll
Paperless Payroll carries a significant number of benefits for you and your company. As more and more businesses are getting started with a paperless payroll system, other companies are clamoring to understand how and where it saves employers money.
Arguably the most important of all the benefits of paperless payroll is the financial one.
Companies that go paperless save money on things such as:
- printing costs
- check processing fees
- replacing lost or misplaced checks
Paperless payroll will also save you an equally precious commodity: time. Every business owner has heard the phrase "time is money".
Another huge plus of using paperless payroll is that your selected service will process and retain all data involved, meaning you won’t have to spend countless hours going through heaps of employee earnings and benefits plans.
Instead, your payroll service will cross-reference its collected data with existing employee records and fill in the appropriate tax forms, allowing you to review them from any location.
Finally, a paperless payroll solution will cut out the middleman (e.g., transportation) in many circumstances, thereby furthering your savings. This will free up a large portion of your budget for things like better employee accommodations, which may help seal the deal with some of your more reluctant employees.
Here is a more detailed list of the financial benefits of going paperless.
Customers Want Everything To Be Digital
Customers find paper-based transactions to be slow, unreliable, and inconvenient in this digital age. Customers expect a quick and seamless experience in all aspects, whether it is interacting with your business, transactions, or any other business aspect.
For a business to flourish, it must have a satisfied customer base. Nowadays customers want everything to be digital for reasons like being able to access everything from their mobile phone, tablet, or PC. Businesses not delivering on what customers want and expect from them are putting their brand and business at risk.
Reduced Stationery Costs
For a big business especially, there are a lot of expenses involved with the documents, including the cost of paper, buying a printer, cost of printer ink, and more. By going paperless, a business can cut out a large portion if not that entire expense.
Saves Time & Increases Productivity
In today’s age, time is everything and while dealing with paper documents, your employees and team members spend a lot of time printing, scanning, faxing, and posting documents. Not to mention the documents that they have to look for here and there and chasing documents that have not yet arrived in the post. All of this can lead to huge amounts of hours wasted every year because of document management. However, if you were to go paperless then all of this time would be saved as everything would be done digitally. It will allow you to save time and in this age of timelessness, time is money. Plus, it would also enable you to improve the productivity in your office because your team members would be able to focus on more meaningful tasks instead of getting involved in printing documents, scanning documents, posting documents, etc.
Keep Up With the Competition
Since most of the companies and businesses around the world have made this transition, if you are making this change then you won’t be losing out to your competitors. Your customers would be expecting a paperless and digital approach from you, whether it is for a sales agreement, invoicing, service contract, or any other thing that the customers require. When you will be providing everything digitally to the customers then you won’t have the risk of losing your customers to your competitors since you are providing your customers with everything that they asked for.
Keep Customer Data Safe
By going digital, you are also storing the crucial customer data digitally in the cloud which is actually safer than on a paper document. You can save the document in a safe and secure cloud database where it cannot be accessed by anyone and in this way, the all-important customer data remains secure which affirms the customers that they can count on you.
In the same vein, paperless payroll can help you maintain compliance with things such as the New York Wage Theft Prevention Act.
Help Employees
The employee side of the paperless argument is more singular than the employer’s in that its value lies predominately in inconvenience. However, many employees won’t feel like they have much incentive to choose a paperless check if their record-keeping depends on printed stubs. This is the biggest reason that employers should give their employees a paper check or stub choice when establishing a paperless payroll system.
When it comes to electronic payments, however, employees do have a lot to look forward to. Some of the biggest perks of paperless checks and paystubs include the following:
- Convenience – Your employees won’t need to pick up a physical check, take it to a bank, and deposit it.
- Decreased risk – There’s significantly less potential for lost or stolen checks if your employees’ money simply appears in their accounts on pay day.
- Online record-keeping – Rather than needing to keep their own records, employees will be able to view their payment history with a few clicks.
Final Thoughts on Paperless Payroll
If you’re trying to instate a paperless policy, be sure to emphasize the above benefits of direct deposit and online pay stubs. While some of your older employees may not want to change their ways, you’ll probably pique the interest of the millennials in your workplace.
Businesses looking to make the change to paperless payroll may want to consider seeking help from an HR and payroll provider.
To learn more about how EBC HCM is helping countless businesses get started with paperless payroll, contact us today.
