Performing a comprehensive audit of the payroll function is an essential step to ensure compliance, efficiency, and accuracy of remuneration processes… How to approach it concretely?
White paper, compliance audit, social contributions… a complementary approach
At Althéa, our experts will explain the need to follow 3 necessary, yet complementary, approaches:
- The creation of a payroll white paper,
- A payroll compliance audit,
- A social contributions audit.
Three distinct approaches with different purposes and results that positively impact organizations.
To begin, drafting a payroll white paper within companies serves several objectives. This description of the payroll plan is, most of the time, part of a desire to:
– Re-appropriate regulatory knowledge: the mastery of which may have been lost due to turnover within payroll departments, but also due to constant regulatory inflation.
– Secure payroll: better understanding payroll practices allows for better monitoring and consequently emphasizes the effective management of the impacts of all legal and conventional changes.
Deepen the analysis of payroll practices
This thorough review facilitates analyses of payroll practices (rules used, gross pay items, contribution bases, etc.). These payroll white papers often require calling on other payroll expertise. The support of a payroll and social contributions compliance audit then takes on its full meaning:
- The analysis of specific payroll rules related to the determination of employees’ contractual remuneration (minimum conventional remuneration, specific scales for particular contracts – apprentices, professionalization contracts -, specific rules for calculating the 10th paid leave, etc.) but also related to the calculation of bonuses (seniority bonus, year-end bonus, specific job-related bonuses, etc.).
- Contribution rates, both legal and specific (mutual insurance and provident funds, supplementary pension, mobility payment, occupational accidents), as well as any specific practices (CI Bâtiment or public works, particularities of the local or overseas regimes), and the methods for calculating contribution exemptions (former Fillon reduction “RGCS”, Home Care Assistance exemption, Specific Flat-Rate Deductions (DFS) specific to various professions subject to them, etc.).
Identify risks and potential savings
Perfect knowledge of all these rules, applied to the company’s specific environment, will highlight:
- Legal risks, linked to a misinterpretation of legal or conventional texts, or to an incorrect application of these same texts (the most frequent example being non-compliance with the minimum wage floor for remuneration).
- Financial risks, generally originating from calculation bases with unknown sources, or unsuitable bases, without necessarily posing a legal problem (for example: incorrect integration of exceptional bonuses – whatever local name they are given – into the base for the 10th paid leave).
- Potential savings, also originating from complex calculation bases, threshold changes, non-optimized employer contribution reductions, etc.
A 360 payroll audit for better reliability
A 360° payroll audit enables the implementation of a global policy for payroll reliability. This is based on the complete documentation of the payroll plan:
An analysis of payroll practice compliance.
Once all of the company’s rules have been highlighted, the methodological expertise combined with innovative technologies developed by Althéa (using artificial intelligence but also machine learning to analyze the transmitted data) will enable an exhaustive control of payslips over a given payroll period (12 or even 24 months). This approach is innovative. A compliance audit is not performed on a sample of payslips, but on all production acts.
An analysis of payroll tool parameterization compliance
Highlighting areas of non-compliance will lead to proposing adequate corrections to the parameterization of the Payroll IS. This ensures the reliability and security of future calculations. This action requires a classic methodology for Operational Maintenance (MCO) management, combining the drafting of requirements, validation of specifications, and acceptance testing of deliverables from the editor or integrator.
The implementation of practice corrections in payroll production
With the ultimate goal of generating significant savings in terms of payroll. Examples:
- The revision of the base used for calculating the RGCP (general reduction of employer contributions)
- The constituent elements of the base or the rates of the social lump sum,
- The recovery capacities for daily allowances from social insurance (IJSS or IJ Prévoyance).
Payroll and social contributions audit: How can Althéa support you?
Althéa supports you with payroll expertise, social contributions optimization, or the recovery of overpayments. Our experts also integrate innovative technologies (AI, data quality, machine learning).
Beyond establishing a certain serenity regarding the compliance of payroll and social contributions practices, these actions allow for calmly anticipating future URSSAF controls. These savings are significant for self-financing this type of initiative or even financing other HRIS projects.
Althéa is reinforced by its methodological mastery in drafting payroll white papers (over 100 white papers drafted using our dedicated tool in 8 years. These white papers can cover all conventional and legal environments – including taking into account overseas or even foreign specificities). Althéa also benefits from a leading position in AMOA projects.
Thus, whether it concerns payroll quality or compliance, in the private sector or for public operators, Althéa can support you.
For any questions or information requests: contact us.
Or contact one of our three experts: Magali or Guillaume for payroll, or Julien for social contributions optimization.
