Introduction

The 2024 Strada Company Payroll Complexity report is the result of a survey completed by nearly 300 payroll professionals between July and September 2023. The survey targeted payroll professionals as well as key stakeholders with a vested interest in payroll operations in their respective companies.

It looked at various aspects of payroll from the number of countries companies process payroll in, to the number of payroll fines and penalties received for non-compliance. It also examined the various types of technology used to process payroll.

This report builds on and uses the data from the 2023 Global Payroll Complexity Index to create a holistic picture of the current payroll technology landscape.

It looks at the options companies have in terms of technology, functionality and processes to optimise their payroll processes and highlights how many are currently making good on this.

Executive summary

At a time where technology has revolutionised our lives and there is much talk of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, it’s surprising that 51% of respondents in our study still use spreadsheets to process their payroll. Plus 19% still use manual or paper-based processes.

Manual intervention should be a thing of the past given today’s technology. However, manual repetitive tasks in payroll processing still exist and are the biggest pain point highlighted in our study.

With manual intervention comes human error and potentially non-compliance and 53% of companies in our study say they have been penalised for non-compliant payroll in the last 5 years. Yet automation can reduce the amount of manual intervention and errors so it's a win-win opportunity.

It’s taken for granted that technology can do much for companies. Payroll can and should be a source of insights and actions rather than pain and penalties.

There is an increased risk of penalties being imposed, the greater number of countries a company operates in. This is logical, due to the increased number of laws and rules your payroll needs to adhere to.

Looking to the future, the three biggest initiatives companies say they will implement over the next 2 years are the integration of payroll and benefits into one platform, employee data analysis and automatic reporting.

Despite all the media attention on AI, only 8% plan to implement it within their payroll processing over the next 4 years.

There are organisations who manage their payroll optimally, but the clear message coming from the data in our 2024 Company Payroll Complexity report is that many companies could still do with managing it better.