FAQ’s

a. Payroll is a critical, yet time-consuming activity. Companies spend immense amount of efforts in processing an error-free payroll. This includes dedicated manpower, investment in systems and a significant amount of management bandwidth. While we understand that processing error-free payroll, on time is important, is it justified putting in that much effort into payroll (It definitely is not a core activity for your business), when it can be so easily outsourced to a payroll specialist

a. Paysquare has been exclusively into the field of payroll outsourcing since inception. Across its engagements, we have experience of handling payroll for a wide variety of clients across several industries with employee strengths ranging from 3 to about 21,000 employees. We have the right investments in technology that ensure that we process an error free payroll, on-time, consistently. Our web based myPayroll portal ensures that your employees as well as HR teams remain happy and connected to their relevant data at all times.

a. Given the limited resources within the company it is very difficult to have internal expertise in understanding various compliance requirements and also keep upto speed, in case of changes in the same. Paysquare has the necessary expertise in managing compliance requirements for various types of companies and can help avoid hassles arising out of non-compliance.

a. Payroll being managed by Paysquare means that your HR & Finance teams can breathe a lot easier and helps free up their management bandwidth to focus on other core areas. Paysquare also takes care of meeting statutory compliance requirements, so that all the hassles arising out of non-compliance are avoided.

a. We have processed payroll for a wide variety of industries, from manufacturing, services, to IT. We have processed payroll across different locations in India as well as internationally, for blue collared workers as well as white collared executives. Some of our esteemed customers include: 3DPLM Software Solutions Ferraro India All Script India Fiat India Automobiles American Tower Corporation Gabriel India E-nxt Financial Grupo Antolin India BNY Mellon India ITC Foods.

a. A software purchase may not be able to solve all your problems. You may need to customize the software to meet changing requirements, over time. The software product vendor may not support you for long, once the sale transaction has been completed. You may also need to buy into updates of the software, in order for your system to remain current. Apart from all this, also consider the amount of training that your executives will have to go through to effectively make use of the software. So the total cost of ownership will be quite high. Paysquare believes in making available its investments in technology to you as a part of the managed payroll services engagement that you sign with us. We take care of all the updates and all the customizations that you may ever require, and we will never ask you for additional investments ever. You don’t even need to maintain any dedicated hardware/infrastructure for your payroll systems. We will do it for you. This ensures that you have access to the latest technology, always, without having to make investments in systems, manpower or infrastructure.

a. To maintain the payroll systems, you may even be maintaining dedicated hardware/infrastructure. Once Paysquare starts managing your payroll, we will take care of these headaches for you. We will maintain data on our servers in our server farms, which are BCP & DRP compliant. This ensures that you can focus on other key elements of your business.

a. Dedicated teams to manage payroll does not make business sense. Payroll is a cyclical activity with peak loads towards the end of the month. Recruiting and training manpower on different aspects of company policy, statutory compliances and ensuring a process driven framework in processing payroll is easier said than done. Attrition or emergency leaves of these payroll team-members during critical time-frames can cause a significant damage to the company. With Paysquare, you no longer need to maintain payroll teams. With our strong automation and a highly process driven approach, we ensure that we process error-free payroll on-time, consistently.

a. We have been doing only payroll for over 11 years now. Each employee of Paysquare is well-trained in the requirements of payroll management and is trained during induction. Our team comprises of commerce graduates, finance as well as PF, ESIC and tax consultants and chartered accountants.

a. At Paysquare, we are highly process driven. We have our own investments in a strong back-end payroll engine ‘Precision’. This helps us bring in a lot of automation into our payroll engagements. Also since we own the intellectual property rights for Precision, we can customize it for you to take care of every little detail. Once configured, a significant part of payroll processing remains automated and there is hardly any manual entries allowed. Our investments in processes and technology ensure that we can process error-free payroll consistently.

a. We have a well documented on-boarding or induction process for our customers. What we expect, when and in what formats is highlighted to the customers in the form of a check-list. Based on customer inputs, these formats and time-frames are tweaked to match the requirements. We cover all the minor details during this induction process. Requirements are mapped to our payroll engine, Precision and processes/frameworks to input this data into Precision are designed. This ensures that subsequent processes can remain automated and there is minimal chance of an error creeping in.

a. Every client has a designated Paysquare employee allocated. The respective HR/Finance teams would be introduced to their prime contact within Paysquare. Besides we have email aliases for support requests that will function, even in case the person you are trying to reach is not available. Responses to these email aliases are typically within 24 hours.

a. Employees typically do have queries related to their payroll and their tax deductions. We operate an email based helpdesk, where we revert to every query raised by employees within 1 working day. Each query is taken to its respective resolution. In case it needs management attention, it is escalated to your teams. All the queries raised and their respective responses can also be viewed by your HR/Finance teams, so that it is possible to factor this as a part of your policies/guidelines. This ensures employee satisfaction and eliminates the need for your teams to get involved in these petty issues.

a. Since our processes are automated, we are able to provide you with a lot of flexibility. We accept inputs typically till the 20th of the month. In emergency situations, we also can accept inputs till the 25th of the month. In case of employee exits, we can stop their payroll at a day’s notice as well. All the inputs are also accepted directly over the web interface myPayroll, so there is no chance of any duplication or errors creeping in.

a. The format in which we receive and process inputs is usually configured in our back-end payroll engine Precision, right at the start of the payroll engagement. In case there are exceptions, then, to the extent possible, we try to map these into our current process, so that there are no manual interventions. In a worst case scenario, we can also manage manual interventions. Typically we accept and factor in all inputs from HR/Finance teams as well as employee inputs till the 20th of the month. Beyond 20th, on case-to-case basis, we may still be able to accept inputs/exceptions.

a. Implementations typically take 2 to 3 weeks for employees ranging upto 100 and could require a couple of months for larger implementations. For larger implementations, it usually requires a further period of 1-2 months for the payroll process to become absolutely stable

a. Yes, we can integrate with multiple HR systems. We have the necessary tools that can fetch the relevant data like new hires, terminations, CTC information from the HR systems periodically. We do not do continuous synchronization with HR systems, but check updates periodically.

a. Yes, we are currently integrated with clients’ accounting systems to provide general ledger detail for each pay cycle. General ledger detail can be set-up for each payroll, entity, and country or on a worldwide basis depending on the client’s internal accounting structure and software.

a. Although monthly payroll is most common worldwide, Paysquare also processes weekly, fort nightly (26 times per year) and semi-monthly (24 times per year). Many countries have additional cycles for vacation and holiday payments, which Paysquare accommodates on a payroll by payroll basis.

a. Typically with most organizations, we are able to process the first payroll within 2-3 weeks of the start of the engagement. After historical processing using past data, the first payroll is usually a parallel run and is managed, both using your old process as well as using our systems. We focus on ironing out errors, if any during the first payroll cycle itself

a. We understand that our clients have been using some sort of systems or manual processes to run payroll. We help our clients migrate this process knowledge as well as actual payroll data onto our systems. This migration is sometimes also assisted by tools that we have developed, over the years.

a. We collect tax declaration of employees using our web based portal myPayroll. Employees, on login, themselves declare the investments that they will be making to save tax and they are able to change this declaration anytime through the month/year. This helps reduce data entry errors as well as duplication that is usually caused by manual entries. Also employees take responsibility for what they enter. If they do not make any declaration, their payroll is processed considering no investments for the year.

a. Payroll is processed through the year based on the tax declarations made by employees and the prevailing Income Tax rules. In Jan timeframe, we set up a helpdesk at the client premises, where we collect all the proofs of investment from each individual employee. This is checked against the declaration made by the employee and the balance tax, if any is deducted during the months of Feb & March.

a. At Paysquare, all company/employee data is maintained on our own secure web servers within our own premises. We have implemented 128 bit SSL secure access using unique login credentials. This ensures that data can be accessed by authorized personnel only. Also data is visible based on hierarchy defined, for e.g. a employee may be able to see only his data, whereas a HR head may be able to see all the data related to the region he controls. Even within the Paysquare premises, only relevant teams have access to client data.

a. We understand that payroll is a very sensitive topic and can lead to conflicts, if information about compensation is shared. We maintain all our communication through our web based portal myPayroll and HR & Finance teams provide inputs to our payroll teams through the portal with their authenticated logins. Employee tax declarations as well as access to their payslips and tax related information is also through unique logins and one employee is not able to access data related to any other employee. In our managed payroll services engagements, we also eliminate the requirement for physical payslips. Digital payslips in PDF form can be accessed by employees directly in their authenticated login screens.

a. Various compliances including Income Tax authorities demand that companies should maintain eight years of data for scrutiny purposes. Paysquare maintains this data for its clients, as a part of meeting this requirement. This data back-up is not made available to only authorized executives, on demand.

a. We manage our servers in our own premises. We have UPS as well as DG back-up to ensure continuous power to these servers. In case of an emergency, as part of our BCP & DRP policies, we also do have off-site storage mechanisms in a remote location. Data between the off-site storage and the live storage is synchronized at regular intervals. In case systems at our main locations were to fail, the control automatically switches to our remote off-site storage. From a client perspective, this transition is seamless and cannot even be noticed. This ensures that our clients get continuous service, even in case of an emergency.

a. Yes, In most instances, as long as we are capturing the data, it should be possible for us to provide you with the relevant reports. All of the reporting requirements are usually collected during the induction process, where we understand your expectations in terms of reporting requirements.

a. You can download customized reports through our web based portal. It may not be necessary for you to further customize these reports, as these will be in the formats that you have requested during the induction process. If you have any additional requirements, we will be able to provide you additional reports to match your requirements.

a. Access to the myPayroll portal is based on authenticated login with double password protection. Also depending on the role that has been defined for the user, access will be provided to the relevant data only. All of these decisions are usually taken during the incubation process. At a later point of time, in case you want to allow/disallow access for a group of users, it is possible to configure the same.

a. We typically charge a fixed fee per month for processing your payroll. The actual amount is related to the number of employees in your company and a host of other factors related to your actual requirements.

a. There are no currency limitations. We can process payroll in multiple currencies and in multiple countries. We will provide you with the bank files, as needed for multiple geographies. Your teams will then need to interact and authorize these transactions so that these banks process the payroll.

a. Yes, absolutely, we deal with small companies as well as large companies. In fact we have a special group focusing on helping the on-boarding/induction process for small & medium companies.

a. No, We work only on our own systems. We will migrate data & process knowledge from your systems to our system and then process payroll for you. It is not possible to manage maintenance of multiple systems.

a. Paysquare has processed payroll in multiple locations in India as well as several other international locations. Irrespective of how many locations, your company has presence in, we are competent to process your payroll across all these locations, on-time. We will need to interact with your central HR/Finance teams that control the payroll masters and the policies/guidelines. Most of the other inputs, we can collect using our web based myPayroll. We may seek your support in ensuring that we have data of all related employees, for whom the payroll needs to be processed.

a. Paysquare believes in a highly process centric approach. Paysquare is proud to follow international standards in its operations. We are ISO 27001 as well as SAS70 Type 2 certified.