Adhering Effectively To New Regulations in GCC With Outsourced Payroll

As the business environment is dynamic, companies are continuing to upscale and expand to different geographical boundaries. These advancements also make organizations responsible to effectively adhere to reformed or new payroll regulations in the countries they operate in. 

In truth, adhering to the updated payroll regulations of a given country is a sensitive legal factor concerning the payroll function, as anything going wrong here can result in legal incompliance and related penalties. To date, accuracy and efficiency are two significant barriers in-house payroll staff face in managing payroll visibility and compliance across different regions. 

To combat these challenges, here are three main ways how an outsourced payroll service helps organizations adhere effectively to the constantly changing regulations in the GCC. 

Dedicated Team With Representatives In GCC Countries 

Generally, payroll outsourcing companies maintain a streamlined process to get the latest updates about reformed or new regulations. They do this by maintaining direct representatives in the regions they provide their services in. 

For example, payroll outsourcing companies covering the greater GCC will have representatives to update them timely about any possible changes to payroll regulations in the GCC countries, i.e. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab. These representatives are exclusively dedicated to sending instant alerts on changes concerning the payroll regulations. This way, when your payroll is outsourced, all your payroll functions and tasks will be duly adjusted to comply with the latest regulations without any delay. 

This procedure doesn’t work the same with in-house payroll staff who will have to wait to be informed or to receive information about such updates to their headquarters. So by the time in-house staff starts receiving updated information and implementing the legislation changes, they will also have to deal with the complexities of revising payroll documents processed under outdated legislation, after the new legislation came into effect. 

Efficiency In Adjusting To New Regulations 

The more time it takes for a system to update its payroll functions to the new regulations, the more outdated your payroll data and information will be piling up more work that needs to be revised. In addition, having outdated payroll processes that don’t comply with the payroll regulations of a given country for a long time is highly prone to penalties. This is why efficiency is a crucial criteria in adapting to new payroll legislation.

Under a typical in-house payroll team, payroll professionals will have to wait for reliable information regarding new payroll regulations and then take time to study and understand them before updating their payroll functions. Doing this calls for a lengthy learning curve for payroll staff and carrying out their routine payroll tasks. So the time taken for a conventional in-house payroll team to execute new regulations updates to future payroll processes is time-consuming and can easily overwhelm the payroll staff. 

And in case your company has a multi-country payroll system, such as countries covering the GCC. The time taken for an in-house payroll team to adapt to the new payroll regulations in different countries is even more complex and tedious. 

In contrast, as an outsourced payroll company doesn’t rely on anyone for information but have direct representatives who give instant updates, the time taken for them to streamline your payroll to adapt to new regulations is almost instant. Further, as they have expertise and specialization in the payroll outsourcing industry, they have efficient methods and strategies that allow them to update your payroll to the latest regulations with minimum delay. 

Accuracy While Adhering To New Legislations 

As much as it’s essential to adhere to the new regulations, it’s equally important to make sure the updates are accurate and free from errors. Unfortunately, one of the significant problems facing in-house payroll teams in updating to new payroll regulations is the sources of information, which is highly prone to misinterpretations or filtering. This is mainly true in many cases where you need information about another country’s payroll regulation changes to update your multi-country payroll system. 

Moreover, as in-house payroll staff will have to update new regulations alongside other payroll tasks, they are highly likely to get overwhelmed with work. This can make payroll updates prone to errors and inaccuracies. 

In contrast, an outsourced payroll company has dedicated teams that can handle different subtasks of your payroll functions. They are trained to do so with a high level of accuracy and are also verified under other processes to keep your payroll free from all potential errors. So the accuracy in your payroll function adhering to new regulations with outsourced payroll is highly reliable.