HR vs PR

Jennifer Williams · PayPerShop Newbie Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 1

I am trying to gather data as far as what should be handled by payroll and what should be handled by Human Resources. We are a US company with 2500 employees nationwide. Any help would be appreciated!!
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Jennifer Williams
Payroll Administrator

Ian Congreave · Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:04 am Post subject: HR v PR

Dear Jennifer,

Welcome to the PayPerShop Forum. If you would like to, please tell us a little about yourself in the Introductions section of the Forum.

My experience of payroll departments in the UK is that every department differs from another in some aspect of how they operate and what their responsibilities are. Many payroll departments in the UK are part of the Finance operation, so those departments tend to be more involved in finance matters. Others are a part of the HR function, so they are involved more in personnel work.

I would be interested to know how that compares with businesses generally in the US. There is an ongoing "argument" in the UK as to whether it is better for payroll to be part of Finance or part of HR, and there are a number of articles in PayPerShop that I have written about that subject in the past.

But let's see if anyone else has any views on this!
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Ian Congreave, PayPerShop owner

PayPerShop provides a free weekly UK payroll news service - http://www.paypershop.com/latestnews.html

Jeepers · Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 6:37 pm Post subject: 100% financial

Payroll pays employees for the work they do, it has nothing to do with recruitment, welfare, disciplinary or any other matters except payment. The fact that the payment is for a human is incidental and does not make it a human resource function, if this was the case you could argue that payments for food and drink for the staff canteen should be classed as a 'catering department' function.

At the end of the day, anything to do with income and expenditure is an accounting function and payroll, in some cases, can be one of the larger expenditures of a company.

A (good) few years ago the personnel department used to be responsible for the attendance records of a company, at the end of the week / month these used to be taken up to the accounts department for the payroll to be processed in a similar way that the delivery notes were delivered to accounts from goods inward so the invoices could be paid.

It's only in recent years that the new buzz word(s) Human Resources has started to be used and it seems that it's desperately looking for things to be responsible for. What's complicated matters is that software companies are now integrating their payroll software with HR software purely because there is some common data i.e. the personal details of the employee.

I'm sure that this argument Mad

will go on for as long as HR is around. Have fun.

TeamSpirit (cg) · Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:47 pm Post subject: HR and payroll must not be rivals

Hi Jennifer

I have to concur with Ian that the division of work between payroll and HR tends to be individual in companies in the UK. However, there are some obvious areas of overlap where a decision needs to be made regarding responsibility for data. Here are some ideas for your consideration.

HR is tasked with all aspects of providing the company with a stable, effective workforce from recruitment, through all employment topics. For a workforce to be stable, it must comprise of a set of happy employees. Part of keeping them happy is certainly paying them correctly and on time. A compelling argument for viewing payroll as just one part of the overall HR function!

There are more areas of common data besides personal details, all of which make an integrated software solution the best way to avoid duplication, unnecessary reconciliation and errors associated with duplication:

1) Absence data – payroll need this to ensure correct payment of SSP and OSP, HR need it for analysis and implementing ways to reduce absence. Since payroll is time critical, absence data entry is often undertaken by the payroll department.

2) Benefits data – payroll need this to ensure correct payment and for P11D processing, HR needs it for appraisal management. Who enters benefits data? This is more complicated, depending on the type of benefit e.g. pension, health cover etc as the arrangement may need to be set up with an external body before the monetary amount is defined. Certainly, the start date or value change of a benefit is time critical in the payroll loop.

3) Contract changes may well affect salary, main ones covering job title, salary and hours amendments. In our systems, HR enters these with an effective date. Then, payroll has control to invoke them for the appropriate payroll rum.

4) Training – this is more exclusively handled by HR, but on an integrated system it is then easy for the payroll or accounts department to add sundry costs for hotels, travel, subsistence etc as they filter through from expense and petty cash claims.

Above all, it is essential that payroll and HR professionals work well together, regularly discussing best ways to achieve efficiency and accuracy in their environment. Whoever the respective departments report to, there must be no barriers if success is the aim.
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Regards
Christine Crowther
Selven Group - authors of TeamSpirit HR, Payroll & Time and Attendance software
www.teamspirit.co.uk