Today, organizations struggle to accurately calculate payroll. These calculations often require a lengthy legal and financial understanding of the country in which the employees are located. For example, Singapore is known for having convoluted unique salary calculation processes. A perfect storm of payroll processes and government regulators combine to make accurate payroll calculations an exciting aspect of the global mobility journey, especially for company chiefs and top revenue personnel working part-time in Singapore or overseas. Thus, you will need an efficient payroll service in Singapore. To learn more about national or expatriate payroll management in Singapore, one must assess the assistance offered by havebite guru Accountants.
Making timely, accurate, and compliant payroll calculations in Singapore is a complex task given the country’s unique salary calculation processes. As a result, payroll processes are an important part of many organizations’ operational efforts, especially given that the country is home to many international companies with expatriates and combinations of local and foreign employees that present challenges for payroll managers. Accounting experts help organizations with payroll management, particularly in areas where tax regulations change often and differ for local and foreign employees. To help local and foreign companies navigate the plethora of payroll management options, Accace Singapore has written this article to provide information on payroll process management, the differences between local and foreign payroll calculations, and a comparison of companies that manage payrolls in Singapore. The companies were chosen based on their national and international representation, completeness of service within the market, and their approach to expatriate payroll management.
Understanding Payroll Services in Singapore
One-Stop Solution for Payroll Outsourcing? Just Payroll Services. The number of payroll service providers in Singapore who specialize in payroll is diverse. There is no single size that fits all. What works for some businesses may not work for others. Some service providers provide a one-stop solution. This means that aside from paying for and reconciling the paperwork, they provide everything under a single contract. The time that could have been better employed for businesses on other core activities will be saved. Some payroll outsourcing companies offer add-ons. Their services are more streamlined. This is because they are able to concentrate and focus on the need to target services for payroll by managing only 1) the reports for the Central Provident Fund (“CPF”) and the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore 2) – 3) if just pure-out payroll 4) and the payroll – payslips. Of course, clutch and support of the leading industry solutions one can offer. This solution has the perks of also being cost-effective. Committing to only a few core services will reduce the overheads, although future growth and the need for custom reporting may necessitate the need for add-ons. Typically, their main business is not the provision of payroll services, but the selling of the factoring into the service solutions – time attendance, leave management systems, or apps that will drive the usage requirements.
Businesses looking for payroll services to manage their payroll transactions have a plethora of options to choose from. Some are integrated with other solutions, and some offer a wider range of powerful human resource and talent management, while others focus only on payroll processing services. Starting from the government statutory reports and requests, while offering and processing the actual payroll and payslips, time attendance systems, and leave management to online appraisals to employee self-service portals. A widely recognized bottleneck in many businesses is the payroll services. To achieve compliance with legislative requirements accurately and on time, many companies will require support from the experts who understand the requirements. What are the different types of payroll services offered? How are all the different facets of payroll managed by clients paying for and reconciled through the paperwork? What is the total cost of paying for online payroll services? Service providers and their offerings in the market are a detailed and comprehensive insight into Singapore.
Benefits of Outsourcing Payroll
In general terms, companies outsource their payroll obligations to third parties where a third party costs Singapore Employment and Employee taxes (including those relating to Ministerial concessions) through the self-assessment procedure. The Employment Act imposes onerous obligations on the employer for lodging personal tax within specific time frames; given the ease the PAYE system operates, current payroll providers may manage these obligations on the company’s behalf and already lodge and pay them to the employer. Essentially, each period’s third party has already submitted their report to IRAS but have not paid the client company’s share of taxes. With this, the employer goes on to the global tax expense for their employer’s share, which equals the wage disbursement. Finally, tax as per the Payazines, Bluegreen on them should also include the total salary truly paid and form the net positive settlement for the relevant line item CMP for additional assistance.
The scramble to outsource payroll is part of Singapore’s ongoing phenomenon of business process outsourcing, where companies are looking to non-core services as areas for cost-savings and, most importantly, better quality delivery from experts. While in larger corporations, outsourcing payroll could be driven by a number of other aspects, from a case completion and efficiency viewpoint, cost efficiency is a major factor, particularly in the SME arena where maintaining a productive workforce is an overhead and an enterprise cannot afford their people to be bound performing activities and not focused on their primary objectives. The discussion and benefits in this section refer mainly to Singapore Payroll Services. Depending on the risks Singapore Payroll Outsourcing Services presents a further cost-benefit; primarily there is a perception of risk but also a mental cost which can put organizations off payroll goals, potentially pushing them up to discover cost savings with South Asia Opportunities. In theory, the mental might not be employed, as unpacking the financier costs of a local engagement should go some way to assess the savings; we can understand and trust the aspects on the costs.
Key Considerations for Choosing a Payroll Service Provider
Similarly, Singapore-based companies must pay local salaries and taxes because they rely on platforms that distribute multi-function web-based payroll applications that contain human resources and attendance data in a single platform. However, if you have a short-term strategy, if most employees need personal assistance, or if you have specific local legal conditions, you may not be ready for payroll cloud services.
There is one challenge that often occurs in starting cloud computing for companies. Although your question is “Is Payroll one of the entrances to cloud computing?”, the fact is that there is no definite answer because it depends on several factors, such as the size of your company, the current departments and strategies. As a general rule, you can think that outsourcing in the cloud is a good approach. Becoming a company with distributed operations allows employers to focus more time and resources on their core business and not worry about day-to-day maintenance of service maintenance, support, and hardware costs.
Previously, we had a briefing where we talked to companies and discovered their compensation and bonus guidelines. In summary, companies rated “security of the solution” as the first key factor and “quick response to clerical errors” as the second key factor in selecting payroll service providers. Respondents also evaluated as important “immediate response for troubleshooting” based on the feedback that small problems occurred frequently.
Companies need a very efficient payroll system. Not only from a business standpoint, it is a legal requirement to remit employees’ wages. To a Singaporean employee, the timely payment of the salary is one of the important factors of job satisfaction. Therefore, companies have to quickly adopt payroll systems and focus on the current HR team’s responsibilities.
Exploring Payroll Service Providers in Singapore
Explanations for the relatively high costs usually involve the complexity of the services and the added layers of optional services; it is difficult to pinpoint the actual costs. Companies could be drastically overpaying for services they do not need. To find a suitable digital payroll service provider, interested companies must contact each of them in turn, request information, and discuss the payroll needs of their organization to obtain offers customized to their exacting specifications. Further complications ensue when comparing offers, comparing multiple providers, then deciding. This approach becomes tedious, but it is necessary to reach an agreement with one provider. If the company does not reach an agreement, the organization repeats the process with another provider, and so on. Determining the total cost in Singapore could serve as a reference cost for digital payroll services, especially for small companies, in other countries.
Navigating the landscape of payroll services Singapore is quite straightforward owing to the abundance of existing platforms. Firms have plenty of options at their disposal when choosing how to organize their payroll. One of these options is to establish in-house facilities, but experts advise small companies against this method. Instead, firms with no more than 25 employees should consider employing digital payroll services, which are not only easy to use for novices but also pose low security risks. According to a cost breakdown intended for this group of companies, the costs in Singapore for digital payroll services range from S$10 to S$100 per month, depending on the number of employees and the services offered.
Top Payroll Service Providers in Singapore
ADP: The mission of Automatic Data Processing, Inc., ADP directly reported 2019 revenue of 14 billion USD. ADP offers end-to-end services in payroll, human resources, time and attendance, and benefits administration to enable smarter decision making across the spectrum. The company extends guidance over a multi-country operation with comparative controls and computing power that is backed by a heritage of industry innovation and a service culture deeply entrenched. At ADP, each client’s unique strategic goals are front and center of the organization, constantly aligning with them as well as watching out for subsequent business mandates. Security of the highest level is maintained to secure the trust of patrons while outsourcing data to ADP. Twenty years of guarding critical customer data has become amongst the gold standards in corporate environments. How ADP guards your information sets the company apart. In addition to payroll services, ADP customers also invest in time and attendance, human resources talent, benefits administration, and business intelligence.
Features and Pricing Comparison
The included services are as follows: Funding Societies, JustLogin, Kaka, Payboy, Payjo, PayrollServe, Sleek, Swingvy, and Talenox. Most of these services provide core functionalities such as statutory computation and compliance, payslip distribution, leave management, and payroll-related reports standard in their paid plans. Only Kaka offers National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) Membership, JustLogin, Payboy, Kaka, and Sleek offer Named Payroll Specialist, Swingvy offers Employee Payroll Account and Payroll Training, and Talenox offers IT Support. However, these services differ with their other features such as notable/maximum auto-generated payslips, relevant statutory submissions, permissions levels, entity currencies, and planned pay runs, which are not standardized across the services based on information posted at the time of comparison. While the prices shown are from the pricing information available when this comparison table was drafted, prices are subject to change following this table’s publication. Similarly, while services use consistent pricing in Singapore dollars, Funding Societies, Kaka, Payboy, Sleek, and Talenox are incorporated in Singapore but may have branches operating in other countries.
This comparison is intended to help you compare and shortlist suitable payroll services quickly. These services tend to compete in the SME segment, so for that reason, we consider only their major features and prices pertinent to this segment in the table. To keep the number of rows to a manageable level, we only included the paid plans with announced features and prices, excluding additional charges (e.g. extra employee or module fees), Trial Plans, the F&B-focused payroll services (i.e. G payroll or We Payroll), non-smartphone-based mobile payroll services (e.g. JustLogin Mobile), and the Payroll/Benefits providers who prefer not to disclose their prices online (e.g. Talenox, Xero, and Highfive and is removed by the authors) for comparison purposes.
Client Reviews and Testimonials
If they are not operating as expected, you will probably see something about them here. Do remember, though, that reviews only showcase a small part of the picture – the dissatisfied reviews. Happy clients often quietly accept good service and do not bother with returning it. In most cases, the reviews you see are only on the fringe. If your provider has mostly good reviews, it means something. The same is true if they have mostly bad reviews. If the good reviews dominate the bad ones, you can accept the provider. If the bad reviews always have an upper hand, it is safer to steer clear. When reading reviews, do take note of the response from the organizations if available. Do their responses make sense and resonate with what you would expect from a good provider? You can also seek references directly from the provider. While it is impossible for a business to give you names of unsatisfied clients, the Internet often can, even if they simply let their service agreement lapse or not mention their provider. Do not follow negative feedback from the provider’s side blindly. There are also clever identity management techniques these days that could easily skew online reviews both positively and negatively. Referencing is always the best source of information if they run a legitimate business with long service track records.
This is a fairly straightforward way to find out if a payroll provider is doing well. Simply submit your payroll provider to Google to find out what clients are saying about them. Well-known search engines include Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Simply type in your payroll provider’s name, along with the word “reviews.”
Maximizing Efficiency in Payroll Processing
On top of this, employing a professional in-house payroll specialist or team to handle the payroll function can be costly and time-consuming for many businesses. With rapidly changing business landscapes, companies sometimes attempt to navigate the payroll function on their own in order to save on fixed costs, choosing to outsource the function only when they are audited or experience payroll-related discrepancies. For SMEs in particular, the payroll function often takes second place after HR operations and employee concerns. It is typically managed under a shared-services model or by an HR or Finance Executive who processes the payroll functions on a part-time basis. Given the time-sensitive nature of payroll and the potential for error, it is imperative that these professionals are well-equipped with the necessary knowledge and expertise, and that they have the right tools, support, and user-friendly platforms to help them navigate the frequent payroll changes or complexities.
Effectively managing payroll can be challenging for businesses, regardless of their size. As an employer in Singapore, you are required to accurately calculate your employees’ salaries, deductions, and contributions in accordance with the Employment Act, CPF Act, and other related legislation. Every payday, businesses such as yours also have to comply with statutory and regulatory requirements for paying your staff for the services they have rendered. This includes electronically submitting Gross Pay, Employee and Employer Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions, and deductions to the CPF Board. This further extends to the filing of the required employment income information with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). Filing taxes that accurately reflect the payroll actions and decisions of your company is equally as important as processing them. Failing to comply with any of these essential requirements related to your payroll can put you at risk of facing penalties and a fine.
Streamlining Payroll Data Management
HR must keep the payroll data of employees updated to make timely payments, but the procedure can be cumbersome. A more streamlined process is to integrate this with the companies’ HR systems. Some systems have detailed payroll system management modules. This feature might not be needed by startups but could be critical for large teams to reduce the workload from data import and manual input. Payment notifications give employees assurance of when to expect payment. These can be generated by the system. Clients can also follow up on nonpayment without pulling ad-hoc. This can be done when clarifications are required on things like OT hours worked among others, as each request can then be documented.
Efficient payouts: Navigating the landscape of payroll services Singapore. Paying salaries with the wrong bank accounts could cause payment failures. This can happen when an employee has opened or closed bank accounts without updating the company. A massive amount of time and energy can be spent to notify employees on non-payment. An integrated service allows better control by sending reminders through the software system when there are discrepancies in bank account data. Reducing the number of steps reduces both errors and manpower in managing the database.
Automating Payroll Processes
PPS plays an important role in ensuring that the right people are being paid on time and that time-consuming, desk-based manual work is done away with, freeing up personnel for more critical tasks. Indeed, streamlining and automating the recurrent process can provide genuinely transformative gains to business by enabling them to devote more of their invaluable and costly resources to functions that contribute significantly to the company’s bottom line, functions other than administration. Consider now the basic computation of wage taxes, wage deductions, and wage allowances carried out by small business leadership, or perhaps by an accounting, rather than by an employee or a financial service provider. The payroll, while routine, must therefore follow CPA payroll policy and guidelines to be completed on time in order for employees to be charged fairly from month to month. With all variables under consideration (including wage calculation, tax rebates, CPF contributions, and so forth), even one minute’s wages can add to an existing wage computation error.
While making payouts is essential, the process can prove to be very repetitive, time-constrained, error-laden, and resource-intensive. As businesses begin to scale, the man-hours required for managing payroll grows accordingly. Starting with the manpower required to calculate and process salaries, CPF, Medisave, skill retention, and PBS funds, through to understanding the complex network of regulations and variables affecting team remuneration, CPF contribution days, the preparation of bank transfer forms or the printing of cheques or GIRO applications, payment processing, and the checking of bank statements and remedy for errors, then handling of tax documentation, reimbursement for hospitalization, and other problem resolution. Any mistake in these procedures can have severe repercussions. It is not good enough to give the employee an extra paycheck one day to pay differences. In the event of a gift that is not recognized, the CPF Board will expect relative payments. It could also be hard for the accounting team to rectify their books which they have already written. To ensure that the costs are properly recorded as business revenues, mistakes, especially in large distribution, must be rectified. These tasks can be handled efficiently by payroll service providers, enabling staff to focus on core business or strategic functions.
Ensuring Compliance with Singapore Payroll Regulations
What happens if you do not take the right steps to ensure compliance with the laid down rules and regulations by the Singaporean laws? You are most likely to violate the Employment Act that puts in place various rules and regulations that have to be followed during the job recruitment and later during the course of initial employment. There is the Work Permit Act that makes sure part-time nationals are not ill-exploited in any form. The payroll and tax system also has to comply with the legislative provisions such as tax deductions and the CPF contributions. There are certain regulations that demand any form of injury or death of an employee must be paid in line with WICA. The employer’s responsibility is to prove that it has played its part in the fulfillment of the mandatory rules, therefore compliance is very important when it comes to payroll and employment laws.
Ensuring compliance with Singapore payroll regulations – Remember that when it comes to payroll, the appropriate rules and regulations must be adhered to. As a result, you must ensure that the company and its employees are in compliance with any relevant local tax laws, and that your expense management system is designed to comply with the regulations. As a result, you should understand what the laws are and how they influence your expense management process. Consider the extent of the integration with tax and other local payroll regulations that an expense management system must be validated at before deciding on one that meets your requirements. Be aware that the product may have additional integration points, both locally and globally, in order to ensure that it remains as accurate as possible. While the calculations themselves are likely to fully comply with all relevant payroll regulations, the policy configuration options vary.
