Payroll Architecture

By Author: Sherry Roberts
Total Articles: 81
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Most large organizations are looking to expand their payroll beyond the ordinary human resource functionality into an enterprise resource planning system that incorporates payroll processing (Feng & Slaoui, 2014). Enterprise resource planning systems allow the integration the various HR function and payroll functionality. However, this essay focuses on a payroll design that accommodates the requirements of a large organization.
In order to be flexible, the large organization needs a payroll system that can handle its continuous growth. The payroll needs to offer a high level of scalability, flexibility in access, efficiency to streamline processes and control over critical payroll data. That payroll workload requires intensive computing and throughput capabilities to perform the large batch designs. As a result, a data processing system is effective for designing the payroll. Data processing systems are batch processing systems that allow data input and output in batches from a database rather than input from and output from a user terminal (Husin, Biju, Lau & Susanti, 2009). A data processing system selects data ...
... from input records and depending on the value of the various fields in the records, executes some actions as specified in a program. The architecture of the payroll system has three basic components that include input, process and output components. The nature of data processing systems that allow records or transactions to be processed serially with no need to sustain the state across transactions means that the systems are function-oriented. The data processing system needs to be web-based
The new payroll should be rules-based in that the organization can determine the set of rules. The provision will allow the company to accommodate almost all payroll absence rules through flexible high-level language that does not require any programming. The user-defined elements of the payroll also allow the organization to define earnings and deduction automatically. The architecture also needs to provide segmentation and proration functionality. The segmentation will allow the organization to handle events such as leave of absence, transfer, salary and job adjustments. The proposed payroll architecture provides on-demand processing. The on-demand processing allows the organization to process payment for any payee at any time. It also always the organization to customize the input pages to meet the unique and specific business processes. The flexibility of the architecture allows the payroll to meet the needs of the organization to serve the organization’s subsidiaries.
The data-flow diagram below represents the proposed payroll system that utilizes data processing systems. The diagram represents the basic data processing system that will accommodate the basic function of the payroll system.
The payroll needs to be integrated into the organization-wide enterprise resource planning. Consequently, the organization needs to adopt an organization-wide ERP that accommodates other functionalities such as accounting and supply chain management. In order to support the on-demand functionality, the new architecture requires a wide area network. The web-centric architecture requires need to be support for internet connectivity thus the need for a new network design and an effective migration strategy. The architecture will use component-based access control architecture. The component-based access control (CACA) ensures adequate data security and provides suitable access mechanism that allows appropriate use of organizational resources. The architecture integrates several components to develop an efficient access control system. Components include Purpose-Based Access Control, Role-Based Access Control, and Time-Based Access Control. The Role-Based Access Control considers the various duties and categories of the user before granting access to invoke an operation. The privileges of the users vary. The Purpose-Based Access Control technology grant users access depending on the user’s intentions while Rule-Based Access Control technologies utilize configured and predetermined rules to permit access to objects by subjects. It uses the organization-defined rules to grant users access.
Everything related to payroll is highly confidential in most organization. For example, the communication between the employee and the employer and external agencies such as the Internal Revenue Authority requires confidentiality. As such, the payroll processes need to comply with state, federal and IRS laws and regulations. The integration of information system in the organization raises several ethical issues including how to maintain the privacy of employees’ sensitive data. The use of internet-based payroll platform makes the data vulnerable to malicious attacks from hackers. As such, data encryption and user authentication become important in managing the information. There is also a great need to analyze the new payroll to ensure it does not violate any employees’ laws relating to deductions, legal leaves, and taxes. It is critical to ensure individual affected by the payroll system are involved in the design process to increase acceptance and buy-in of the technology. The organization can overcome these ethical issues through effective internal auditing of the payroll, risk assessment, and monitoring.
 

References
Beig B & Toland J (2014). Payroll Accounting 2014. Cengage Learning.
Feng W & Slaoui E (2014). Functional approach for the architecture design of a payroll system.
Husin J., Biju I., Lau T & Susanti W (2009). Analysis, design and implementation of a web-based payroll application software. International conference on computer technology and development.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best research paper writing service. If you need a similar paper you can place your order for a custom research paper from affordable custom research papers services.