Ensure that payroll is punctual, accurate, secure and used effectively as a management tool Managing the payroll is often seen as a purely administrative function. But, aside from the legal and financial implications of payroll errors, payroll has significant implications for the organisation as a whole. So this 6-Step audit first of all ensures that your payroll:

- Meets all relevant legal requirements

- Is secure against the risk of mistakes and internal and external fraud

- Is managed efficiently and cost-effectively

- Is supplied with timely and accurate information about all employees

Then it goes on to consider the overall role of the payroll function and allows you to consider:

- How the payroll function could be better integrated into the HR function

- Whether any of the information held by the payroll function could usefully (and legally) be shared - e.g. flexible working schemes may hold two sets of time and attendance data

- How far payment methods and timetabling meet employees' needs and the needs of the company

- Whether payroll resources could be used by other departments at 'quiet' times

- Whether payroll should be seen as a separate profit centre, and how it might earn revenue.