Why should a company use Payroll Software?Payroll is the sum of all financial records of salaries for an employee, which includes wages, bonuses and deductions. To ensure that all employees receive their wages or bonuses, companies usually use calculators or, thanks to the technological advances, software that can reduce the burden of understanding complex payroll legislation and payroll systems operation to do what we call a payroll.Payroll software facilitates the automated calculation of gross wages or salary due to an employee based on hours worked at set hourly rates of pay or a set periodical salary. Payroll Software automates the application of payroll legislation to make the necessary tax deductions to transfer the correct net pay to the employee either by means of cash, cheque or credit transfer. Employers are obliged under legislation to then remit PAYE, National Insurance, Pensions and attachment order deduction to the relevant HRMC, pension provider or court on a timely basis.Payroll Software is an important tool to the benefit of the company providing crucial audit, management and financial reports detailing payroll costs by employee and/or cost centre/department. Software will sort and track personnel records assisting the HR function of the business.Payroll reports play an integral role of the financial planning and budgetary process of a business forecasting necessary payroll costs and investment to meet the needs of the business into the future. These reports will be implemented to make the key business restructuring decision to reduce workforce and employee numbers when necessary.Additional Features of Payroll SoftwareA key advantage to using Payroll software, apart from the automation of complex payroll tax deductions, is the major reduction of time invested in the process. Automated payslip production (email payslips), time import from clock-in systems, HMRC returns/submissions from P45, P46, P30 and P35 to HMRC, and credit transfer files to online banking facilities all facilitate an efficient payroll function within the business. The investment in payroll software leads to a reduced investment of staff training and time into completing the entire periodical payroll process.Characteristics to look for when buying Payroll SoftwareWhen you want to buy payroll software you should pay attention to the following characteristics: electronic filing, costs and updates and customer support/maintenance contracts.Electronic filing implies that the software suppliers should provide a way to file forms that can be stored electronically including submissions to HRMC. On top of the purchase cost, most of the costs will be in operating, supporting and updating the software. So you will have to check how much does support cost and find out when and how the software is updated, does your license cover all necessary updates to complete payroll for the tax year?Ongoing customer support to the end user of any software program is vital to the smooth operation and maximization of the software potential; imagine there’s a problem with the payroll software on payday, due to the critical nature of the software, it must be fixed quickly, so before you buy a specific payroll software make sure it offers excellent support to its clients, check the levels of support provided by the supplier, specially, the cost and response times.Recent initiatives rolled out by HMRC see only a few exceptions to the compulsory online filing of all employer returns to HMRC so before choosing software ensure that it is HMRC compliant! Check it’s compliance to HMRC employer return requirements, will it meet your obligation as an employer to file returns with HMRC in the format they dictate, is the software recognized by HMRC? Does it hold HRMC accreditation? Research and the option to avail of unrestricted free trials of payroll software and its functionality is key to this decision process!Payroll Software for Small and Medium BusinessesWhen we are talking about adapting the payroll solution to the business size, keeping enough money in a payroll account is one of the highest priorities for small business owners, even if the business itself doesn’t make any profits, employees must still be recompensed as per the terms and conditions of their contract of employment for their services, additionally any deductions made in line with legislative requirements must be remitted to the relevant government/HMRC body when required. This is why many smaller companies prefer to keep their payroll obligations as low as possible until they have started making profits and reached a certain level of profitability. Small business owners usually disclaim their own salaries in order to be able to meet their payroll obligations. There are specific payroll packages for small businesses and they are usually free (up to a certain number of employees using the software).Payroll Software brings value to a businessThere are several factors to consider when a company is taking a decision on its payroll system like payroll objectives, financial availability and size, just to name a few. The important aspect is that any payroll related automation should bring value to the business and make it more efficient. If you are looking for payroll software, check thoroughly what the market has to offer you. Lastly, make sure that you take a decision based on the software’s features and not its brand. There are very interesting payroll software solutions out there.

It is such an amazing experience to live the life of a student again, after 15 years in business, 2 business degrees and at almost 40 years of age (okay, soon I´ll be 39…..). No regular Internet access, no cell phones, no business appointments, just interactions during the classes with the professor and my co-students. And after class, of course I try to immerse myself as much as possible in Cuban culture, speaking Spanish only. (I have actually started noticing that when I speak English now I am starting to mix in Spanish words…..very very strange.)For me this is absolutely fabulous. Yesterday we had a particularly great day. There were only 4 students in my class yesterday and the other 3 were from Scandinavia (Finland, Sweden and Norway) and we had this amazing exchange among all of us, including the professor, about different cultures, different lifestyles, recreation, perception of other cultures, customs, laws, societal circumstances.I have never had much contact with Scandinavians and I asked some rather naive questions about the long hours without daylight during the winter (after which the suicide rates shoot up in spring) and my colleagues talked about the fabulous summers in Scandinavia, when it´s light from 4 am in the morning until 11 pm at night.And I find myself sharing a lot of things about Canada, my chosen home country and I find that I am a lot more proud of my Canadian connection than my original Austrian heritage. Here in Havana, where there are students from all over the world, studying Spanish (Europeans from all different countries, Canadians, Brazilians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese etc.) I feel at home and the atmosphere reminds me very much of the environment in Toronto, where we have people from more than 100 different cultures. And it´s great to hear from people from different countries that Canadians are generally well received everywhere. I figure Canadians generally know their place in the world, we know we are a pretty insignificant country and there is a certain humility that goes along with that….At any rate, the student experience is fabulous, and my Swedish co-student and I in particular share a lot of idealist perspectives about the world. He is young and plans to study international law and human rights in Sweden and has a real interest in social justice and I have a feeling we will spend more time exchanging ideas and viewpoints.Today we watched a video, a famous Cuban movie called “Fresas y Chocolate” that deals with a multiplicity of topics, first and foremost the intolerance and militant attitudes against homosexuality in the early 1990s. But the movie also has socio-critical undercurrents, eg. women marrying men to have a comfortable life (money, a house and car), not because they love the person; women not working and making money by reselling all sorts of underground goods (or sex), oppression of freedom of speech, intolerance in general of alternative lifestyles and opinions. Apparently, this movie was a groundbreaking movie in that it changed Cuban attitudes in the early to mid-nineties and society has apparently become more open-minded in the meantime.Freedom of speech still does not exist here and I have noticed with everybody that they are definitely watching what they are saying. I was also told that the “Comites de la Defensa de la Revolucion”, local political neighbourhood organizations (in existence to defend and protect Communism) in every area of the country and city, keep a reasonably close eye on the population.You have to be careful about what you say to whom. Complaining openly about political conditions in the country to this day is not at all advisable. There are no newspapers that carry critical editorials and there are no official means of complaint against the regime.On the other hand, Fidel Castro has been giving 4 to 6 hour long speeches (“intervenciones”) every Thursday for the last few weeks and he is talking about some coming reforms that will apparently liberalize economic conditions somewhat. Apparently retirement pensions and government salaries are supposed to be increased, and the national currency is supposed to rise against foreign currencies. I have not yet figured out if there will be liberalization of private enterprise, but it sounds like there are some significant changes to come, and local people wait hungrily for news of future developments and many of them watch the entire 5 hour long speeches.It´s a truly strange country, and it´s so unique, not even close to anything I have ever experienced. But you definitely get the feeling that you are part of history here, that the country is on the cusp of some significant new changes…

India is amongst a few of those countries having a universal healthcare system. A basic healthcare system is a one where the level of nutrition and the standard of living are raised for the people concentrating majorly on improving public health. Contrary to the above fact, Healthcare in India has always been a major challenge. The government has faced various difficulties in bringing sufficient healthcare facilities to the general public.The emergence of the private health sector has gained popularity better than the public health sector. Both urban and rural households now rely upon the former for its better services and availability of resources. According to the National Family Health Survey-3 the private medical healthcare sector is the primary source of healthcare in over 65-70% households in the country. This emerging healthcare market tends to being overpowered by the private healthcare sector. In India the life expectancy is 64/67 (m/f) years while the infant mortality rate is 46 per 1000 lives. With such statistics, failures in healthcare system are evident.Relying upon public and private health care sectors varies significantly between several states. There are quite a few reasons that account for relying on private rather than public sector. The main reason at the national level is poor quality of care in the public sector, with more than 57% of households pointing to this as the reason for a preference for private health care. Other major reasons are distance of the public sector facility, long waiting queues, and inconvenient hours of operation.Healthcare industry in India is a collective dose of various sectors within the Indian economic system which extensively provides goods and services to treat patients with therapeutic, pre-emptive, rehabilitative and palliative care for both short as well as a long term. This industry is trained and equipped to provide health needs of individuals and populations. The industry should include teams which have both professionals as well as paraprofessionals.The healthcare industry is considered to be one of the most evasive and largest growing industries in the world. In India healthcare providers are growing at a relatively higher pace, but are still considered to lack the basic business strength. Though the government programmes have helped the healthcare market to tame a few challenges the country’s performance on many health metrics is poor. The IMR (infant mortality rate) is seven times that of the United States and three times that of China. Almost 75% of babies in rural areas are born without any medical aid of skilled health personnel. India has 63 million diabetics and 2.5 million cancer sufferers, the majority of whom will not be diagnosed, much less treated. Seventy per cent of India’s 20 million blind people could be helped with simple surgery – ‘if’ it were available. Less than five per cent of the 2.5 million Indians annually who need heart surgery get it. Although India has 750,000 doctors and 1.1 million nurses, the practitioner density is about 25% that of America and less than half that of China. And there is a severe shortage of hospital beds and medical facilities- another unseen situation.The only way out of this pothole for the Indian healthcare industry is by aiming at provision of better standards of healthcare facilities to be affordable by all, in the coming decade. Fortunately, there are a few hospitals in India which have adopted innovative ways to seep their way out of this discouraging situation. The idea of focussing on serving both the poor and wealthy patients equally will turn out to be an essential element.Existence of proper medical facilities like test equipments, skilled personnel, availability of affordable medicines and existence of interactive medical aid programmes will incorporate an effective healthcare industry. India needs these facilities in almost every possible public and private healthcare facility.