Payroll processing is a complex and time-consuming task for any business – you have to compute the payroll accurately, and on time while following all applicable tax and employment laws. The laws can relate to benefits, allowances, government payments, vacation policies, healthcare, and other deductions.
Singapore is well-known for the fact that regulations here are very streamlined; the laws of the country are designed to be fair, efficient, and easy to follow. While this is true about Singapore’s payroll regulations as well, the government expects strict compliance with payroll regulations. All employers are required to comply with these regulations meticulously and serious penalties apply in case of non-compliance. As a result, payroll management for the staff can be a tedious and error-prone task especially for smaller companies that don’t have dedicated accounting personnel.
For instance, here are just some of the rules that must be taken into account:
- Accurate consideration of traveling allowances, housing, utilities and any medical benefits when calculating salary
- Calculation and payment to the Central Provident Fund (CPF) and other statutory funds. It is an employer’s responsibility to accurately calculate and pay the employer’s and the employees’ CPF contribution share every month.
- Tracking of vacation, sick leave, maternity leave and other benefits as applicable.
- Timely payment of salary to each employee while they are employed and when being terminated.
- Timely delivery of payslips and annual salary reports.
Clearly, accounting for these nuances in your payroll management is a time-consuming and stressful activity. Most startups can not afford to hire a full-time payroll management professional. Outsourcing payroll management to a firm that specializes in such a service is often the most cost-effective and sensible option.
Several firms provide payroll services in Singapore. A vast majority of these firms are mom-and-pop operations who use outdated manual processes that are inefficient and error-prone. Therefore, you should pick your provider carefully. Following are some of the factors you should consider in your selection of a payroll service provider.
- The payroll service vendor must be able to handle your current and anticipated employee headcount. You may only have 2 employees now but if you grow to 100 employees, will your provider be able to scale up seamlessly?
- Service provider’s payroll system must be automated and it must use state-of-the-art software for storing your data, calculating the payroll, and providing the necessary management reports to you and your employees..
- You should have easy, 7×24 access to your payroll system and its data through a browser-based interface.
- Your payroll provider must have competent accounting staff who can oversee the system to ensure its accuracy and can intervene to provide any consulting when any unanticipated issues arise.
- Does your payroll service provider offer accounting and corporate services? If so, consider consolidating your accounting, payroll, and corporate administration with a single vendor. Such an approach will create cost and overhead efficiencies for you.
As an integral part of its suite of offerings, CorporateServices.com provides a comprehensive payroll management service for startups and mid-sized firms. It uses state-of-the-art workflow-based software for payroll management and the solution is overseen by a team of accounting experts. Furthermore, this service is offered at an attractive per-employee cost and does not include any fixed fees. Such a model allows you to predict and control your payroll costs.
Please contact us if your firm may be interested in exploring our payroll services solution.
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