89% of payroll professionals battle system issues. Rob Husband, VP and Head of Revenue for ANZ, Dayforce, reveals how a payroll health check can save your business.
Is your business gearing up for a growth spurt in 2026? For a proportion of Australian businesses – those with a stellar offering in an in-demand sector such as healthcare, retail, or manufacturing, for example – the answer is yes, challenging economic conditions notwithstanding.
If yours is among them, you’ll no doubt be deep in planning mode, identifying the foundations you need to put in place to support a broader range of products or services, an expanded customer base, and a bigger team.
If you neglect to make these vital preparations, you risk having your expansion drive hampered by disruptive and expensive operational issues—preventable problems that distract from the main game.
Payroll technology that’s no longer fit for purpose
One of the most common impediments to scaling up smoothly is payroll software that’s past its use-by date.
What’s been ‘good enough to get by with’ up to now can all too quickly prove inadequate for the task as headcount increases, operations become more complex, and new territories are tackled.
According to the Payroll Complexity Survey Dayforce conducted in partnership with PayrollOrg, 89% of payroll professionals have issues with their payroll technologies. Furthermore, here in Australia, 69% of respondents said their organisation has too many platforms for getting work done, according to a workplace friction survey.
Manual and semi-manual processes are prevalent in these settings. Using paper
print-outs and spreadsheets to monitor rosters and calculate employee entitlements carries a significant risk of error. Left undetected and unrectified, those errors can compound and create a costly problem – and an unwelcome distraction – for a growing business.
Falling foul of Fair Work
Making mistakes in the pay office could also put your organisation on the wrong side of the law.
Since 1 January 2025, the intentional and dishonest underpayment of wages has been a criminal offence in Australia pursuant to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). Employers that are found to have deliberately underpaid their workers may face significant penalties – currently the greater of three times the value of the underpayment or 25,000 penalty units which is currently equivalent to $8.25 million.
Business leaders may also be held personally responsible. Individuals involved in wage theft could face up to 10 years’ imprisonment as well as fines of up to the greater of three times the value of the underpayment or 5,000 penalty units, currently $1.65 million.
Importantly, these criminal provisions do not apply to accidental underpayments or honest mistakes. To constitute a criminal offence, the conduct must be both intentional and dishonest.
These reforms make accurate and lawful payroll practices more critical than ever. Allowing for employment conditions to be correctly applied, and wages, salaries, and entitlements are paid in full is a high-stakes exercise, = one that businesses and decision makers can’t afford to get wrong.
Tools to make the task easy
Head of The Association for Payroll Specialists, Jason Low, says engaging external experts to conduct a payroll ‘health check’ – an expert assessment of your payroll processes and technical compliance – can help you determine whether what you have in place will meet the needs of your organisation long term.
For businesses that are looking to achieve significant growth, it makes sense to switch to a modern AI-powered people and payroll solution before, not after, issues and errors begin to emerge.
Doing so will help allow your business to navigate complex industrial relations and taxation legislation, pay its employees correctly and on time, every time, and maintain up-to-the-minute visibility into its outgoings.
Ideally, you’ll opt to work with a technology partner that brings simplicity and integrity to the table by delivering HR, pay, time, talent, and analytics in a single solution.
Choose a vendor that’s serious about customer success, one whose solution is updated continually to reflect the latest changes to local employment awards, and can be customised to accommodate any Enterprise Bargaining Agreements you may elect to implement down the track, and you’ll be set to commence your growth journey with clarity and confidence.
Setting your business up for success in 2026
Putting solid foundations in place will minimise growing pains and increase your business’s chance of achieving sustainable success in the new year.
By investing in a latest generation AI-powered payroll platform, you’ll be doing right by the individuals upon whom your growth depends – your hardworking team who deserve to be paid promptly and properly each fortnight – and providing leaders with the timely, accurate insights they need to make smarter decisions too. If you’re committed to profitable expansion, it’s mission critical that technology should sit at the heart of your ICT stack.
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