As we are yet to see the full impact of Covid-19, it is obvious that everyone in this economic turmoil is affected and hopeful for the brighter tomorrow. It is seen that millions have submitted their jobless claims, and many economists are forecasting unemployment in Q2 2020. Well established and once a recession-proof organizations are experiencing turning their business model upside down.

Nowadays businesses are using online collaborative platforms to allocate the work within their team members, auditors, and consultants. They prefer software’s that provide them access to the company records required for various compliance requirements with the right amount of inbuilt security features.

This situation has taught us one thing and that is the urgent need for businesses to switch to cloud based solutions from traditional methods. This situation has opened up a vast market opportunity for cloud – based accounting and compliance applications.

As a Payroll Service provider, it has to be ensured that the team continues to deliver reliable payroll services to the clients in this time of crisis. As your clients and ultimately the overall economy depends on it. It would not be amplification if we say that they need accountants and good financial service providers now more than ever.

However, you will see that your Payroll operations might be impacted in a number of ways:

• - Whilst working from home, your team members might face difficulties to access the tools, systems and documents that they would normally be able to access.
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• - Some team members might be out sick themselves or they need to take care of their elderly family members or kids at home by limiting their ability to look after their work responsibilities.
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• - Some procedures which might rely on your physical presence – for example, physical sign-offs will obviously not work when your team is working remotely because of these compulsory restrictions.
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• - In case if you don’t get accurate time sheets, you may need to process temporary, emergency pay cycles based on the previous month’s information to ensure that people get paid on time, accepting those retrospective adjustments later on.
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• - This situation will also affect the entire Bank systems, and especially in countries where payment of employees depends on physical transactions (e.g. bank checks being distributed to employees) alternative options will have to be taken into consideration.
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So we can say, all of this puts unusual stress on your payroll service team and forces them to improvise and adapt the new normal. While they might be able to compensate for this exceptional situation by working overtime and putting in extra effort for a while, it’s very clear that you need to have a plan to diminish the on-going impact on your business.

While the current COVID crisis might seem like a temporary disturbance for all of us which hopefully will soon be over and none of us knows how long this crisis will last. It should also serve us as an important wake-up call in these trying times. Who knows the next crisis might be waiting for us in the near future. What seemed impossible just a few days ago like closed borders, curfews, shut down schools, closed businesses – suddenly has become reality? And we need to be prepared for the next disaster – virus, earthquake, meteorite, etc.

So how can you adapt to the “new normal” under current crisis and ease the burden placed on your team under these unexpected circumstances? We believe there are few significant things any Payroll Service Provider should be looking at.

In these trying times it is always advisable to review the roles and responsibilities of work delegation and have a proper backup plans with automated response and delegation systems which will provide you a good replacement in case you are short of staff.