'No more juggling systems': Automated payroll tech solves cross-border headaches

“More and more companies are looking beyond Canada for talent in order to be competitive and to stay competitive,” Alex Goncalves, Managing Director at Rippling Canada, told CHHR. “We’re seeing Rippling Canada customers hiring all over the place – whether that’s the US, the UK, Europe, Asia, you name it. However, going global brings a bunch of headaches with local laws.

“Payroll tools that understand these issues can really save the day when it comes to automating [functions] such as compliance, allowing companies to run payroll for everyone no matter where they are. That means no more juggling different systems or getting buried in compliance checklists – we bring it all together under one umbrella. That allows the HR and finance teams to ditch the busy work and actually focus on what's important – such as strategy and finding great people for the business.”

‘Each country has its own unique tax laws and regulations’

For HR teams, managing payroll systems across multiple tax jurisdictions is a massive bone of contention. Not only is the process complicated it’s incredibly time consuming, leaving HR leaders with less hours to spend on more important tasks. With the help of automated systems leaders can rest easy knowing they’re legally compliant and free to focus on the essentials.

“Each country has its own unique tax laws and regulations,” added Goncalves. “And without a global platform, HR professionals are navigating in the dark, so to speak, to try and comply with these very diverse requirements.”

This, as Goncalves told CHHR, often involves multiple pay runs across different platforms that could take upwards of 30 hours per pay cycle. What’s more, the manual process is prone to errors and mistakes - which can lead to very costly financial penalties and legal compliance risks for companies with international employees. This is where the power of tech comes in – or, more specifically, artificial intelligence.

“Automation really is here to stay – it’s going to be around for forever,” explained Goncalves. “And there’s many ways the tech can help [organizations] in terms of compliance and ensuring accuracy.”

For Goncalves, the first benefit of utilizing an automated payroll system is the tech’s ability to automate calculations – something that often falls victim to human error.

“[It’s about] being able to automatically calculate wages, taxes, overtime, benefits and deductions on the most current regulations in all of these different jurisdictions with employee specific data – that eliminates manual entry errors which can happen throughout the  payroll life cycle.”

Another perk of automation in payroll is its ability to flag and detect hidden errors, anomalies and discrepancies in the data. “For example, [that could be] double payments or incorrect tax withholdings or missing information by comparing inputs with historical data,” added Goncalves.

‘Automated reporting is going to be a real differentiator for payroll platforms’

The final, and arguably most impressive, asset of implementing a fully automated payroll system is its role in tax compliance - with Goncalves explaining that these sorts of platforms are programmed to stay current with local, state and federal tax regulations making it seamless in remaining compliant wherever your people are based.

“[It’s all about those] preventative measures being very accurate,” he added. “When you're able to train these different systems through machine learning they're able to be as accurate as possible based on whatever today's laws are.

“Automated reporting is going to be a real differentiator for payroll platforms. We’re going into the future [with] a platform that's built for the modern age, as opposed to legacy ones that exist today. [And that’s] going to make everybody a lot better. It's going to elevate the way businesses operate internally today.”