A stated aim of many global payroll projects is to (finally) be able to benefit from global reporting, yet many organizations find it hard to articulate what this mythical benefit actually should look like. Conceptually, it is understood that a global payroll solution should deliver greater insight via reports such as labor cost, headcount and turnover. However, what specifically should be demanded and expected from a global payroll vendor?
A global payroll solution should really deliver reporting and analytics across five key areas:
1. Centralized Reporting
A global payroll solution should include a repository where scheduled individual country payroll reports are published in-line with the payroll calendar, and are accessible from one global tool. The scheduled reports will include country-specific legal reports, standard finance reports, and client-specific reports built for a specific country (e.g. union deduction reports), and they should offer a single reporting repository for operational payroll reports.
Additionally, the central reporting suite should provide insight into the operational dimension of global payroll services including Service Level Achievement (SLA) reporting, looking at accuracy of data, timeliness of payroll and other key operational metrics.
2. Salary Demographics
The next level of complexity, sophistication and benefit from global payroll comes when global reporting can be delivered across all countries in scope with consolidated payroll periods and in a single currency. The global payroll solution architecture and technology must allow you to generate the right insight across your payroll engines, payroll periods and payroll currencies, combining standardized wage type groupings, employee live events and selected HRIS data.
Once a global, predefined set of consolidated wage groupings is established and the technology is in place, then it will be possible to run regional and global reports such as:
Standard insights related to payroll:
- Total Employees Paid
- Annual Average Cost
- % Overtime Last month
- Overtime in Currency Last Month
- Hires / Terminations Last Month
Insights related to HR data:
- Headcount Changes Last 3 Months
- Hires / Terminations Last Month
- Employee Type - Regular/Temporary
- Employee Type - Salaried/Hourly
- % of Absenteeism Last Month
- Unified Currency Reporting
3. Operational Reporting
Operational reports are often displayed using dashboard-type views, and provide insight into the operational elements of global payroll including integration, business events that are flowing from various systems, self-service data updates, and SLA’s. This level of reporting is often used by the service delivery management teams from both the client and vendor to manage payroll operations.
4. Operational Predictive Analysis
The next generation of reporting from a global payroll solution should be operational predictive analysis, where the data from all country operations is so perfectly integrated and aligned that it becomes possible to report on data flows prior to a payroll run on key elements such as:
- Salary changes are greater as XX percentage of current salary
- Wage types in one-time payment differ XX percentage against previous run
- Expected wage types no longer included in integration
5. Big Data
Big Data is a much hyped and often little understood concept. However, it is important to recognize that a global payroll solution with a consolidated global repository of data and a well-structured data setup is a key foundation for Big Data reporting. While the benefits of Big Data reporting are often related directly to broader business focus areas, within payroll a future Big Data report may include:
- Average salary increase per country / region compared to market
- Average overtime pay out per country / region compared to market
- Turnover per country / region compared to the market
When looking to implement a global payroll solution, it is imperative that significant time is invested to design and develop the reporting and data analytics that are required both today and in the future. Further not all 'reporting' solutions are actually designed to be future proof.