Legacy systems, like old habits, die hard. Should that necessarily be the case, however? Take your payroll and HR solution, for example. Yes, there are logistic reasons for using the one you’ve been using since time immemorial, but is it a smart business decision?

By Bruce van Wyk, founding member of PaySpace

Despite all of the advantages of using a cutting-edge cloud payroll and HR solution, many businesses will still choose to renew their existing annual license fees. It’s easy to fall back to the mindset that what’s comfortable is safe. Why incur the risk of moving your payroll and HR management solutions when your current solution works just fine? Well, you have a reason – three reasons to be exact.

Scalability on tap

Before you renew your current payroll or HR management solution license, consider the scalability–or lack thereof–you’re locking yourself into for the next year. How quickly does your current license allow you to add or subtract employees or adjust your feature set – to downscale or allow for several new hires at a moment’s notice?

There’s a reason pay-as-you-use and other more agile payment plans are gaining traction. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, no business should be forced to pay for employees they no longer have on their payroll. So, before you renew your contract with your current payroll and HR service providers, ask yourself what it means for your business for the next year.

There are better solutions out there

If there’s any reason to move away from legacy payroll platforms, it’s because the alternatives offer serious advantages – in this case, cost, compliance and productivity.

Cloud payroll and HR solutions offer a vast array of benefits over legacy ones. Truly native– multi-tenant, single instance–cloud solutions are always up to date, meaning virtually zero lag between when changes are required by tax law or legislative regulation and when they take effect on the platform.

Security, feature and maintenance updates also take place for all users (and clients) simultaneously, which isn’t just a time saver, but means you can reduce spent internal IT resources. As if that wasn’t enough to encourage businesses to make the move, cloud platforms don’t require installation; instead, they work on any device with an internet connection, whether at the office or on the move.

The smart money is already in the cloud

No one’s denying the potentially hefty logistical requirements involved in moving from one payroll management solution to another, but consider this: if some of the world’s largest organisations have made the change in spite of the logistics, the advantages must be worthwhile. They’ve clearly weighed up the benefits; perhaps you should, too?

Any business owner or executive worth their salt should pursue any means of reducing hinderances to growth, like excessive costs and downtime. Businesses, particularly multinational organisations, must also navigate a miasma of regulatory and financial complexity, problems cloud platforms solve with relatively little effort.

Ask yourself. Do you want to throw time and resources at managing your payroll when that time could be better spent giving your business an advantage over the competition?