I also interviewed Eric Edward, Managing Director of “Bin IT”, asking him questions about the advantages and disadvantages of having a handwritten payslip system in his workplace, the problems he faces with the current system, and the improvements he would like to see carried out in the future.
Amy Smith: As the Managing Director of the company, would you say you have faced many problems with current payslip system?
Eric Edward: I get hundreds of complaints a week! There are so many now that it is a major concern. I had a word with Kate, the writer of the payslips, but I suppose she can’t be held to blame, it is not all her fault, but I must say some of the complaints are worrying. For example you get the silly mistakes like their name is spelt wrong, or their contact details are misspelled, but some of the issues are important like their actual wages are completely wrong, it is very concerning to see such mistakes.
Amy Smith: Have you considered any solutions and which do you think is most useful?
Eric Edward: Well...there have been many ideas on the table, from firing Kate and giving the job to an outside company, to adding new staff. Admittedly, we did think hard about employing more staff but now I think it would be unfair on our current staff and would be much easier and more fitting to create a completely new system, maybe an automatic one.
Amy Smith: So if we created a new payslip system what would you like it to include?
Eric Edward: Well, I believe it should be simple to use, should have some sort of security and payslips would be able to be verified before issued to staff.
Amy Smith: Any other minor details you want us to include?
Eric Edward: Well, we should include a colour scheme that represents our company, so maybe some greens, but not too bright to seem unprofessional. Then I would like to include a logo and our company name, but again not too bright, as it’ll not waste so much ink. That would go against our companies’ policy of being an eco-friendly company.
Amy Smith: So, professional, yet not too bright or dark, I’ll see what I can do about that. Thank you for sparing some of your time to talk to me.
So from my interviews and my own knowledge I can tell that the system needs to be able to:
- Make Accurate calculations (that can be validated so all details are accurate and there will be fewer miscalculations. These would include tax reductions, national insurance reductions and the weekly gross pay)
- Display and Produce Clear Layout ( that is professional, can include a colour scheme and can be produced at a low cost )
- Operate with a Security System ( that protects the files that have important details in them, for example contact details)
- Hold Employee Details (including NI Number, contact details, their gross and net pay and any deductions should be taken off.)
- Create a Logo ( that is easy to recognise for maximum advertising and at minimum cost )
- Produce a Legible Font ( that can be recognised easily so time isn’t wasted reading over payslips, checking for mistakes)
- Ease of Use ( that will help make the system as easy as possible to use and therefore reduce the time taken to make calculations and make logos)
I did some research on tax laws, income tax, national insurance and how payroll works. My findings are listed below.
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Income Tax is the overall name for the percentage of money that is deducted from an employee’s Gross Salary. The level of Income Tax varies according to the salary of the individual; in this case, I am going to use a flat rate of Income Tax, at 20%. The money that is left, after the Income Tax has been deducted from the Gross Salary, is what is known as Net Pay.
This money is generally used to finance government expenditure, which covers many things, such as...
- Education
- Healthcare (The NHS)
- Emergency Services
- Public Services (Libraries, Museums, Parks)
- National Insurance is a social insurance programme used in Great Britain that involves a person paying a certain amount of money to the authorities, which is then shared in the form of state benefits, with the government making payments to the unemployed, sick and retired. As with Income Tax, the National Insurance money is taken from an employee’s Gross Salary, with the level of payment depending on an individual’s monthly, or yearly, wage but, in this case, I am going to use a basic rate of National Insurance, at 11%, with it only applying to people that earn £105 or over in a week.
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Payroll is when at the end of the pay period all the employee time records are gathered. The first step in calculating payroll is to find an employee's gross wages. The next step is to figure an employee's withholding allowance, then take-away taxes
After this research I did some research on payslips and 5 logos, I annotated 3 examples which are shown below:
I
Having carried out my research, I must now think of my options. I have presented this in a table shown below:
Having looked at my three main options i must now decide which one i should use.
Firstly, i have the option of hiring an assistant. This would only be beneficial in the fact that Kate Devon would have a helper to check over her work, but in all other senses, it would be useless. The accuracy would be as good as nothing because there is no validation and we already know that Kate Devon makes many mistakes so adding an assistant could only make the problem worse. Also, there would be no way to protect these files other than a key which could easily be lost, therefore losing all of their records. Designing a logo then either drawing it or sticking one down on each payslips will be very tiresome and will waste paper and ink if printing it. It would also be tiresome to do all the calculations by hand, and time-wasting, so it would be much easier to use one of the other options.
Using Database software would also be a good idea, even slightly better than the first. It is computer based so could be very accurate when doing calculations and could be very easy to use. Many people would need no training and everything on the database could somehow be checked. Many computer based systems would have a lot of memory so there would be no reason to worry about storage facilities. Calculations could not be made directly on the database and would have to be made by a calculator but otherwise a very good choice. It could also use a good layout or colour scheme and even add a logo of their choice so much less tiresome. A good option all in all.
The final choice would be using spreadsheet software which firstly could perform all calculations and in a way validate them even though checking would have to made. It is accurate as all calculations are made by the actual system but any words could not be checked as the software does not have spelling and grammar checker. You could add a logo from clipart and change the layout of the payslip, but not as much as option number 2. Because spreadsheet software is also a computer based program then it can hold a lot of memory as well. It is very simple to use, and many already know how to use it. It also can be protected by a password and even backed-up on disks to ensure maximum security.
Overall i have chosen option 3, a spreadsheet based software to work out the company’s payroll and design payslips. It was quite similar to using a database software but in places such as calculations it was clear that a spreadsheet program would be clearly the way to go. That is why i have chosen this option to use to solve Kate’s problem and create a better, simpler environment to work in.
Having chosen my option of using a spreadsheet system, i must now think of what shall be inputted into the system, what shall be stored, and what shall be outputted. I have displayed my information below in a table.