Saas Made Software Affordable For SMEs

Today, intelligent business applications like HR & Payroll, POS, CRM, Project Collaboration, Market Research, e-commerce portals etc. are affordable to Small & Medium Enterprises.Thanks to Software as a Service (SaaS) offers via cloud!

See the figure 1 for understanding SaaS value map

 

Let’s visualize Payroll process of a 25-30 people strong Tour & Travel Operations Company. Every month, Supervisors will forward the attendance report together with employee leave details duly signed by concerned Managers to Accounts Manager. Accounts will enter leave details in a register for record maintenance and cross verification in future, loan payments, deductions etc. Then Accounts Manager will update required information in a spreadsheet to calculate the salary payable to employees. Once the salary statement is ready, will take a print out and get the signature of General Manager and forward to Cashier for payout. Next to this Cashier will print payslips. As they are not paying salary through bank account, they will take payslip printouts in duplicate. During salary disbursement, Cashier will collect one copy with the signature of employee and filing purpose.

Now let’s see how a good Online Payroll can make the entire process, simple and enable the Accounts Manager to save time & money and provide so much value add to the process.

1. Connect to Internet, visit SaaS provider’s website URL <30 seconds>
2. Check & verify features, clientele, pricing and testimonials <5-10 minutes>
3. Verify security and privacy policies, terms and conditions <5-10 minutes>
4. Sign up for trial for one month <5 minutes>
5. Set up company information, finish basic configuration <2 minutes>
6. Enter basic employee information including employee’s bank account details (can create a digital file and handover to company’s bank, so that they can transfer the salary to employees) direct entry or data import using a spreadsheet <15-30 minutes>
7. Setup previous months' payroll <5-10 minutes>
8. Define salary structure, import salary information for the last 3 months in the system <15 minutes>
9. Create current payroll month and update salary details <10-15 minutes>
10. Process payroll <1 minute>
11. Generate salary statement, check/verify accuracy of payroll, compare differences (if any) with last month’s payroll <10 minutes>
12. Generate statutory reports and returns <10 minutes>
13. Generate Bank Transfer file and forward to Bank for salary transfer <1 minute>
14. Release payslips to employees, either via employee self service or through mail <1 minute>
    

That is all. We have processed payroll, distributed payslips, generated reports/returns and archived data without any additional efforts. Sounds simple and amazing, right? 

Cost of software for 25 people could be less than your monthly grocery bill. So with priceless value additions in business process, you got incredible cost advantage too.