Singapore boasts least complex payroll system

Singapore has one more feather to add to its hat after being recognised as the best country in the world for running and managing payroll.

NGA Human Resources’ 2013 Payroll Complexity Index report ranked Singapore’s payroll highly, after taking into consideration 10 factors of payroll calculation.

These include union involvement, gross-to-net calculation, frequency of legal changes and updates, government declarations, and employee benefits, among others.

Singapore scored an index of 3.28 this year, and the report found the country’s payroll was “clear and straightforward, which creates an indisputable method for applying payroll rules”.

Michael Custers, VP of marketing at NGA Human Resources, said: “Running payroll is a core activity for any organisation, but not a core area of expertise of every organisation. This research confirms that organisations will need to continue to shed off their administrative burden in order to be able to focus on their core business.”

However, Singapore was not the only country in the region to fare well. Hong Kong, China and Malaysia were also found to have made “great efforts to streamline payroll processes and to ease the administrative burden on organisations that want to grow in these areas”.

Globally, France had the most complex overall payroll system, scoring 19.29 on the report. Rounding up the top five were fellow European countries; Italy came in second (17.9) followed by Germany (16.8), The Netherlands (16.5) and Belgium (12.68).

Custers added with continuing globalisation and increasing compliance requirements, the company expects “the global complexity of payroll will continue to grow”.