Making Work Life Easier: How PayrollHero Helps Different Businesses with All-in-One Features

Posted on January 30, 2024 by payrollhero

If you’re tired of juggling a bunch of tools to manage your team, PayrollHero might just be your new best friend. This all-in-one platform covers everything from timekeeping and scheduling to attendance, HR stuff, payroll, and even leave management. Let’s see how it can make life easier for different types of businesses:

Retail Shops:
- Keep track of everyone’s hours easily, especially with different shifts.
- Make sure you’ve got the right number of staff during busy times.
- No more attendance headaches – it’s all sorted.
Hotels and Restaurants:
- Handle those crazy schedules in the hospitality biz.
- Keep tabs on who’s there when they should be.
- Payroll and leave management that just makes sense for your industry.
Factories and Manufacturers:
- Keep production running smoothly with accurate timekeeping.
- Manage your workforce without breaking a sweat.
- Easy peasy payroll and leave management for your hardworking team.
Healthcare Heroes:
- Make sure you’ve got enough staff on hand when it matters most.
- Stay compliant with all those healthcare rules.
- Payroll and leave? Covered. So you can focus on taking care of others.
Tech Wizards:
- Flexibility for your flexible workforce, including remote work.
- All the HR info you need for your tech-savvy team.
- Payroll and leave management that fits your agile style.
Schools and Colleges:
- Keep track of who’s in class or on duty.
- Organize classes and events without the headache.
- Payroll and leave management that lets you focus on education, not paperwork.

No more piecing together different tools for every little thing. PayrollHero wraps it all up in one neat package, making work life simpler and more organized for everyone. So, whatever your business, give PayrollHero a spin and see how it can make your day-to-day a whole lot smoother!

Wanna see how PayrollHero works? Book a PayrollHero Demo!

Also, check us out on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/PayrollHero/

DBS asks F&B Business – Do you want cashflow with that?

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Stephen Jagger

DBS Bank put out an infographic to help F&B businesses in Singapore “unlock working capital”. They included a few tips and stats.

Interesting stat, “the average Singaporean spends S$1900 a year at hawker centres, restaurants and cafes”.

Are you using “robot cooks, drone waiters and mobile point of sales” services? We know a few restaurants in Singapore pushing technology into their businesses.

Do you want cashflow with that?

What Payroll Period Suits Your Business Best?

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

employees-getting-paid

Payroll periods are generally categorized into 4 types:

Monthly: Payroll is generated and usually paid out on a monthly basis. It occurs 12 times a year
Semi-monthly: Payroll is generated twice a month and paid out either on the 1st and 15th of the month, or 15th and 30th of the month. It occurs 24 times a month.
Bi-weekly: Generated and paid out every two weeks, bi-weekly payroll sounds a lot like semi-monthly but runs 26 times a year. We’ll go through the differences further into the post.
Weekly: Payroll is generated and paid out once a week, leading to 52 cycles a year.

Type of Business

Why are there so many different payroll periods? Depending on the type of business, employees and employers find it easier to keep tabs on over time, social security contributions and erratic work schedules if the payroll period is shorter than the usual one month period.

Generally, as a business owner or a payroll head at your business, you generate reports monthly so it seems practical to generate payroll on a monthly basis. However, this may not be suitable to employees, especially in the construction, F&B or retail business where work is valued on an hourly basis.

Type of Employees

Frequency of payroll depends on the type of employees in your business. Usually, full time employees are open to monthly salaries because they have a stable income.

However, part time workers with erratic schedules prefer a shorter pay period so they can manage their finances better. Since hourly workers are most prevalent in industries like F&B, retail and BPOs, markets that we work with very closely, we know that employees favour biweekly or even weekly pay in order to stabilize their finances.

For example, if an employee works 50 hours one week and 10 the next, she might want to be paid weekly in order to cushion the next week’s dip in work.

Costs of Generating Payroll

As a business owner, you also need to track how much it costs to pay all your employees, Many payroll vendors charge on the frequency of payroll generation, in which case, monthly payroll makes sense. But, if the costs are not too high, it may be prudent to generate payroll more often.

It is easier to calculate over time over a shorter pay period. You are less likely to make mistakes. Another cost that is important to look into is the opportunity cost of calculating social security deductions more frequently.

Usually, contributions are calculated monthly, so it is definitely a hassle breaking it down to a semi-monthly, bi-weekly or weekly basis. The most error-prone would be bi-weekly, with 26 weeks to account for where payroll may be generated twice or even thrice a month.

Finally, the frequency of payroll generation depends on a set of factors: the share of employees working part time versus full time, the costs of generating payroll and the kind of business that you own.

Weighing the costs and benefits and communicating with employees on what suits them best are the first steps to take before settling on a pay period. Do let us know what kind of pay period has worked best for your business!

4 Tips on Financial Practices for Business Owners

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

Financial-Practices-PayrollHero

As a new business owner, it can be tough to figure out what you need to prioritize to generate revenue and profits. If you are a chef owning a restaurant for the first time, and with no business experience, this can be a lot harder.

Luckily, we have some tips for you to refer to when it comes to dealing with finances. So let’s dig in!

1. Product costing

This is essential because you cannot run a business in a sustainable manner without knowing what your products cost. You need a break down of what each product is made up of and how much it costs to get it from your suppliers. This includes material, labour and overheads.

With the information about costs, you need to find your breakeven point: where revenue covers all costs (Revenue – Costs = 0). This is the minimum revenue you need to run the business.

2. Maintain a record of expenses

This is a good practice that is easier said than done. All too often, we start the year enthusiastically, taking not of expenses and filing them meticulously to find ourselves a month later struggling to keep up with our expense records.

It is easier with some help. Apps like Expensify or Mint help you keep track of your accounts, expenses and income. If you are a small business owner, these apps are a good place to start.

Of course, as you grow bigger, you will have to move to accounting software that can keep up with the growth of your business.

3. Understand your seasonal cashflows

This is imperative if you own a retail store or a restaurant. It ties back to points one and two. During the year, your sales will not be static. It will depend on factors like when people get their wages or special festivals and holidays. Sales could change on a monthly, or quarterly basis.

Most seasonal changes are calculated quarterly. This is important to monitor because you will have to manage inventory accordingly. It also helps in setting prices based on expected demand.

4. Inventory management

Like we mentioned in the previous point, seasonality affects inventory. A small business owner should keep close track of inventory in relation to seasonality because inventory costs can run up to exorbitant amounts despite the fact that it can be managed.

TradeGecko is an app that can help you with that. The cool thing about this app is that it gives you real time data on your phone. You can access your inventory data from anywhere in the world with a few clicks.

Whether you are in Singapore, the Philippines or anywhere in the world, these tips are important to know as a business owner. Keep in mind that delegating traditional business practices to apps is a great idea because it frees up time for you to focus on your core business.

Also, keeping up with technology doesn’t just make you efficient, it prepares you for the inevitable conversion to tech-based apps that all business will have to make at some point.

Time Management Secrets for Busy Business Owners

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

time-hacks-for-busy-CEOs-PayrollHero

As the owner of a restaurant, retail business or startup, your priority is to move your business forward every single day.

Running your own business is different from working for a company because the line between professional and personal life is blurred. In this case, it is essential that you make the best use of your time and we have a few tips to get you started!

Cut down on meetings

Meetings can often be directionless and unreasonably lengthy. You may find yourself spending an entire day running from one meeting to the next and ending the day having done nothing significant at all. Whether the meetings are with your subordinates, potential clients or investors, it’s worth pressing the pause button, going through the goals for the meeting and deciding whether they warrant a meeting at all.

Meetings with your subordinates might occur too often, with no significant change in the status of their work. Meetings with clients may involve work that can be done on your own time. It’s important to cut these meetings down if most of the time is spent going back and forth on decisions that have already been made.

A good way to do this is to outline the goals of the meeting beforehand and go back to these goals at the end of the meetings and check if they have been met.

Going through emails

Through the day, you’re bound to get emails from friends, family, business partners, advertisers, clients and others. Keeping up with emails is one of the most time consuming tasks of the day. But this can be simplified.

There are a bunch of apps that help you. Gmail has a priority inbox folder that sifts through your mail and categorizes them for you. SaneBox is another app that cleans up your inbox so you focus on communicating with important people instead of missing out on their emails under all that spam.

Whatever you choose, make sure you are on top of it over the first few weeks as you get used to how the app prioritizes your mail.

Another important point on emails is to prioritize your replies. If your reply requires only two minutes, you should do so immediately. It saves time by preventing you to archive emails that really just require two minutes of your time.

If an email requires more time for you to think over your reply, you should move it to a whole new folder (maybe create a Priority Replies folder). This marks down the emails you need to go over again before you choose to reply.

Building a playbook

When you’re doing a task multiple times, you can write down the task step by step in a Google Doc and standardize the process. This makes it easier to delegate the task to someone else so that you can focus on more urgent matters.

Many CEOs and managers recommend creating a playbook because standardizing the task saves time, makes it fool proof and works as a guide for future reference. We do it at PayrollHero too and it helps getting new hires up to speed with how we work through tasks.

Advising your team

Many managers propose engaging with their team on a regular basis to find out what they need. They say that walking through your office and stopping by your employee’s table and asking them questions about their day really builds morale and productivity. Some of the questions you can ask are:

What roadblocks are you facing today?
How can I remove some of the roadblocks for you?
What resources would help you move faster?

All these questions help the employee focus on moving forward by identifying barriers and removing them. By paying attention to your employees’ roadblocks, you can gauge what you can do to help them be more productive.

Altogether, these steps are simple to implement and quick to produce results. You should be able to free up you time to prioritize on core business activities that you can make the biggest impact on.

Hope this helps, and let us know if you have time-saving secrets that you would like to add on!

Restaurant Executive: Ben Lee, CEO of Sarnies

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Stephen Jagger

In 2015 we started doing interviews with restaurant, retail and BPO entrepreneurs to learn more about their businesses, how they make decisions and what’s next for them. These interviews have been quite a success and we plan to continue them into 2016.

First up this year is Ben Lee, the CEO of Sarnies.

“Started a few years ago by Aussie Ben Lee, Sarnies is a pumpin’ little café located in the bustling CBD. Here at Sarnies, we are passionate about our products and their quality. Grass fed beef; chicken free from hormones and antibiotics; bacon cured in-house – all so that you’re guaranteed a fantastic meal every time.

‘Sarnies’ may be slang for sandwich, but we’re much more than that. We serve up hearty breakfasts; gourmet sandwiches; massive salads, homemade bakery treats and a damn good cuppa.” (sarniescafe.com)

Sarnies Coffee

1. Where are you from and what brought you Singapore?
I am originally from Australia and was brought here via a job in my previous life working in a bank.

2. How many restaurants do you currently run?
Four in Singapore with four soon to be opened in Malaysia and one soon to be opened in Thailand.

3. Which one was the first?
Sarnies Cafe on Telok Ayer Street (136 Telok Ayer Street Singapore 068601)

4. What do you like about doing business in Singapore?
For me its a good mix of familiarity and new opportunities to discover. It has been a great entry into Asia for us.

5. What are the challenges for doing business in Singapore?
The tightest labour market in all of history.

6. What advice would you give a business person moving into Singapore, that you wish you knew before moving to the country?
Given it’s the lowest barrier to entry of any city in Asia, competition is fierce in the restaurant game. There’s a lot of good stuff here.

7. How do you choose locations for your businesses?
We go for busy working areas where people don’t have to move very far to get their coffee. And the smaller the footprint the better to keep the rental low.

Continue reading →

Embrace Technology, Grow Your Business

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

At PayrollHero, we are always pushing for a tech enabled world for our clients. There are plenty of good things that come out of automating processes in your restaurant or retail business.

To name a few: it’s more efficient and saves time, which means there is a higher turnover of customers; there is less room for error; business owners spend less on manpower so overall costs go down.

All around the world we see a preference towards adopting technology. On one hand, it is because minimum wages are expected to rise (like in the US) while on the other hand, a shortage of labour supply is forcing business owners to adopt technology (like in Japan or Singapore).

All in all, the shift towards automation is inevitable. We thought it would be helpful to give you some tips on how to stay ahead of the curve.

Apps, apps, apps

We can’t stress on this enough. There is an app for everything today. Here is a non-exhaustive list on everything that you can safely outsource to an app:

Point of Sale Systems: Square is the most famous POS system. It works worldwide, which makes it easier for you to monitor sales if you run businesses in multiple countries
Loyalty apps: We’ve talked about Perx before. Loyalty apps help in bringing in more customers and increase foot traffic in your store.
Reservations: Chope is the rockstar of reservations in Southeast Asia. The Asian version of OpenTable runs in Hong Kong, Singapore and other countries in the regions, making it the perfect vendor for booking reservations in your restaurant.
Inventory Management: Another Southeast Asian favourite, Trade Gecko is your go-to app for managing inventory. With a clean and user-friendly interface, it takes very little for a business owner to realize that inventory management is a nightmare that is solved deftly by Trade Gecko.
Food Delivery: FoodPanda takes care of delivering food to your customers, while Slurp is another POS system that helps customers order food remotely. Slurp helps you take orders but doesn’t deliver food itself.

We have a whole other blogpost devoted towards these apps. You can check it out here.

Revamping the menu

Laminated menu cards are a thing of the past. Restaurants like Fish and Co. use tablets for their menus. With a few taps, your customer’s order goes straight to the kitchen. Tablet menus prevent errors in ordering. It is also much easier to change menus on a tablet than to print new menus each time you want to add a dish or change prices.

Feedback systems

Does that little device look familiar to you? You have probably seen that at airports all over the world. For a feedback system, this one is pretty elementary but it does the trick. One look at it, and your immediate response would be to click on the button that reflects what you feel. It’s an instantaneous feedback loop that can be used by almost any business.

Food bloggers

This one is more of a marketing idea. While it is not really about automating your restaurant, it is about using technology to get your business out there. Tourist destinations, like Singapore, are big on food blogs for suggestions to restaurants.

Some of the famous bloggers have a huge following on Facebook and Instagram. The idea is to get these food bloggers to write a review on your restaurant and let social media take care of the rest. Of course, you need to be confident about getting a solid review!

We hope these ideas encourage you to embrace technology. There is no downside to adopting tech while the upside will result in cost minimization and big returns for your business. Let us know if you have any more suggestions!

Marketing your Restaurant in Singapore

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

pablo (26) Singapore is a fairly saturated market when it comes to the restaurant industry. With high turnover of employees and ever increasing rates for rental space, there are a lot of things that restaurant owners need to worry about. We think that getting your restaurant’s name out to the masses should not be one of them. We’ve got you some easy tips to throw your restaurant into the limelight in Singapore.

Social Media is Everything

If you haven’t figured that out by now, you should get on that ASAP (right after you read this, of course). Singapore loves its apps – social media tops the list on go-to apps. While many restaurants are available on social media platforms, they make the mistake of “simply existing” on Facebook instead of actually creating a social media footprint. It is not enough to sign up to Twitter, follow a bunch of celebrities and change passwords every once in a while. You would rather be proactive and take charge of your restaurant’s image than let the masses do it for you when they realize you are not responding to them, right? For example, Changi Airport is a social media rock star. Their Facebook page is super interactive; Changi responds directly with any customer who writes a good or bad review on their page. Their most recent Star Wars campaign was hugely successful partly because of how well they marketed it on Facebook and other social media channels.

Campaigning on Instagram

There are a number of ways you can expand your social media footprint. For restaurants, there are some obvious channels that can give you bang for buck. For example, apps like Instagram and Pinterest suit restaurants very well because pictures tease the visual senses of your viewers. Trust me, nothing is more powerful than a chocolate lava cake on Instagram. You can have an Instagram campaign with your very own hashtag so you can track your popularity better.

Loyalty Apps

Singapore loves discounts (who doesn’t, really). Loyalty apps – number 2 on Singapore’s favourite type of apps – allow you to get rid of loyalty cards and offer promotions directly through the app. All you need is an iPad to display the QR code for your customers to scan. Your promotions get featured on the app and are sure to increase foot traffic in your restaurant.

Partnerships with companies that deliver food

Instead of allocating resources towards home delivery, you can outsource that to one of the many food delivery companies in Singapore. This has two benefits: Firstly you do not need to worry about the myriad of responsibilities that come with maintaining the resources for delivering food: vehicles, manpower, operating costs, etc. Your food delivery company will take care of it. Secondly, and this is more relevant to bringing your company some recognition, these companies feature you on their website or app. You will be reaching out to a customer base that is beyond your delivery radius with minimal effort.

Sponsorship with universities

This one is for restaurants that are around universities, colleges and schools and want to attract the young crowd. Many restaurants team up with organisations in school to provide welfare drives to students during exams. The concept is to give a little before you receive a lot. Students are always looking for new places to eat around their universities. They are also the most reliable demographic when it comes to word of mouth. Once a student finds a reasonably priced, good place to eat, you can be sure she will bring a whole team of hungry customers the next time around. All it takes is to sponsor a welfare drive and provide some free goodies or meals to students. The returns are guaranteed.

Finally, all these ideas work together in a market that is as tech loving as Singapore. Collaborating and reaching out through apps is definitely the way to go. We hope these ideas help you find your place in Singapore! Let us know about any new ideas that have worked for you!

Top 5 Dim Sum Restaurants in Singapore

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Pragya Gupta

We love our dim sums and just can’t get enough of it. There are plenty of dim sum restaurants in Singapore – ranging from the hawker center style setting, to the Michelin star outlet.

In this post we bring to you, in no particular order, our Top 5 Dim Sum Choices in Singapore:

Tim Ho Wan

(Credits to www.ladyironchef.com for the photo)

This Hong Kong based franchise’s char siew buns (BBQ pork buns) are to die for. While technically the original Hong Kong outlet was awarded a Michelin star, the Singaporean outlets live up to the name, as proved by the long waiting lines during lunch and dinner.

Perhaps the most affordable Michelin star restaurant chain, Tim Ho Wan serves a limited menu that covers the must-try dishes that any dim sum restaurant should have.

Pro-tip: For a quick and delicious THW experience, you could take-away the char siew buns for $4.50 for three pieces. Some BBQ pork buns while watching TV on your new Netflix account? Couldn’t ask for more….

Victor’s Kitchen

From the Michelin star restaurant to the hawker styled superstar: Victor’s Kitchen has featured in newspapers for years as one of Singapore’s best dim sum restaurants. The little restaurant is tucked away in Sunshine Plaza on Bencoolen Street but the waiting time during lunch hours can go up to an hour long.

Perhaps the best time to visit this place is around 3pm. The golden salted egg yolk lava bun wins hands down as the best dish on the menu.

Hua Ting Restaurant

Hua Ting is another favourite restaurant in Singapore. Reservations typically need to be made two days in advance. The baked mango with chicken tart is a popular dish along with the salted egg yolk lave buns. Hua Ting is slightly more expensive than Tim Ho Wan and Victor’s Kitchen, but certainly makes up for it with flavour.

Yi Dian Xin

Since we’ve covered salted egg yolks pretty comprehensively, let’s talk about some of the other popular dim sum dishes that Yi Dian Xin can boast about. The Xiao Long Bau (dim sum filled with soup) for $3 is worth a try for its delicious soup. Yi Dian Xin is an affordable option that give you value for money when it comes to taste

Peach Garden

(Credits to www.tripadvisor.com for this photo)

Peach Garden is a great place for family dinners or business lunches. There are many outlets around Singapore. The restaurant is not traditionally Chinese, but a mix of Cantonese and Thai, which makes it a unique option in our list. Aside from great dim sums, Peach Garden also serves a delicious carrot cake in XO sauce. The high tea dim sum buffet is a must.

The best dim sum in the city is not restricted to a hawker center or a fancy restaurant. You can find a setting that tickles your fancy and you are sure to find great food that comes along with it.

Watch out for more Top 5 Suggestions from PayrollHero. We would love to hear more about where you get your dim sum fix!

9 Ways to Promote Your Restaurant in the Philippines 2016 Edition

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Nix Eniego

Promoting and growing a restaurant business is easier said than done.

On top of the day-to-day operations of running a restaurant, the actual marketing and getting the word out is also a crucial part of growing the business.

PayrollHero understands the challenges and pain points of restaurant owners. Managing an entire restaurant and keeping not just customers, but also employees, is a lot of work to do. So we’re doing our best to help out and give something back for restaurant owners in the Philippines.

We’ve prepared an infographic on how to promote your restaurant in the Philippines. It’s easy to do, and most importantly, you can take action today!

9 Ways to Promote Your Restaurant in the Philippines

These tips may be just what you need to put your restaurant over the top this 2016.

If you’re a restaurant owner in the Philippines, you can share this with your marketing team or do the dirty work yourself. Eventually, your marketing efforts will pay off and you’ll see an increase in foot traffic to your restaurant.

BONUS: Here’s one restaurant in the Philippines who is nailing it on Social Media. Try and implement the same things to your business and sooner or later you’ll see results.

Keep it locked in on our blog as we offer more and more business tips for your growing your restaurant in 2016. So if you still haven’t, sign up below to be part of our weekly newsletter to get awesome updates delivered straight to your inbox!

If you want to chat about how else you can improve your restaurant processes, such as your HR and payroll, feel free to get in touch with us here: www.payrollhero.ph.