Digital Payroll Strategies for Building Connections with Your Stakeholders

At the root of authentic relationships is mutual trust and an openness to learn and grow. In today’s digital world, the role of an accountant in the financial technology (fintech) space has changed. Accountants are no longer “just accountants.” You’re a strategic partner that clients, vendors and employees know they can trust to add value to their lives and businesses.

Here are some ways you can build connections with your stakeholders:

Become an accounting technology advisor.

Stay up-to-date with the latest accounting technology. As a strategic partner, stakeholders look to you as their accounting technology consultant. This can include program delivery or deployment, change management and technology research. Keeping an open mind, adapting to new technology and leading with an advisory mindset is crucial to developing strong relationships in a fast-paced industry.

Move from operational excellence to strategic excellence with payroll software.

From time-tracking and paid time-off to calculating incomes and deductions, cloud-based payroll software, like Wagepoint, can automate payroll functions for you. Taking these time-consuming tasks off your plate lets you move into more of an advisory role for your clients.

Features like an “accounting dashboard” help you take the advisory role one step further. For example, Wagepoint accounting partners have the option to turn on an “accountant dashboard” — where a firm can manage clients from within the product with ease and efficiency. Admin and user access privileges can be customized as well as track due dates and set notifications. This not only lets you oversee all the payroll accounts, but it also helps your team stay on top of important payroll tasks and deadlines — again, giving you more time to focus on the big picture.

👉 Stay on top of important payroll deadlines with our Small Business Payroll Calendar

Automate payroll calculations and compliance.

As one of the most common tripping points for small businesses, it’s important to stay compliant with payroll taxes and reporting. Payroll software can automate this process for you so that you’ll never miss a deadline and incur fees, interest or penalties. Your role as a trusted advisor can be strengthened simply by putting strong payroll compliance structures in place.

This strategy is especially effective if you have salaried employees that rarely have changes to their payroll. Wagepoint users call this the “set it and forget it” feature where the software does all the work and calculations for you. This gives you back time to advise and nurture your important business relationships. Missed deadlines lead to insecurity and lost productivity on all relationship fronts. Automating this step can save you and your team from a lot of stress. 

👉 Check out our article called How Payroll Can Be the Gateway for Your High-Value Compliance Firm

Digitize the employee experience.

Payroll is important to employees and plays a key role in building strong employee-employer relationships. Having an online employee portal where workers can easily access their paystubs, tax documents and direct deposit information is a must-have.

Digitizing the employee experience lets employees access their payroll records quickly and easily. This saves you time from collecting and duplicating personal and private information. It also eliminates the need for onsite storage for sensitive payroll documents. Providing timely and accurate payroll information to your employees also builds trust and loyalty.

Luckily, most online payroll software options, like Wagepoint, have employee portals built right into the core of the product. Ensuring privacy and compliance are two of the most important considerations when providing payroll software and having an online employee portal can solve this.

 👉Check out our article called Payroll as a Function of Business Success in 2021 and Beyond

Build a growth mindset and provide thought leadership.

Ultimately, relationships start with ourselves. It doesn’t matter what profession you’re in or services you sell. Promoting quality work, professionalism and an established track record of success are key to establishing a trustworthy reputation. Elevating yourself to being a strategic advisor involves developing a growth mindset and building on thought leadership skills where you share knowledge and experience to build trust, ensuring successful long-term relationships.

Deepen stakeholder relationships with payroll.

When it comes to the accounting function of payroll, there are digital strategies that you can put in place when working with payroll software that can help strengthen stakeholder relationships. These strategies will help you bridge connections and improve communications with your team, your clients and their employees — building trust and loyalty while ensuring accurate and timely payroll. Because, at the end of the day, trust is a currency all its own.

Written by Bianca Mueller, CPB, PCP

Bianca is a fintech socialite, award-winning Certified Professional Bookkeeper and Wagepoint’s Community Manager. When she’s not nurturing Wagepoint’s bookkeeping and accounting partner relationships, you might find her nursing a glass of wine in her vegetable garden.

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