Article
6 min read
Author
Shannon Hodgen
Published
September 28, 2021
Last Update
July 23, 2024
Table of Contents
What is payroll automation?
7 features to look for in payroll software
12 benefits of payroll automation with Deel
Frequently asked questions about payroll automation
Automate your global payroll with Deel
In 2020, more than 33% of business owners were still using spreadsheets to manage their payroll manually. And over 40% of them spent more than a week preparing the calculations.
If that sounds like you, you may be curious about payroll automation to make your payroll more efficient and manageable.
Deel’s automated payroll software for global teams calculates employee wages and taxes and keeps your payroll records in one place, giving you back time to spend growing your business.
This guide is your crash course on payroll automation. You’ll understand what automated payroll is, why it’s the new standard for most businesses regardless of their number of employees, and how Deel’s payroll software solution can help.
Payroll automation uses software to run payroll calculations and distribute payments instead of by hand. The software calculates wages and tax withholdings based on each employee’s hours and applicable tax rates and delivers payments as direct deposits or checks.
Deel’s global payroll automation software also allows you to keep payroll records in an organized and secure way, manage employee benefits, and generate reports when assessing your payroll process.
By removing manual work, payroll automation enables you to deliver employee wages faster and with fewer mistakes–and that’s just the beginning of its advantages. Watch the video below to learn more about Deel’s Global Payroll platform.
Before choosing payroll software for your business, try to anticipate your future needs. Many make the mistake of choosing what fits now, but you don’t want to switch to a new service shortly after when you discover your service provider doesn’t scale with your team.
See also: How to Find Top Global Payroll Providers for Your Company
The baseline benefit of automation is saved time. But payroll automation software like Deel provides many more improvements to your payroll process.
Deel’s automated payroll software lets HR skip manual wage calculations and focus on more strategic, human-centric work. Once you enter employee data and timecards, the software calculates wages with just a few clicks.
Few people get into HR to manage time tracking, factor in time off, and calculate hourly wages every pay period. And doing so is stressful under the pressure of a due date. If you automate payroll, employees get paid on time and HR gets to focus on other, more important responsibilities.
We still are a 5% HR staff company for 130 people right now. That’s extremely lean for any company. Deel played a huge role in this efficiency and productivity we have. All of the validations that the recruiting team used to do, thanks to Deel, are now done automatically.
—Oscar Matroberti,
HR Manager and Recruiter, DevBase
See also: 12 Key Benefits of HR Automation
According to the American Payroll Association, your costs might decrease by 80%. You don’t need to hire and pay in-house payroll managers and finance specialists if you have an automated solution like Deel–a small business owner, for example, can run payroll in minutes. Also, automation reduces the chances of manual payroll calculation errors, which can be costly.
Your employees will receive funds faster with Deel’s payroll process automation because it takes far less time to process pay stubs. Your employees will receive their payments on time every pay period, even if, for example, someone on your HR staff is on sick leave.
When outsourcing payroll to Deel, our experts ensure payments are accurate and made on time according to employment contracts and compliant with local laws. All you have to do is fund your account, and we take care of the payments for you. Here's how:
1. Select an entity with ‘Awaiting Funding’ status.
2. Click ‘Pay Funding’.
3. Select your payment method and follow the instructions for the payment flow. This phase of the process may include additional steps depending on your chosen payment method.
4. Review the payment summary and confirm payment.
Note: This guide will take you step-by-step through the procedure of paying employees using Deel. If you opt for paying employees directly via a local payroll processor, Deel will provide you with a CSV file containing all the essential payment details to facilitate the process within the Deel dashboard.
Deel’s automation reduces the chance of an HR employee making mistakes during calculation—after all, computers don’t get tired or forget to carry the one.
A single wrong digit in manual payroll calculation can snowball into inaccurate paychecks or costly tax errors. For example, Citigroup made a simple clerical mistake which resulted in them sending $900,000 million to a lender who was supposed to receive a tenth of the money. All because of a simple arithmetic mistake.
Manual payroll tax calculation is fine when you have a small team. But it becomes time-consuming and complex with more employees, especially if you hire around the globe.
Payroll tax varies by state and can change from one year to another. And if you hire people from different countries, you have to understand and comply with tax laws in each country.
Deel’s automated payroll systems already have tax rates and rules embedded in their code. We automatically make wage deductions such as employment tax and employee benefits.
Deel’s automated payroll software offers encryption, secure passwords, two-factor authentication, and more to ensure your confidential payroll information doesn’t get exposed to unauthorized parties.
Manual payroll virtually has no security features. Hard copies of your payroll aren’t secure, and erasing or hiding printed information in the case of a breach is much more difficult than changing the password on your payroll software.
SiteMinder is the world’s leading open hotel commerce platform, designed for hotels and accommodation providers to sell, market, manage, and grow their business.
SiteMinder needed to comply with the employment and tax laws in a number of regional markets where it was expanding. Since partnering with Deel, SiteMinder has seen new efficiencies in its hiring and payroll processes.
“Transitioning to Deel has saved us approx 2-3 days per month in administration time and costs,” says Bec Donnelly, Vice President of People. “We used to have multiple people across the globe trying to coordinate and diagnose issues or run manual processes. Deel’s dashboard allows us to effectively manage 52 people from one platform. It also allows greater efficiencies for our payroll teams globally.”
Automated accounting software like Deel simplifies tax filing and record-keeping. All your pay stubs, reports, and tables are saved automatically in one place, so you don’t need to worry about losing any vital information.
Online payroll also means you can keep all paperwork in electronic form instead of hard copies. Hard copies take up physical space in your office and can easily get misplaced or damaged. That might be an issue since you must keep each tax form for a specific amount of time.
Employee information–like addresses and bank account information–often changes. Tracking these changes in Deel’s payroll software is easy: insert the new piece of information in one place and it will automatically appear everywhere else.
These changes might include:
Payroll automation software allows you to streamline reporting for better insight into your payroll data and cash flow. Most payroll automation solutions let you generate reports such as:
Learn how to edit and submit a payroll report on the Deel dashboard by watching the video below.
When you run into an issue doing payroll manually, you might have to pay for expert consultation to solve it. When you pay for a payroll software license, you can reach out to the company’s payroll professionals for assistance.
With Deel, you get a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) and 24/7 in-app client support. Our customer support has a 1.25-minute response time to provide you with fast and efficient answers and solutions.
Payroll and human resources data often overlap, and it’s easier to manage in a centralized location. Payroll software integrations make that possible. Reporting and data entry are easy when your tools speak to one another and automatically share data with your chosen HR software.
Deel integrates with Quickbooks, Inuit, Netsuite, and more.
For example, here’s how to integrate Quickbooks on Deel:
1. Log in to QuickBooks and connect the Quickbooks integration under ‘Apps and Integrations.’ Click ‘Continue to Authenticate.’
2. Find your company name and select your entity.
3. Select ‘Complete Set Up’ and enable your desired plugins.
See also: QuickBooks Integration Guide
Employees don’t need to go through their manager for timekeeping or to change their information–they can do so automatically through Deel’s self-service software.
Deel’s self-service software gives your employees more flexibility and information. For example, when using Deel, employees get a notification that they have received a payment. They can choose the desired payment method and move the money to their account without managers intervening.
When employees are onboarded into Deel's Global Payroll platform, they receive a simple checklist to follow, like the one below:
Payroll software organizes and simplifies the whole payroll process while using automation to let employees skip repetitive tasks. That way, payroll functions faster and more accurately, and frees up time for staff to focus on tasks that require their strategic expertise.
Companies typically use payroll software to:
Track employee hours and time off
Calculate employee earnings
Calculate taxes and deductions
Make payments to their employees
Collect and file tax forms
Create payroll reports
Companies have many options for payroll solutions. Still, Deel continues to be one of the top-ranked global payroll providers, with 4.8/5 rating on G2 and 4.8/5 rating on TrustPilot.
Here’s a look at how Deel compares to similar products and services:
Feature | Deel | Oyster | Papaya Global | Rippling |
---|---|---|---|---|
Local in-house payroll managers worldwide | Yes | No | No | No |
In-house global payroll | Yes | No | No | No, they currently use partners in some countries |
US Payroll / US PEO Services | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Client Payment Methods | ACH direct debit, Debit or credit card, SEPA direct debit, BACs direct debit, PAD direct debit, Brex, Bank transfer, Mercury, Wise, Coinbase | ACH direct debit, SEPA direct debit, BACs direct debit, Bank transfer | Wire transfer, SEPA direct debit, ACH direct debit, Credit/debit card | Credit card with 3% of the transaction as credit card fees. Direct transfer from your company bank account via ACH |
Outsourcing payroll to an external payroll provider, especially if you hire from several countries, has multiple advantages:
See also: Top 6 Reasons to Consider Payroll Outsourcing (and How the Process Works)
A payroll card is an alternative to paying your employees via direct deposit. The financial institution through which you pay your employees sets up a card that holds employee wages and salaries, and your employees can use it as a debit card.
Deel offers a payroll card for contractors that enables you to spend your money directly from your Deel balance. You can choose between the virtual card, used for online purchases only, or order a physical card that you can use for physical and online purchases. ATM withdrawals aren’t available yet.
Automated payroll typically offers various types of payments:
Direct deposit
Digital wallets
Payroll cards
Paychecks
You can meet all your employees’ preferences by offering various payment methods. Flexible payment methods are also inclusive for global teams with limited ways to access their money, especially considering international fees, bank charges, and currency differences.
Deel’s contractor withdrawal options include bank transfer, Revolut, PayPal, Wise, Payroneer, Coinbase, and Binance. Deel also supports 120+ currencies for contractor payments, including crypto.
Some payroll software companies also let you pay independent contractors through the same platform. Deel enables you to generate contractor invoices automatically. The contractor can upload their invoices to the platform, too.
Making global payments shouldn’t be a challenge. With Deel, you can save time, money, and resources by processing payroll automatically through our platform.
Whether you have direct employees, EOR employees, or independent contractors, you can manage all your workers, all over the world, in one place.
I can only imagine how annoying it would be to have to process the payments manually twice a month or have to remember the exact day that we have to pay each team. Thanks to Deel, I just need to go to the payments section, press the pay button, and that’s it. It gives me the peace of mind that everyone is getting paid, on time, all over the world.
—Daniel Aksioutine,
COO, Divbrands
Deel is a full-service payroll solution that enables you to:
All in a single centralized payroll system.
Learn more about Deel’s Global Payroll platform or book a 30-minute product demo with a specialist to learn more about our services and pricing.
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