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

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/

Is Your HR Team Prepared for 2017?

If you are planning on making changes to your HR and payroll tools then now is the time. Many companies still use Excel, paper and pen, or outdated software to complete their payroll each and every period.

Starting the calendar year fresh on a new platform that helps to automate your monthly reports, year end compliance and provides easy to use analytics is the way to go.

Here is how PayrollHero can help your business for 2017;

Singapore Companies ??

Philippine Companies ??

PayrollHero’s powered time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS, leave management and payroll platform is essential for todays growing business. Contact us to learn more.

2017

Singapore Payroll Management

Successful payroll management in Singapore requires proper systems and procedures to ensure accuracy and timeliness. Employees expect to be paid accurately and on time each and every pay period.

The main component to accurate payroll is accurate time and attendance. If the data going in for payroll computation is not accurate then the payroll calculations will not be accurate.

Singapore Payroll Management

What constitutes a complete payroll management system

  1. Accurate time and attendance collection
  2. Up to date HRIS (Human Resources Information System)
  3. Accurate payroll software with up to date tax code data
  4. Online, accurate vacation leave management
  5. Detailed payslips
  6. Bank files and Government reports

What constitutes salary

According to the Employment Act of Singapore salary refers to remuneration, including allowances, paid for work done under a contract of service.

It does not include:

  • The value of accommodation, utilities or other amenities.
  • Pension or provident fund contribution paid by the employer.
  • Travelling allowance.
  • Payments for expenses incurred during work.
  • Gratuity payable on discharge or retirement.
  • Retrenchment benefits.

Remember, Singapore does not have a minimum wage. Your salary is subject to negotiation and agreement between your employer and you or your trade union.

Want to learn more about how PayrollHero can help your Singapore business with their time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS, business intelligence, leave management and payroll? Contact us!

Top 3 Toughest Aspects of Payroll in Singapore

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 Optimizing Work Productivity with Happinessneeds 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-featuresBusiness 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.

 

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

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?

5 Hiring Tips for SMEs in Singapore

hiring-tips-for-SMEs-payrollhero

Why Take Your Time Before Hiring

Since small businesses share a lot of work among fewer people, the stakes are higher. Business owners need to take their time and figure out who they are looking for before hiring.

Not only, does it risk handing responsibility too someone who is not ready for it, it could become a financial burden as well. Even without severance pay or lawsuits, firing someone is an expense. You would much rather spend that time and money creating a thorough and fool-proof recruiting process.

If you’re an SME in Singapore, we have a 5 actionable tips for you:

1. Make a List of Tasks That Need to be Done

write-a-list-hiring-payrollhero

As a business owner, you might be taking up more than your share of work to keep things moving forward. It is a good idea to write down the tasks that fall by the wayside because you are focusing on the next most important thing. Go through the list and figure out if tasks can be pooled together to make a new job position. This also makes it easier to write an accurate job description while posting your ad on job boards.

2. Sell the Uniqueness of Your Business 

Big companies have a strong brand name to sell the position. This makes it easier for them to attract talent. They can offer higher pay and better benefits than a small company could.

SMEs in Singapore will naturally find it harder to create attractive job positions with that kind of competition which is why you have to showcase what makes you special.

Business owners need to find a new angle to attract top talent. This could be in the form of perks like working from home, flexible schedules and more autonomy. Free lunches and a Kindle book monthly stipend are simple perks that can attract millennial employees.

These are just a few of many ideas that can make working at a small company look attractive.

unicorn-unique-business-payrollhero

– What makes you unique — like a unicorn!

Remember, a small business can make decisions faster, is more agile and less bound by rules and regulations. These are attributes that business owners should rally behind in order to attract talent.

Find your ‘unicorn’ quality and sell it to job applicants!

3. Training

An important way to ensure that your new hires stay in the company is to spend time and money on training them. Either a written manual or a program over a few days where the new hires interact with people in the company will help the new hire understand the way things work and align expectations with reality.

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It would be best if this were done before solidifying the position. The mantra “Hire slow, fire fast” may be useful for small business.

4. Learn from your Competition

competitor-payrollhero

Your competitors are in the same boat as you. Try and learn from the way they sell the same position your are hiring for. Fresh ideas are always welcome, even from your competitors. Don’t forget that this includes multiple platforms: newspapers, online job boards, LinkedIn, everything.

You should be on top of all sources of media to learn from other companies on how they are hiring top talent.

5. Don’t Stop Searching for New Hires

handshake-payrollhero-hiring

Always stay on the lookout, even if you are not actively looking to fill a position. It’s always great to hire people who show spectacular skills or drive to work. You will be able to find work for them or at least keep their resumes with you so that you can pull them out later, when you really need to fill a position. Staying on the lookout also keeps you updated on what the hiring scene looks like at any point of time.

The most important thing to remember for SMEs trying to hire talent is that the cost of hiring and then firing an employee is too high to go through the process multiple times. It makes sense to spend time, develop a program and go through the recruiting process deliberately in order to be efficient.

If you want to learn more awesome tips to help your business, feel free to subscribe below. Get fresh tips weekly, straight to your inbox!

What Payroll Period Suits Your Business Best?

employees-getting-paid

Payroll periods are generally categorized into 4 types:

  1. Monthly: Payroll is generated and usually paid out on a monthly basis. It occurs 12 times a year
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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!

29 Ways To Grow Your Singapore Business

singapore-grow-business-payrollhero

2016 is a ‘leap year’, meaning you get ONE extra day, February 29th, to grow your business in Singapore.

We’ve done the hard part and listed down 29 ways on how to grow your business in Singapore. You can grab your kopi and take down some notes because this is going to be a bit lengthy!

Let’s get started, shall we?

29 Growth Tips for Your Business in Singapore

#1 Take Social Media Seriously

Having a dormant Facebook account for your business, and an egg account on Twitter won’t cut it.

2016 is the year where Social Media is evolving at such a rapid state that if you still aren’t taking it seriously, you will be very much left behind.

We’ve written about how you can leverage social media to grow your business this 2016 to help you get started.

If you’re running a restaurant or retail store, now’s the best time to establish a presence on Social Media. The best platforms to use for restaurants and retail businesses is Facebook and Instagram.

Set up your accounts if you haven’t already, and check out our blog post to help you establish strong social media presence in Singapore.

#2 Embrace Technology

technology-payrollhero

Tech can be intimidating, especially for non-millennials. But it can’t be denied just how much technology makes everything easier for your business.

READ: Embrace Technology, Grow Your Business

Imagine going from manually sending emails one by one to automating everythingusing tools like MailChimp. Or sharing worksheets easily with teammates usingGoogle Sheets rather than using Excel – saving the doc – sending an email to your colleague – editing the doc – sending back to you. 

There are so many ways for you to get ahead and embrace technology. We’ll be discussing them in more detail in other items.

#3 Leverage Customer Reviews

Whether you’re running a restaurant in Singapore, a hotel, retail store, or a startup, one thing that you can’t ever have enough of is positive customer reviews.

For restaurants in Singapore, HungryGoWhere is one of the top platforms you want to have positive reviews. Yelp is also another platform you must have a strong presence.

More than that, you should consider giving incentives to your customers to write a positive review on these sites. Ask them to share their experience online, so that when others view your restaurant in the app, they’ll be more enticed to dine at your place.

For hotels, the same works with Agoda, TripAdvisor, and similar sites.

#4 Know Your Numbers

If you’re not the type of business owner who is a certified Math Wiz, then I’m sure you’ll agree that sometimes keeping everything organized ‘numbers-wise’ can be quite tricky.

But for your business to truly take off to the next level, you must know your numbers. Whether it is your internal stats like Google Analytics for your website, or your financial numbers (sales, costs, etc.) you have to be on top of it.

Here’s a quick guide to get you started.

#5 Better Inventory Management

sample-dashboard-of-tradegecko

Sample Dashboard of TradeGecko

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.

It’s highly important that you monitor your inventory because being prepared is always best for business. It might not seem like a powerful way to grow your business, but sometimes even the dirty work that you don’t love to do is key to get ahead.

#6 Cut Down on Meetings

Another quick growth hack for your business is to clearly evaluate the time spent on meetings. Here’s an excerpt from one of our earlier blog posts:

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.

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.

The more time you save on dodging or cutting down irrelevant meetings, the more time you have to actually do things that scale to grow your business.

Read here for more ‘time management hacks’ for business owners.

#6 Keep Your Employees Happy

PayrollHero Singapore Payroll Team

One of the biggest business secrets in the world is also the most obvious.

Happy Employees = Good for Business

That’s one simple equation that can literally make or break your business. Virgin’s CEO Richard Branson seems to agree.

And because we love you, we’ve made a quick guide to help you crack the formula in making your employees happy. Check it out!

#7 Learn from your Peers

The best way to scale your business is to learn from others who’ve done it. You can achieve this by reading articles from influencers in your space.

Medium is a really nice platform where you can find articles that is related to your industry.

If you want to get started right now, we’ve compiled a list of 16 Entrepreneur Interviews that can give you inspiration and further knowledge to grow your business.

#8 Build a Website for your Business (skip to #9 if you have one)

Did you know that even a completely fake business that has a nice looking website looks more legit than a REAL business that has no website.

Seriously — read this story on how a completely fake business that had no product / real service attracted ready-to-pay customers.

That’s how powerful having an online presence is nowadays. People are more likely to trust a business that has a website and active social media pages than a brand that has no online presence.

So if you’re one of those who still don’t have a website for your business, it’s about time you get one built.

You can head over to Upwork or find a local freelancer if you want to outsource everything. You can find really talented people who are willing to work at an affordable rate.

Go get your website done now!

#9 Build an E-Mail List

Now that you have a website, it’s time to use it to generate more SALES for your business.

Have you checked your email inbox lately and saw tons of emails from a bunch of fashion brands or some restaurants you like? You’re getting their newsletter and promotional emails because at some point in time, you signed up to their email list.

Believe it or not, these businesses are generating a lot of revenue via email marketing — and the best part is that you too can join in on the fun!

You don’t need technical skills to have it set up on your website. Just signup with SumoMe, a free suite of tools that can help you get more emails. It’s 100% free to use, but for more power, you can always upgrade to their PRO version.

With SumoMe, you can start building email up your email lists. You can set up a Welcome Mat just like one of the few that we use in one of our PayrollHero websites.

Here’s a sample:

sumome-tools-by-payrollhero

There are more variations that you can use to collect more emails using SumoMe. Once you’ve built up a list, you can then send strategic emails to market your product and drive more sales.

#10 Start A/B Testing

Okay… now this is a term that isn’t usually thrown around in brick and mortar businesses. It’s much more common in the tech space, but that doesn’t mean you can’t A/B test in your business.

Before we go deeper, here’s a quick snippet on what A/B Testing means.

ab-testing-payrollhero

Yeah, it says ‘web page’. But A/B testing can be done in literally anything you can imagine.

You can A/B test your restaurant menu, your window display, your Customer Support replies on Twitter; the list goes on!

The objective of doing an A/B testing is to make a data driven decision to grow your business. Whether it’s to generate more sales, or to improve how you treat your customers, the main objective is to get the best possible iteration and stick with it.

If you’ve been using the same menu in your restaurant for years, you can start mixing it up and put out new menus. Just distribute a few pieces and observe how your customers react to it. You can conduct a survey on what they think of your new menu to give you more context.

Obviously, the more data you can get, the better. But you can start testing out small things, and eventually you’ll be able to appreciate what it can do to boost your business.

#11 Use Slack

Slack-logo

Here @ PayrollHero, we use a ton of tools at work. Aside from email, one of our main communication tools is Slack.

If you haven’t heard of it, check out their website to learn more. But basically, Slack is a communication platform where you and your team can start conversations, share files easily, and host meetings. The true power of Slack though is through it’s various integrations.

You can have a bunch of tools integrated with Slack to help streamline many of your day to day business processes. Here’s a short article on how we use Slack at work to give you a better idea.

If you’re thinking that Slack may not be a fit for your business, then let me tell you that I’ve personally seen a local barbershop using Slack. I was surprised at first, then I realized that it’s just a really powerful tool that allows businesses that operate in multiple work locations to be able to communicate and work together.

Try it out and improve your team’s productivity!

#12 Run Social Media Contests

Remember Tip #1? If you’ve invested enough time building your brand pages and community on Social Media, you can start giving back to your fans.

Who doesn’t want a freebie? Everyone does, and social media platforms are the perfect venues to hold a contest. If you’re kinda on the fence about social media contests, these statistics from Hubspot prove that contests are a huge boost to customer engagement and carving out a loyal following:

  • Contests can increase new audiences by 34 percent on average
  • A third of entrants don’t mind receiving email updates from participating brands
  • Running your contest on mobile increases the number of entrants by eight times
  • Sweepstakes (e.g. Instant Win apps) is the most effective way to hold a contest if your goal is to increase fan base (entrants can turn into subscribers) while photo contests work best if you wish to boost customer engagement.

By and large, a social media contest can provide you with these two game-changing benefits:

  • Whether you get 50 or 500 entries, contests will generate buzz and drive people to your restaurant’s social media page.
  • Once you have this people’s attention, you can collect valuable data (such as email addresses for future newsletters or mobile phone numbers for weekly special reminders) from the entries. Be careful not ask for too many details though.

Running social media contests for your business is a great way to boost your following, increase brand awareness, and attract more customers to your store. You should definitely try it!

READ: Here’s One Cebu Restaurant Who Is Nailing It On Social Media

#13 Organize / Attend Meetups

Meetup_Logo_2015

A quick way to attract more customers to your business is by networking.

Events such as conferences, industry meetups or seminars is a great avenue for you to meet other people and network.

By building relationships with likeminded individuals, you’ll be able to share experiences with each other and learn new strategies to growing a business. You can even take things a notch by collaborating with other business owners in launching cross-branding promos and the like.

A good way to get started is by downloading Meetup. It’s an app that helps you connect with groups / individuals in your space. You’ll be able to attend regular ‘meetups’ and meet new people in the process.

#14 Give, Give, Give, for FREE

In the words of the very successful entrepreneur / marketer Gary Vaynerchuk, you have to ‘Jab, jab, jab, right hook’.

This means that as a business, you have to give, give, give, before you ask. Giving away something valuable for free can go a long way in building customer loyalty. You can’t expect customers to just buy from you all the time if you don’t provide them value.

For restaurants / hotels, this could mean giving out discount coupons, or better yet, giving away free accommodation or a romantic dinner for two. If you can build excitement and give back to your customers, you’ll definitely get some positive reviews online and the word will spread quickly.

And when people start talking about your business in a positive light, you’ll be attracting more and more customers.

So yes — don’t be afraid to give out something for free because you’ll reap the rewards later on.

NOTE: We’re practitioners of this concept, which is why we always do our best to create valuable content and tools that we give away to our valued readers forFREE.

You can check out our Restaurant Knowledge Kit here, and our Service Charge tool here. All yours for FREE!

#15 Exercise Regularly

Seriously.

A study shows that entrepreneurs who exercise regularly are more likely to be successful. So don’t take it for granted and start allocating 30 minutes up to an hour a day for exercise.

You can hit the gym, or take a 30 minute swim; whichever you prefer. The healthier you are, the better decisions you make at work.

#16 Use Snapchat

snapchat

Snapchat is one of the fastest rising social media apps of all time. It hasn’t reached Facebook’s level in Singapore yet, but Snapchat is trending upwards quickly.

Snapchat users are primarily teens up to 26 years old. If your business is targeting this age range, then you should be making efforts to market your business on Snapchat.

This trending app isn’t widely used by brands yet, so you have a chance to be one of the top pioneers of Snapchat marketing in Singapore. It’s definitely worth a try.

#17 Attract Top Employees

If you want to grow your business in Singapore, then you definitely need a huge dose of talent to help you get there.

We made a blog post on how to attract top employees for your business. Be sure to check it out and apply some of the tips when you start hiring people.

#18 Ask your Employees for Advice

Ha! Why would a manager do that? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

Social psychologist and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Robert Cialdini offers one seemingly counterintuitive yet effective suggestion to making your employees like you: Ask them for advice. This could range from personal advice like book recommendations to professional advice such as asking their opinion about social media platforms that they deem are ideal for your digital marketing campaign.

By and large, this gives the impression that you, as a manager, value their opinions. Bonus points if you follow their advice and update them that you’ve done one of their suggestions!

#19 Business Cards – Give and Receive

It’s 2016 and yes, business cards are still a thing. Although there are now apps that can house business cards in the cloud, the act of giving and receiving physical business cardsare still appreciated by entrepreneurs / execs.

The idea of business cards stem from networking. Building relationships is still a very important part of growing a business. You can’t expect to take off and grow at a rapid scale without having built strong business relationships along the way.

Image from – http://www.cardfaves.com

Image from – http://www.cardfaves.com

Now… how exactly can this help you? First, you have to make sure that you have a healthy stock of them.

Next, make sure your employees have business cards too!

They have lives outside of work — they go out for drinks and meet people. Wouldn’t you want them to hand out a business card with YOUR LOGO and YOUR BUSINESS NAME to new people they meet? It could open up a door of possible opportunities for your business.

Isn’t that much better than just having yourself do the networking for you?

We’ve prepped up a nice little guide to help you make your business card stand out.

#20 Empower Your Employees

There’s no better brand ambassador for your business than your employees. Make sure that they are heard and empowered in your company.

Motivate them, understand them, and hear them out. Sometimes employees aren’t as engaged and focused because they don’t feel that you trust them or they’re not being given a chance to showcase their skills.

READ: 3 Reasons Why Employees Get Bored

The best you can do is to talk to them and motivate them. Ask them what you can do for them.

Once you know what’s on your employees’ mind, you can then help them reach their full potential. Sometimes, growing your business should start from within.

#21 More Days Off 

landing-stage-sea-holiday-vacation

This applies for both you and your employees.

Now, before the pitchforks start coming in, understand that in order for you to be at your best, you also need to unwind and relax a bit.

You can’t keep up the 24/7 grind and not burn out. The same goes for your employees.

So if you want to grow your business this year, you MUST take vacations.

You can even organize a company-wide retreat so you and your employees can bond, relax, and clear their minds. After that, you can expect a more vibrant and rejuvenated team that’s ready to work harder than ever!

VIDEO: PayrollHero Leave Management in Action

#22 Sponsor Events

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Depending on what industry you’re in, you might want to consider hopping into Events Marketing.

There are more and more rave parties and events happening almost every day. There are beach parties, club parties, you name it.

Being a sponsor in one of these events can give your brand huge exposure from potential customers. Not only that, you can also generate sales in these events because most event organizers will allow you to put up your own stall in the event venue or play your marketing video in front of thousands of attendees.

You can easily recoup whatever amount you spent to get into the event just on on-the-ground sales alone. And after the event? You can expect more prospects checking out your page / website thanks to the exposure you got.

#23 Maintain a Record of Expenses

As mentioned in tip #4, you can’t grow your business if you don’t know your numbers. This is why it’s very important to maintain a record of your expenses.

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.

#24 Join the Conversation on Twitter

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Twitter is a great platform to learn more about your customers. If you use it right, you can really take advantage of its powerful search tool.

You can join any conversation on your space and attract potential customers.

Imagine an angry customer of Restaurant X. The angry customer didn’t enjoy the super expensive burger he ate. Now, as a burger chain yourself, you can then hop right in and tweet the said angry customer — offer him a free burger if he visits your store on the same day.

Doing that not isn’t only good for publicity… You can also potentially earn a loyal customer for life!

That’s just one way of using Twitter for growing your business. We’ll go deeper into this in future blog posts.

#25 Use Chat Apps for Customer Support

It’s 2016, and by now you should be more accessible to your customers more than ever.

People naturally hate waiting, so a displeased customer isn’t too happy waiting for an answer to their concerns via email.

A good way to make your business more accessible to customers is by using Chat apps. You can either set up a Zopim chat box on your website, or use Facebook Messenger so that customers can chat with you in real-time.

If you don’t really have staff who can man the Chat account 24/7, you can use Twitter instead.

#26 Automate Your Internal Processes

If there’s anything at all that your company is still doing manually, it may be time to reevaluate your processes.

Thanks to technology, a lot of internal processes can now be streamlined and automated. So if there’s still something in your business that takes up too much manual labor, such as doing payroll, it’s best to outsource it or simply use a service to make your life easier.

payrollhero-cool-logoPayrollHero offers a complete end-to-end solution to your time, attendance, HR, and payroll processes. We help businesses grow by giving them back one of the most important assets they have.

#27 Trimming the Fat

No, I’m not urging you to lose weight…

What I mean is that you should start re-evaluating your company from top to bottom. This doesn’t mean you have to fire your employees left and right. What you should be doing is really taking time to look into the different challenges that your employees are facing.

Are some of them doing work that they’re not supposed to do? Should you be cutting down on a few tasks that can easily be outsourced? Is there someone who is unhappy in your organization? 

You have to wear the HR hat and clean things up because there might be something going on internally that is hindering your company from getting to the next level.

#28 Incorporate Great Graphics using Canva

For your business to stand out this year, you need to produce more visually appealing content.

Thanks to Canva, you don’t need elite photoshop skills or a Graphic Designer on your payroll to produce high quality and visually appealing images.

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Canva in action.

As you can see in the image above, there are lots of free templates to choose from. You can also upload your own image, and add your own caption with tons of fonts to choose from.

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Here’s me adding a caption to an image I uploaded. It’s simple and easy, you can do it in less than 5 minutes!

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And the best part is that all of that is 100% FREE. Canva does offer a paid business version if you want to take things up a notch, so do check out their website for more details.

 #29 Take Action

Reading through this blog post won’t get you anywhere unless you take action.

One bad habit of people is that we tend to consume too much content, but get lost in the shuffle at some point. We either don’t follow through and take action, or we simply forget it altogether.

Now for you to truly grow your business in Singapore, you must learn how to act fast and take action. This doesn’t just apply to following the tips laid out in this article, but moreso in making business decisions.

You have to be decisive, smart, and ready to get your feet wet. The only thing that’s standing between you and success is not taking action.

So go out there and take that leap you need to help your business grow! 

Okay, that’s the last pun I promise!


Please tell us your thoughts on this! We’d love to hear from you.

Good luck with your business and may you make the most out of this 1 extra day of 2016!

4 Tips on Financial Practices for Business Owners

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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.

More Than Just a Payroll Solution

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If you’re reading this, you’re probably aware that we are a time, attendance, and payroll solution that meets your company’s needs. That’s true.

But let’s move away from that for a while and let’s look deeper into what PayrollHero truly is.

You see, PayrollHero is a cool app that lets you clock in to work with a selfie, and generate payroll with just a few clicks. That’s one of our biggest selling points, and one of the biggest reasons why our clients love us.

But that’s not why our product is genuinely enjoyed by some of the best companies in the Philippines and Singapore.

The real reason why our product is valuable to your business is because we save you time.

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.

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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:

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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.

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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.