Payroll

HR.com has launched a total of 16 Institutes for Human Resources to offer certification to HR professionals in their specialized area of expertise. The latest addition to the program, Payroll, kicks off today with a two-day virtual event.

Payroll, in the broadest definition includes all methods of payment for time worked, including deductions for benefits and taxes, for employees by their employers.

The purpose of this introductory webcast is to give you an overview of the program, who will be presenting, how to interact with the speakers and provide feedback after each session, how to visit the virtual exhibit hall, network with peers and more.

Topics being presented include the following:

11:00 am Wage and Hour Laws: Common Issues and Recent Initiatives Impacting Pay Practices; Molly Hughes Cherry, Nexen Pruet
11:00 am Six Ways to Enhance the Benefits of Payroll Outsouring in the EMEA Region; Felicia Cheek, The Hackett Group
12:00 pm Healthcare Reform and Its Impact on Payroll; Lori Loridon – Sage Software
3:30 PM – Return on Employee Investment; Mark Butje – Sage Software

Friday, January 27:

11:00 am 100% Direct Deposit – The Benefits of Paycards in the Payroll Department; Brian Slowik – Wright Express rapid! PayCard
12:30 pm Utilize Process Improvement Methodologies to Improve Payroll; Tom Sonde – SilverRoad Solutions
2:00 pm What Employers Must Know About Child Support; Lynnetta Thompson – Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement
3:30 pm Confronting the Challenges of Multi-Country Payroll: From Business Planning to Vendor Selection; Keith Rodgers – Webster Buchanan Research



Speakers of the webcasts will share their thought leadership with the participants, who have the option of writing a certification exam through the Institute upon successful completion of the course, which is a 12-month program. Details will be given specifically on what is required in order to gain certification through the Institute for Human Resources.

All of the webcasts being presented (with the exception of this introductory tutorial) are also approved for HRCI recertification credits.

Wage and hour laws directly impact the role a human resources professional plays in the workplace. While there is general consistency in the primary requirements under federal wage and hour laws, there can be a number of challenges that arise in a variety of situations, particularly given our ever changing society. Moreover, the focus of the various administrative agencies monitoring the wage and hour regulations often changes with different administrations in office. These changes can present even more challenges for employers.

This presentation is designed to address a variety of federal wage and hour issues that impact a company's pay practices on a daily basis. Given that the wage and hour laws in each state may be different, the presentation will focus on federal wage and hour concerns. The presentation will give a broad overview of some key wage and hour issues with the specific topics to be addressed including time clocks, rest and meal periods, travel time, tracking and paying for work from home, on-call policies, as well as preliminary and postliminary work activities. In addition, some focus will be spent on recent administrative initiatives with regard to wage and hour laws. Finally, the presentation will conclude with a brief discussion on independent contractors and the unique set of challenges they may bring to the workplace for employers.

Proper pay practices are important because errors can be costly for any company. With the touch economic climate facing businesses today, they can even be devastating. Although wage and hour considerations generally depend on the specific facts at hand, the presentation will provide some general guidance of issues human resource professionals should consider when faced with various pay questions. The presentation will also include time for questions.

Join The Hackett Group as we present a global payroll webcast: Among multinational companies paying employees in the EMEA region, 59% outsource the payroll process. While there are benefits to this approach, the still-maturing global solution landscape affects the pace at which companies can reduce their internal transactional activities. However, companies can increase the odds of success when initiating or renewing relationships with service providers by ensuring that key best practices are in place, such as appointing a global leader for payroll and a creating a holistic Service Delivery Model. Understanding the
payroll organization’s strengths and weaknesses going into the outsourcing relationship will help it select a solution that supports its current and future vision for the process. Following are six ways to enhance the benefits of outsourcing:
1. Improve system integration: this is a fundamental best practice but it's still very challenging for multinationals due to limited payroll processing solutions
2. Design end to end processes: routine processes such as time sheets continue to be entered manually
3. Encourage a culture of self service utilization: although employee self service is available, it's not fully leveraged by the majority of multinational companies
4. Implement quality control standards: nearly half of multinational companies do not normally perform root cause analysis in order to permanently alleviate the problem
5. Increase usage of electronic pay slips: policies and procedures should be implemented to alleviate the outdated practice of distributing pay slips in the office.
6. Establish global standards: most multinational companies do not leverage global data standards, business processes and work rules in place
Attend the session to learn more.

This session provides discussion on the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 to payroll. This legislation includes significant changes to employee benefit calculation and reporting requirements that HR and PR professionals need to be aware of now and in the future.

Did you know that beginning in 2012 employers must disclose the value of the benefits they provided beginning in 2012 for each employee's health insurance coverage on the employees' annual Form W-2's? Attendees will learn more about this, along with health coverage requirements for adult children, W2 reporting of cost of employer provided coverage, Medicare tax increases , other new reporting requirements, and more.

HR and PR professionals responsible for administering and reporting of employee benefit information will find this session very helpful. You can find more information about the impact of healthcare reform on payroll at www.irs.gov.

Lori Loridon is the Director of Payroll and Tax Compliance for the Sage Employer Solutions which includes Sage Abra HRMS. She manages teams of software engineers, quality assurance, user assistance, software requirements and compliance analysts to ensure compliance in Sage Abra’s payroll and HR software deliveries. Lori, a Certified Payroll Professional, has over 25 years of payroll experience in addition to her technology based education and background. In her 20+ years at Sage Lori has worked in customer support, programming and software design. Lori and her team stay focused and informed through their association with the American Payroll Association, direct contacts with Taxing Authorities and many subscriptions to popular research periodicals for both the U.S. and Canada.

Why are some companies thriving while others are struggling simply to stay in business? What is the distinctive difference between a good company and a great company? The answer to these questions can only be found when looking at what defines the company: their people. The people that make up a company are that company’s most unique and in fact are their biggest asset. For most companies, employees are also its largest expense, or, better put: its largest investment.

Accepted accounting methods (and therefore Wall Street) currently treat employee salaries (i.e. payroll dollars) as an expense rather than as an asset that has future value. We believe that employees are the most important component in the quest to improve business results. This presentation looks into how technology can leverage that component, and in turn build a more profitable and successful business in today’s economic environment.

Like any other investment, this discriminating company investment needs a healthy return. We call that the Return on Employee Investment or ROEI.

Participants can expect to learn: 1. The real cost of employee turn-over; 2. How to increase retention; 3. How technology can help engaging employees and how if effects the company’s bottom-line; and 4. About “Best-in-Class” performance and its effect on your Return on Employee Investment (ROEI).

Mark Butje is Director of Product Marketing with Sage North America, part of Sage Group PLC, the world’s leading vendor of business application software for small and midsized enterprises. Mr. Butje is responsible for positioning and product direction of the Sage Employer Solutions business unit, which includes the market-leading Sage Abra HRMS (human resources management system) brand.

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Utilize Process Improvement Methodologies to Improve Payroll

Summary
BPM, TQM, EPM, process mapping, continuous improvement, modeling, change management, and lean are just some of the buzz words currently in vogue.

Rather than define buzz words this session is designed to provide practical every day tips for successfully implementing process improvement initiatives in your organization.

The skills needed to be a good practitioner are not necessarily the same skills required to be successful in performing process improvement work. While some easily transition into process improvement project leaders other find it more difficult. This session will provide helpful tips for both you and your staff.

Learning Objectives
•       What are the key attributes of successful projects?
•       How do you approach a process improvement project?
•       How do you marry best practices, process and technology?



Additional Information
Published Articles
For related information please read the articles I have written:


Make Your Accounting Department More Efficient
The Journal Accountancy, AICPA, December 2010 http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2010/Dec/20103366.htm



Accounting and Finance Systems, Unlocking the Hidden Value
The CPA Journal, NY State Society of CPA’s, March 2008 http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2008/308/essentials/p70.htm




Is your ERP system still falling short?
Financial Executive Magazine, April 2008
http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/operations-back/10199599-1.html

Biography
Tom Sonde, CPA
Principal SilverRoad Solutions

Tom is a member of the Technology Assurance Committee of NYS Society CPA’s and is a principal with SilverRoad Solutions, a management consulting firm specializing in business process improvement. He began performing process improvement work while at The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. He subsequently worked at KPMG Consulting and was VP Global Business Transformation at Misys.

Tom has extensive experience in designing and implementing process improvement initiatives and has published several articles on this topic. Including one in the December issue of the Journal of Accountancy.

For additional information regarding improving your system and related processes please visit silverroad.net


Prior Speaking Experience
•       Featured Speaker – Getting More from your Accounting & Finance Systems
NYS Society of CPA’s, New York, September 2010
•       Speaker - Business Process Management - Tips for Performing Process Improvement in HR, Northern California’s HR Association’s 27th Annual Conference, Oakland, CA, April 11, 2011
•       Workshop Instructor - Delivering Business Process Improvements, 7th Annual Business Process Management Summit, Las Vegas, NV, October 2007
•       Speaker - Getting More from your ERP System, The Association of Business Process Management Professionals, Philadelphia, PA, September 2007

The Child Support Enforcement Program is a partnership among federal and state government agencies and the private sector which work collaboratively to collect child support payments, locate non-custodial parents and enforce orders. As an employer, you are key to the success of the program and play an important role in ensuring the financial security of millions of children and families by working cooperatively with child support enforcement agencies. Federal and state laws require employers to report new hires, honor and implement Income Withholding for Support (IWO) orders/notices and the National Medical Support Notice (NMSN), respond to verification and termination of employment requests and remit payments withheld for child support. Attending this workshop will benefit payroll and human resources professionals by learning how to successfully satisfy these requirements while discovering new technologies that will assist in your efforts. You will learn:

• The impact of recent changes to the Income Withholding for Support (IWO) order/notice and ways to determine if you have all the information needed to honor the IWO;
• What to do when you receive a NMSN and whether the employee’s income will allow for the withholding;
• Where to locate information about state requirements relative to lump sum payment/bonus reporting;
• New legislative requirements pertaining to New Hire Reporting; and
• Ways to streamline processing payments through the electronic transmission of IWOs (e-IWO) and electronic funds transfer (EFT).

In addition, you will learn where to find the resources needed to answer state specific and federal policy-related questions key to the efficient handling of child and medical support correspondence.

Managing payroll across multiple countries presents a host of challenges, from tackling cultural issues to handling smaller country populations and driving through transformational change. In this presentation, Keith Rodgers, founder of Webster Buchanan Research, discusses the first phases of a multi-country payroll project, from initial business planning through to vendor selection.

The presentation begins by exploring the potential benefits and challenges of multi-country payroll projects. Drawing from Webster Buchanan’s research and consulting work with multinationals around the world, Keith will then provide tips and insights into:

• The data you need to gather to get a practical insight into the state of your current payroll operations, which will underpin your business planning
• Assessing which strategic options best suit your needs
• Building the fundamentals of your business case
• Planning for a transformational change project

Keith will then provide highlights from Webster Buchanan’s ongoing independent research into the multi-country payroll vendor landscape, drawing from nine years work in the sector. He will share Webster Buchanan’s analysis of vendors’ different approaches to providing multi-country services and explore some of the issues that need to be weighed up during an international selection process.

Keith is co-founder of Webster Buchanan Research, a market research and consulting company focusing on international HR and payroll, operating from regional offices in London, San Francisco and Singapore (www.websterb.com). He has carried out extensive research among companies at every stage of the multi-country payroll cycle, and consults on multi-country payroll strategy, business planning and vendor selection. After a career in London, Keith spent eight years in San Francisco before moving to Singapore to run Webster Buchanan's AsiaPac operations.

This webcast is approved for 1.0 International HRCI certification credit