HR and Payroll Cycle

Question 1

What are core activities?

Answer 1

Recruiting, hiring

Training and developing

Supervision and job assignment (timekeeping)

Salaries and benefits

Employee Benefits (medical, health, life insurance, parking, fitness centers)

Taxes on wages and benefits

Vacation and time off

Monitoring- performance valuation

Transitions- Discharging employees, facilitating retirement

Question 2

What are inherent risks?

Answer 2

• Fictitious or “ghost” employees
• Hiring people who don’t exist can be fraud
• Mountebanks (ie.e underused world meaning someone who tricks others out of their money)

Question 3

Who are the relevant stakeholders?

Answer 3

• employees
• HR service providers, HMOS, financial companies, retirement companies, banks, credit unions, life insurance companies
• Federal, state, and other government- Taxes

Question 4

Important documents:

Answer 4

• Cumulative earnings register- accumulates year to date pay and deductions
• Workforce inventory- List of employees by department
• position control report- list of position, job qualifications, budgeted salary, position status
• Skills inventory report- List of employees and current skills
• U.S. Form 941- Employer’s quarterly federal tax return
• U.S. For W-2: Report of wages and withholdings for employees

Question 5

What are the risks?

Answer 5

• Hiring unqualified or illegal employees- follow the laws, regulations, and organization procedures
• Distinguish employees from independent contractors
• Training and developing employees skills
• Retain employee retention, retain high-performing employees
• Supervision and job assignments (timekeeping, increasing automated- scanned badge readers). Automating this function generally improves controls by reducing segregation of duties concerns.
• Salaries and benefits- compensation- payroll activities, based on hours, self-reports, commissions, fixed salaries, or bonuses
• Payroll activities- should be outsourced.
• Controls- serrate the duties