67 Best Payroll Management Software in 2021

What is Payroll Management Software?

Payroll software helps small businesses calculate logged hours for every employee and calculate paychecks. Taxes and deductions can also be managed efficiently with payroll software. You can take payroll software as an independent application or incorporate this as a module with your HRMS software. By easily calculating paychecks, your accounts professionals can quickly deposit funds into employee accounts and ensure that they are remunerated on time. This is the ideal software to ease all your payroll burden in just a few clicks. From calculating accurate salaries to reimbursements, advances and loans, all can be managed with a single software.

Who Needs Payroll Management Software?

All kinds of businesses, having twenty or two thousand employees, require an open-source payroll management software to take care of their payroll needs. The essential purpose of any payroll solution is to process employee salaries on time without any hitches.

By deploying a payroll solution, you can better invest your time spent on manually processing employee payroll, avoid mistakes, and focus on other verticals of your business. Payroll is an integral function for any growing business and if you want to keep the process buttery smooth, it’s better to invest in a payroll online software.

Apart from this, payroll management software offers multiple capabilities such as automation of recurrent activities, customization (offer benefits, allow charitable donations directly from your salary, credit performance bonuses, etc.). Taxation is simplified as the online payroll management software does the heavy lifting when it comes to withholding and payment of taxes. So, all in all, if you stop and take a long, hard look you’d realize you do need a good yet cheap payroll software solution.

Why You Need Online Payroll Software?

On the face of it, this is a simple enough question to answer. You need payroll management software to bring the good stuff to your organization. Think business automation, data centralization, templates, integration with other software and customization. All of these working together to give you simple, streamlined and easy payroll software.

In addition, Indian payroll software can be scaled as your business grows with time. You can generate multiple reports with a single click. Moreover, you have the option of going for a payroll system that can be accessed on your local computer or on a cloud. It will eliminate a lot of the manual work that an accounting team has to perform. Also, you’d be able to compile reports at your own leisure.

Not to mention, if you go the cloud way, you’d be able to access your data from any place, any time. Flexibility is just the beginning. Your data is safe in the event of a natural calamity, such as fire, earthquake, or power failure. It is automatically saved and backed up on a remote server. Both versions (on-premise and cloud) offer mobile-compatibility for easy access. You can’t lose in this situation any way you look at it!

List of Hr and Payroll Management System Modules

10 best payroll software solutions offer a combination of the following modules helping managers and businesses alike in their quest for simplification of the payroll process. Grab hold of your seat ‘coz we’re about to go on a whirlwind ride:

Time Attendance and Payroll Management System

Payroll solution’s time and attendance management module help record the amount of time the employees worked on an entire day. By using the time & attendance management system, employers can track the clock-ins and outs of their workforce. You can also keep an eagle eye on vacation/sick leaves of employees. The majority of paycheck calculator has an in-built time & attendance module however, others may require integration with an attendance module separately.

Expense Management Solution

All kinds of expenses, deductions, loans, advances, and other employee costs are recorded, monitored and calculated in this module. Quite a few payroll systems have an integrated loan ledger feature that keeps a list of all approved employee loans. You can also manage reimbursements due to employees based on approved expenses.

Leave Management Solution

This is another module offered by payroll management software that seamlessly integrates with the time and attendance function of the solution. Through this, an employee can submit their leave claims and monitor their leave balance. Managers can review these leave requests and either approve or deny them, sending a notification to the concerned employee. It also takes accrued leaves under consideration when calculating employee wages.

Full and Final Employee Payroll System

This module helps auto-generate full and final settlement reports for employees. An integral part of any top-notch payroll management software, makes employee exits a breezy affair. You can quickly make final payments to employees on their last day without missing a beat.

Benefits of Payroll Software System

Payroll management solutions offer the functionality of having an integrated benefits management module through which the company owner/HR manager can monitor the benefits offered to them. Usually, companies offer health insurance, retirement, gratuity, pension/welfare packages, vacation/sick leaves, and other benefits. Good payroll solutions allow employees to pick and choose the benefits they want from their basket of allowances. The employees can also submit their claims and upload proofs for online approvals.

Payroll Solution with Payslip Records Management

Acting as a central repository of employee records, documents and other files, payroll management software seamlessly assimilates document management. It helps in the management of documents such as offer letters, experience letters, and employee profiles. And the story isn’t quite finished yet. It also helps keep a tab on application statuses for labor, tax, and occupational safety.

Here are The Top Features of Payroll Management System Software

The majority of payroll management software offers a plethora of features that help you navigate complex, often untrodden paths such as tax management, payroll processing, printing cheques, etc. However, depending on your payroll online software, some features may come as a part of the basic version, some as add-ons while others as part of a premium version. Check out the most common features of payroll management software:

Hr Payroll Processing System

HR managers have a lot on their plate. From recruiting fresh blood to their onboarding to monitoring employee performances to carrying out appraisals of existing employees, it’s a lot to do. By automating the payroll process, you can automatically calculate the employee’s gross pay based on days worked in the month. This information can be gleaned from a time & attendance module or manually entered from a timesheet. Apart from this, you can take off tax deductions, retirement contributions, insurance policies, etc. Also, you can take additional bonuses and salary hikes into account while preparing the monthly salary.

Payroll Tax Calculator Solutions For Small Business

The best payroll management software helps efficiently execute the tax management of employees. It helps calculate deductions and benefits such as any investments made under Section 80 C, any charitable contributions, EMIs on home and educational loans, etc. This feature also updates any changes in tax policy and sends out alerts to the user to notify them.

Reporting

Top payroll software solutions come integrated with reporting functionality featuring compensation analysis, deduction analysis, gross-to-net payroll register, tax reports, and more. The user can design custom reports and take advantage of pre-installed reporting templates.

Mobile Functionality

The best payroll software India offers a mobile app through which users can log in their accounts and view their salaries. Employers can process employees’ payroll easily through the app. And that’s not all. You can add bonuses, generate payroll summary reports as well as stop payroll from being processed too. Through the mobile functionality of HR payroll software in India, you can add reminders to receive updates about employee birthdays, bank holidays and other events.

Generate Free Payroll Software with Payslips

Any solutions from the best payroll & HR software list offers the convenience of generating payslips. The payslips carry necessary information concerning taxes and employee allowances and benefits. You can also print or download these payslips without any trouble using HR payroll software India.

Print Cheques or Directly Deposit Pay Cheques

Payroll solutions allow you to print or electronically send pay cheques. You also have the option of directly depositing employee salaries in their bank accounts.

Advantages of Payroll Management System Software

Top payroll software solutions offer quite a few benefits to businesses and help bring a level of efficiency, efficacy, and order to the organization. Some of the advantages of HRMS systems are:

Real-Time Payroll Software, Avoid Errors

The major benefit of a payroll solution is you save time and avoid making silly mistakes. You know the kind you used to make when you were a kid. (Some of us still make them…you know old habits, hard to break!) Payroll processes are susceptible to manual errors and can be time exhausting. Even a misplaced ‘0’ can have severe repercussions and send your finances in a tizzy. To keep your finances in good health, you can automate your payroll to avert inaccuracy in financial statements.

Keep up to date with payroll taxes

With the help of payroll solution, employers can keep track of any changes which have taken place with respect to payroll tax. Payroll tax generally falls into two different categories, namely deductions from an employee’s salary and taxes paid by the employer in lieu of employee wages. In the situation where any tax updates have taken place, users are automatically notified of the aforesaid changes.

Accurate Transfer of Employee Salary Management System

No matter how much care is taken, sometimes slip-ups do happen. Incorrect salary transfers can leave an employee dissatisfied and may even affect their morale. These mistakes do have the potential of blowing up and even end up giving fuel to demoralizing rumors. This is where payroll management software comes in the picture. Through a payroll solution, you can ensure no miscalculations occur and accuracy is always maintained. You can automatically factor in several key items like salary grade, benefits, expenses, allowances and deductions at the time of processing employee salaries.

Correct Payment of Taxes

Having employees spread across the different states of the country or other countries, tax compliance has the potential to bog you down. Having to factor in myriad state and local payroll taxes can be quite tricky too. Most payroll systems offer users the facility to pre-set tax rules based on location. With the help of automation, the HR manager can easily compute the taxes owed and paid per employee. He/she can also make use of templates to speed up the submission of scheduled reports to regulatory agencies. Now you must be wondering what would you have to do when a tax law is changed or modified? Precisely nothing. Most payroll solution vendors immediately update their systems in accordance with the new rules. Payroll management systems play a critical role in avoiding costly late payment penalties.

Build Transparency

Have you ever had a disagreement with your HR manager regarding a leave that you’d taken, and your salary got deducted? And you’d gone through your leave records encompassing several months to prove yes, your salary shouldn’t have been deducted after all. This is where payroll solutions help bring transparency with respect to timesheets, benefits, agreements and other related data. With the help of payroll systems, you can settle disputes be it concerning leaves, absences, expenses, adjustments, and other wage-related items with pinpoint accuracy.

Quick access to Employee Data

With all employment data available at a centralized location, payroll solutions can easily automate employee contracts, performance records, leaves, timesheets and conversations. Authorized users can quickly access related data through various devices. Furthermore, keeping a repository of data is helpful beyond just payroll, like for example, job evaluation, apex costing, etc.

Customized Reports

The majority of attendance and payroll solutions offer the ability to customize reports based on a period of time, accounting method, location, etc. You can also set parameters with respect to what goes in a report such as payslips, benefits, expenses, current or historical data related to finance & accounting. By making use of smart alerts, you can easily generate, and schedule recurring reports based on a standard format.

Enhanced security

By having an online payroll solution, you protect yourself from outside threats that may leave you vulnerable and expose your sensitive data. Only the HR manager, owner, and authorized staff will have access to employee data giving you a security boost. Moreover, if you’re using third-party payroll, there remains a risk that your employees’ personal information can be compromised.

Scalability

Scalability plays a huge role when deciding which payroll management software to go for. You must consider the size of your organization, whether you have offices at multiple locations, cities or countries. Are you looking to downsize your company or hire new recruits? So, make sure you go for a payroll solution that offers you the ability to scale up or down.

Buy Payroll Software

If you’re looking to buy online payroll software, there are certain criteria that you may need to evaluate first before taking the leap. Let’s find out what you need to keep in mind before investing in a payroll management solution:

Define the Need

The first step on your journey to buy payroll software is an assessment of your needs. Whether you really need it or not. Do you want a core payroll solution that takes care of your major payroll tasks like salary processing, and leave and expense management? Do you need a payroll salary software to execute your payroll needs seamlessly? Or you require a customized salary payroll software solution that helps you take care of employees’ tax declarations and filings?

After you’ve performed the internal assessment, you’ve to choose the best HR & payroll software according to your defined needs from a list of available leave & payroll software.

Budget

The beauty of payroll software in India which is currently available is that you have several options to choose from. Options that are available at different price models. If you’re a heavy hitter, you can go for an on-premise payroll solution. If you’re working on a limited budget, you can take a monthly/yearly subscription. You also have the option of ‘pay per use’ where you pay as per the amount of bandwidth you utilize.

Payroll Software Demos

Check if the payroll online software in India offers free demos or trial version. This is especially useful if you don’t want to make a significant investment without having a look at the software first. Find out if the payroll management software fits the bill and offers the features/modules you’re looking for. After going through the demo, evaluate if you’re comfortable and willing to take the jump.

User Experience (UX)

User Experience plays an important role when it comes to choosing a solution for salary payroll software. The design aesthetic of the system, how pleasing it is on the eye, its user-friendliness can swing the buyer’s decision. Top payroll software overflowing with modules, will not overwhelm the user if it's backed by a clean interface.