Strategies for smooth sailing through busy leave periods

Navigating large waves of leave requests can be a challenging task for payroll administrators. Employees want to be aware of how much leave they have available, employers want to avoid any major downturns in productivity if possible, and payroll administrators want everything approved and updated in payroll so that everyone can be paid accurately and on time.

When are busy leave periods?

In Australia and New Zealand, the most common times for staff to take long periods of annual leave are:

• End of Year – December/January,
• Easter – April,
• Start of Spring – September/October.

The most common times for sick/personal leave are:

• Flu season peaks, usually through Winter,
• Transitioning seasons, commonly from summer to autumn (March) and winter to spring (September),
• Stressful periods that heighten the risk of fatigue and exhaustion, for example, the End of the Financial Year.

Additionally, many Australians and New Zealanders may find themselves “chucking a sickie” at various points of the year. The single most common day in Australia for sick leave submissions is the day after the Melbourne Cup. Days between public holidays and the weekend and days of extreme weather forecasts also feature prominently for ad-hoc leave submissions.

Major leave management pain points

There are many common pain points faced by employees, employers, and payroll administrators using payroll systems that do not support their requirements:

• Leave balance checks that rely on manual data extraction,
• Poor visibility of projected leave balances for requests made well in advance,
• Leave approvers have little indication of other leave requests in the same period, risking too many staff away at one time,
• Wasted time chasing approvals through a manual, paper-based system,
• Manually updating pay runs with leave information, which is tedious and error-prone,
• Processing a large volume of requests is very time-consuming for the payroll team,

Clever, modern payroll systems are the key to managing and mitigating these pain points.

Technology solutions to support leave management

The right payroll system can empower your team to manage and approve leave requests without direct administration intervention. Both MYOB Advanced Payroll and MYOB Advanced Workforce Management are suitable options for your organisation to relieve the burden on payroll administrators when managing leave requests and approvals.

Streamlined leave management with MYOB Advanced Payroll

MYOB Advanced Payroll is a powerful cloud-based payroll solution that forms part of the MYOB Advanced (Acumatica) platform. It can be operated as a standalone payroll system. MYOB Advanced Payroll’s Leave Management functionality is included as part of its Employee Self-Service (ESS) module. ESS is a solution that streamlines employee onboarding and the collection and storage of employee information.

With MYOB Advanced Payroll ESS:

• Employees can view current and projected leave balances,
• Employees can submit requests to their manager from anywhere and at any time (no matter their condition on the first Wednesday of November),
• Managers are automatically notified of requests from their team,
• Managers can quickly review leave and approve/decline leave requests, including approving/declining in bulk,
• Managers can see details on an employee’s available balance, allowing them to make an immediate, informed decision,
• Managers can see team availability via a team calendar, which assists in planning capacity and approvals,
• Approved leave requests are updated automatically in the next pay run, removing the need for manual intervention from the payroll administrators.

During MYOB Advanced Payroll implementation, you can configure rules to speed up the approval process, such as automatically declining requests if the application would take the employee below 0 available hours. MYOB Advanced Payroll is flexible and customisable even after your implementation, with the ability to add one-off public holidays and more.

The range of functionality in MYOB Advanced Payroll ESS eases the pressure from high volumes of leave requests and greatly reduces the burden on the payroll team.

Build an empowered team with MYOB Advanced Workforce Management

MYOB Advanced Workforce Management is an additional module that extends the functionality of MYOB Advanced Payroll. The two systems are integrated and form one powerful solution that you can use to manage your entire team.

Like MYOB Advanced Payroll, MYOB Advanced Workforce Management has streamlined leave management functionality. Leave requests and approvals in MYOB Advanced Workforce Management automatically flow through to rosters and schedules. So, managers cannot schedule team members for shifts during a period of their leave.

MYOB Advanced (Acumatica) Workforce Management includes a range of additional features and tools that enable businesses to manage their workforce more effectively:

• Automated onboarding,
• Collaborative rostering and scheduling,
• Intuitive leave management and approvals,
• Sophisticated time capture and attendance management,
• The MYOB Advanced (Acumatica) Workforce Management app, and
• Built-in compliance and reporting.

MYOB Advanced Payroll and MYOB Advanced Workforce Management are complementary solutions, but they do overlap in functionality. If you use both MYOB Advanced Workforce Management and MYOB Advanced Payroll, then you only need the leave management functionality from one of these systems. Leave Management is available as part of ESS in MYOB Advanced Payroll for organisations that do not require MYOB Advanced Workforce Management.

Other benefits of powerful cloud payroll solutions

MYOB Advanced Payroll has all the powerful payroll functionality you would expect in an Enterprise-level system. It is built to support the payroll needs of larger, more complex organisations. MYOB Advanced Payroll has an online tax engine, so you will always have the correct tax thresholds and rates updated in your system. This is the power of a cloud-based application – the updates happen in the background. Every pay is always using the correct information – no more manual compliance updates.

MYOB Advanced Payroll functionality is designed to remove the stress from your pay run. It automatically collects as much information as possible and gives you the power to find and correct mistakes before generating banking files. Other important features are:

• Allowing for multiple employee pay groups across several pay frequencies,
• Powerful configuration options that cater to many different employee scenarios,
• Single Touch Payroll is enabled to automatically update the ATO,
• Advanced payroll software reporting, transaction history and audit tracking, and
• End of Year Payroll functions to streamline your end-of-year processes.

MYOB Advanced Workforce Management also automates rostering and timesheets has clock-in clock-out functionality, and a dedicated MYOB Advanced Workforce Management application to give your team the ability to manage everything from any location. It automatically updates group awards to maintain compliance and ensure your staff are paid correctly.

Take the next steps to the cloud

On-premise payroll systems like MYOB Exo Employer Services are being quickly outpaced by the functionality and usability of cloud-based systems. MYOB Exo Employer Services has now been replaced with the new generation cloud solution: MYOB Advanced Payroll. Now more than ever, it is the right time to move your payroll to the cloud.

The Kilimanjaro Consulting team are experts in configuring MYOB Advanced Payroll and MYOB Advanced Workforce Management to meet your complex requirements. We have the largest, most experienced team of MYOB Advanced consultants across Australia and New Zealand, with a history of successful MYOB Advanced Payroll and MYOB Advanced Workforce Management implementations. We can guide you through the MYOB Exo Employer Services End-of-Life process and ensure a smooth transition to your next payroll system.

To explore MYOB Advanced Payroll or MYOB Advanced Workforce Management and decide if it is right for your organisation, contact an expert. Email sales@kilimanjaro-consulting.com or call 1300 857 464 (AU) or 0800 436 774 (NZ).