Top 3 Toughest Aspects of Payroll in Singapore

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

Assuming Payroll

Often times, companies generate payroll and pay out an entire month’s wages to an employee before the month has ended. We call this assuming payroll. This is how it works: If payroll is generated an the 25th and paid out on the 27th, the manager pays the full month’s wages, up till the 31st, assuming that the employee will make it to work on the last few days. If he doesn’t, the manager needs to deduct his wage in the next month

Assuming payroll is an inefficient and inaccurate way of paying employees. We’ve come across many business owners who do it in Singapore. Most of the time, it’s because they have been doing it for years and have never thought about changing the rule. We help our clients transition from assuming payroll to regular payroll which saves clients money and time. Here is a blog post on exactly how to transition from assuming to regular payroll.

Irregular Clock-in Timings

When an employee clocks in at 8.57am instead of 9.00am, the biometric device records it to the exact minute. Your HR manager needs to manually correct the irregularity because coming in 3 minutes early does not mean that the employee will get paid for those extra three minutes.

The PayrollHero app has a threshold feature that solves this problem. An HR manager can set a threshold: if an employee clocks in between 8.55am and 9.05am, their clock-in time resets to 9.00am, automatically correcting the irregularity that your HR manager would have had to deal with otherwise.

Disparate Systems for Time, Attendance, Scheduling and Payroll

payrollhero-benefits-features Business owners have multiple systems that deal with different HR problems; a biometric device to measure clock ins, a separate Excel sheet that imports data from the biometric device and generates payroll, another Excel sheet that needs to be updated every week with schedules for each employee and a whole other system that employees use to apply for leave. With so many systems to deal with, no wonder an HR manager barely has any time to engage with employees or find innovative ways to overcome Singapore’s labor crunch.

An end-to-end solution that removes any need for multiple devices is exactly what an HR manager needs. PayrollHero allows employees to click selfies on their phone or an iPad in the work site when they clock in. This data is stored in the Cloud and used when payroll is generate by the system. The same app is used when applying for leave or checking schedules for the week. An HR manager can use the app on his laptop, phone or any device with internet connection anywhere in the world and have full control over what is going on at his work site.

While these problems are seen as some of HR managers’ biggest in Singapore, they are faced by managers in the Philippines and pretty much any other place too. Some of the other problems HR managers need to deal with are changing tax laws, a labor crunch and laws against foreign workers in the country.

We hope that this post serves as a solution to some of your biggest HR problems. Do let us know your biggest HR problem and how you are currently dealing with it.

Time Management Redefined

Beyond the #selfie clock ins, facial recognition, leave management feature, and many more, what PayrollHero wants more than anything is to give you back the time you lose from outdated time, attendance, and payroll methods.

One of our clients, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Philippines, shared their experience on how PayrollHero makes their payroll processes faster and more efficient.

Here’s a snippet from CBTL’s CEO Walden Chu:

“We wanted a payroll solution that was cloud based and built for the Philippine business environment, PayrollHero was exactly what we were looking for and took our payroll processing time for 700 employees from 16 days to 5 minutes” – Walden Chu, CEO, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Philippines

WATCH: Walden Chu’s Testimonial on How PayrollHero Helps Their Business

16 days to 5 minutes.

That’s 144 working hours (or more, due to OT) brought down to just 5 minutes. I don’t know about you, but that’s A LOT of time saved.

Walden-Chu-PayrollHero-Testimonial

And that’s not all… The time that our ridiculously efficient product saves results into a world of other benefits for businesses.

Time Saved Results to Happier Employees

Because time, attendance, and payroll becomes easier to do, employees who act as primary stewards of these processes are taken a huge load off of their shoulders.

It’s not a secret that HR staff, payroll administrators, and accounting / finance employees are the ones that are most affected by the hassles of traditional payroll processes.

With PayrollHero, these employees can relax and focus on other important aspects of their work such as recruiting and employee engagement (for HR), and internal audit / accounting for those in Finance.

The system was not made to replace these employees, but rather, to help them become more efficient and less stressed with the rigours of traditional payroll. A more streamlined, easy, and hassle-free payroll solution can make these employees less stressed and happier at work.

Happy Employees are Good for Business

It has long been proven that happy employees are the best brand ambassadors you can ever have.

The happier your employees are, the more energized and motivated they are to work; and those little things eventually add up. Your customers will notice how happy and engaged your employees are, and this in return, causes them to love your brand even more.

Word of mouth referral goes a long way in growing your business. So the happier your employees are, the more customers you will attract. It’s a domino effect that you can take advantage of.

Beyond Business

Of course, making employees happy isn’t just done to boost your profits. As an employer, it’s important to always put a premium to your employees’ happiness.

With PayrollHero’s selfie clock in, we are able to help your employees start the work day with a smile.

Check out this video of how employees clock in and out of work using PayrollHero’s TeamClock App:

Not only do employees start the work day with a smile, they also clock out happily as they get ready to come home to their loved ones.

The overall mood of employees skyrocket, and because of this, their personal lives improve as well.

Right Person. Right Place. Right Time.

Not only does PayrollHero save you time; we also save you money.

Biometrics and time cards for time and attendance can be tricky. For one, it can easily be gamed by dishonest employees. There’s the case of buddy punching and ghost employees that is pretty much prevalent in the Philippines.

Take a look at how much money you can lose just because of buddy punching:

buddy-punching-PayrollHero

Even if you only have 1 buddy punching employee (which is very unlikely), you’ll be losing P4,000 a year! Now, in most cases, for companies with a very unreliable time and attendance process, buddy punching is more common.

If you had 500 employees, and 10 of them are regular buddy punchers, you could lose as much as P40,000 a year.

With PayrollHero, you are LITERALLY free from buddy punchers because our system makes sure that the right person clocks in at the right place, at the right time.

You can learn more about Selfies vs Biometrics in this post.

Time to Make a Change

If you’ve made it this far down, then I can only assume that you are considering PayrollHero for your business. Whether you are running a restaurant in the Philippines, or a retail store in Singapore; or even any business in Asia, there’s just so much PayrollHero can offer for you.

Handling time, attendance, and payroll for your business will never be the same once you go for PayrollHero.

It’s time to make a positive change for your business. Let us help you save money, and most importantly, save precious time for you and your employees.

If this is something that you’re interested in, we’d love to chat with you. You can contact us at sales@payrollhero.com or visit any of our websites: Philippines, Singapore, Global, to learn more.

Biometrics VS Selfies – Which is Best for Your Business?

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

selfie-biometrics-PayrollHero

Restaurants and retails stores usually generate payroll by multiplying their employees’ hourly rate with the number of hours worked by each employee.

The number of hours worked is measured by a time sheet that employees punch in, a biometric device or (if you’re one of our awesome clients) the PayrollHero app that lets your employees take selfies to clock in and out.

We get a lot of questions about why businesses should change from biometrics to anything else. Some say that the biometrics system is already ideal… that it’s fast and accurate. While all of this might be true, we have a strong argument for why biometrics may not be the best option for your business.

The PayrollHero app – an all in one solution

Biometric devices work as a standalone system. You need to get a whole new software for processing information from the device and integrating it into the software that calculates attendance. Often, you need another system to monitor scheduling, manage leaves and generate payroll.

On the other hand, PayrollHero’s TeamClock / MyClock app records all the information you need to know about your employee on the cloud. It is an end-to-end solution that relieves you of the hassle of integrating multiple systems together.

The only device you will ever need is either of the following: iPad, smartphone (Android or iOS), or a computer (PC or Mac). PayrollHero’s apps are compatible with these devices so you are assured to have a streamlined process from start to finish.

Wear and tear

The biometric device is subject to wear and tear. If you have hundreds of employees using a couple of biometric devices, you are more likely to face this issue. However, MyClock or TeamClock are is accessed within an iPad / smartphone (or computer), which is less likely to undergo the kind of wear and tear that biometric devices are prone to.

Software updates

The PayrollHero app updates from time to time to give the user a better experience and introduce new features (for example, we have just introduced leave management! Check it out). The app is always improving and finding ways to make time and attendance easier for businesses, whereas the biometric device can only go so far in it capabilities.

There are other issues with the biometric device too. Biometric devices lead to manual calculations when there are minor infractions where employees come just a couple of minutes early or late.

We handle this problem by implementing thresholds within which these infractions are excused. This frees up time for your HR manager to do more important things, like finding the best talent for your company and managing employee relations.

Altogether, the biometric device may be faster in recording clock ins, but the time wasted by the HR manager in fixing the inefficiencies in the device is far more.

So if you’re ready to let go of your biometric device and embrace the selfie clock in, contact us at sales@payrollhero.com or visit our website to learn more.

3 Dissatisfactions With Traditional Retail Punch Clock Systems

Posted on May 4, 2015 by

Getting Ridiculously Client Focused!

As part of getting to know PayrollHero and our clients we decided that it was time for me get out of the office and do some “hallway testing” with Singapore retailers. At PayrollHero the team is constantly talking about “getting out of the office”, “hallway testing” and “being ridiculously client focused”. Today, it was my turn.

Getting to know our customer segment in Singapore is important as we continue to get our product out there. We want to know what these retail businesses do for time, attendance, scheduling and payroll. And we really want to get to the bottom of the pains store managers have with their current system.

I set out to speak to outlet or store managers of F&B businesses around the Ocean Financial Center @ Raffles Place.

A lot of Pain!

Indeed! My conversations revealed that out of 6 outlet managers I spoke with today, all of them mentioned dissatisfaction with their current time clock systems for time and attendance.

Here’s why:

The Biometric System (Thumbprint Scanners)

Using this system to clock in and out at the workplace seem to be the most common with majority (4 of 6) of the outlet managers I spoke with today. They revealed that they have been using the biometric systems for employees clocking in and out at work, and are not happy about it. A manager at a salad outlet says that it is an ‘imperfect system’ because the system itself is inaccurate. This comment is also shared with a manager of a bakery chain; who complained that the system sometimes don’t read the thumbprint accurately and records the time down for the wrong employee.Frustrating? Yes! The same outlet manager adds on saying that at times system reads as ‘absent’ as the employee clocks in.
The Punch Card Machine
The major problem one manager at a sushi outlet has with the attendance system is that the punch machine always broken down. In the days it takes for the machine to get fixed, he has to make time to manually clocking in and out his workers on an excel spreadsheet.Security is another concern with punch card machines. The time sheets are collected, then sent to the HR department for payroll processing via post or using a delivery person. What happens if the mail goes missing? All the data on the time sheets is not backed up on a system.
Point-of-Sale (POS) System
This POS system gives employees a 4-digit code to use over the register to clock in and out of work. So what’s the issue? Well, for an outlet manager of a smoothie chain store here at Raffles Place, she is unhappy that she has to do double work – where she will manually keys in the clock in and out data of each employee again on a different system at the end of each week for payroll.She hopes she has a system that connects the time and attendance with payroll to save time!

The Take- Away

This test has revealed to me that plenty of time can be saved if redundancies and “double-work” for the purpose of verification are eliminated. Managers are delighted to work more productively if they had a system that could shorten the process for time and attendance at the outlet and worry less about payroll.

Want to learn more about PayrollHero?

Check out our Singapore Payroll Software website or attend our next event on May 14th 2015.

Singapore Payroll Software | PayrollHero

Posted on May 4, 2015 by

If you have ever worked in human resources and admin, you would know what a pain payroll management can be!

Inflated time sheets, overtime and time-off.

How do you calculate the 43 odd minutes an employee has been showing up for work late for the past 2 weeks? Or the minutes they left work too early? How do you add up the tax on commissions earned for the past week? These are just the beginning of your troubles.

What about tracking down which employees have had their teammate clock in for them? And the hassle of going after those who do not submit their time sheets at all!

No More Timesheets!

The days where you would spend hours racking your brain computing payroll into an outdated software or excel spreadsheets are gone. This is where PayrollHero saves the day!

PayrollHero is a cloud-based HR and payroll management software that tracks time, attendance and scheduling for businesses of any size. #payrollhero_sg

And you would be so grateful: employees are happy to clock in and out of work in seconds. The Selfie TeamClock uses the employee’s face as the biometric for clocking in and out. Say goodbye to misaligned timestamps and impossible-to-read handwriting.

The system ensures that employees are really at their workstation or desks on time as the software computes, tracks and reports to optimise payroll management. Just enter all the information you need, like: employee records, roster schedule, hourly rate, per diems, benefits, CPF and other tax calculations. PayrollHero will assist you with set up from start to finish.

Eliminate Fraud!

PayrollHero takes care of annoying time-in problems with a nifty innovation: facial recognition technology.

To clock in and out at work, employees just need to take a picture of themselves at their workstation. They can use this on their laptop or desktop, iOS and Android devices.

PayrollHero system will match the photo to the employee records and track their time against the correct schedule and GPS location, to make sure that the person is at the right place and the right time.

Sure, you’re thinking that any thumbprint and other biometric systems can achieve the same results. But that requires additional employee information and thumb/ palm scanners. Here, all you need is a camera.

Share the Load!

Each employee is responsible for their own hours, and the app is designed to inform them if they are late, early, undertime or over. They can view their schedule and record using the WebApp or #MyClock app on iOS.

All the information is stored in the cloud and updated in real time, anywhere. So, the manager getting to an offsite meeting can still check-in to see what’s happening at the office at any time on the phone.

When it’s time to run the payroll, the system computes everything down to the last minute. All the payroll administrator needs to do is review and approve the payroll.

Runs On Any Device

PayrollHero does not require you to purchase any new hardware or expensive licenses. The system works great on your existing hardware: desktop, laptop, iOS and Android devices.

PayrollHero for Singapore Businesses

The PayrollHero Team has made the app awesome for Singapore businesses. The app is now localised and updated to fit Singapore payroll requirements including: Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) taxes on employee remuneration, CPF employer contributions and deductions, bonuses, contributions to community funds (MDMF, SINDA, CDAC), Foreign Worker Levy and others.

We Are Doing It Right!

We are excited to launch our amazing product in Singapore. Having enjoyed success in the Philippines, the market here poses as a friendly challenge.

“ We are much more than just payroll. We are what we like to call ‘ridiculously client focused,’ and that means working to ensure HR and payroll professionals have the tools they need to do their jobs better […] Our focus is on the much bigger picture of helping clients utilize our platform to run their businesses better.” -Steve Jagger, Co-Founder PayrollHero.com

Happy clients in Singapore!

We are off to a great start with a few big brand names already using PayrollHero.

singapore payroll clients

Check Us Out!

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Did you know PayrollHero can qualify for Singapore’s Spring Innovation & Capability Voucher (ICV) – Integrated Solutions (IS). (Read More)

Why Choose the TeamClock iOS over a Punch Clock or BioMetrics?

Posted on November 29, 2014 by Stephen Jagger

We put together an infographic and a new page on our website that showcases the value us using PayrollHero’s TeamClock iOS versus traditional punch clocks, biometrics or even Android. While our platform does work on Android, the experience is better on an iOS device. Check out the page and let us know what you think.

PayrollHero TeamClock Infographic (compare) from PayrollHero

Category Archives: Biometrics