Plan to continue the payroll system

The following plan is in place to handle problems that may arise if any event occurs while the system is in operation.

In the event that the system malfunctions while it is being used, the finance department should activate the Advancement Payment Plan for the payment of employees, which entails providing laboratory personnel with a printed paycheck (Suryanto, 2011). There will be less deductions and taxes than in a typical payment, but the check will still represent the employee’s ordinary period of work. The computed net amount for employees should be noted, saved as a backup file, and multiple copies should be kept in different places around the company. Having a back-up provides alternative payroll payments for employees for a certain period in case an outage in the system occurs (Bai, Nunez, & Kalagnanam, 2012). If the specified period for the back-up elapses and the problem is not resolved an AIS backup process should be triggered to provide an alternative site for normal processing of payments.

Under a well-established payroll backup, a more customized Bottom-line system and check stock will have to be used to print payroll advance checks indicating employees that received payment in the previous payroll (Bai et al. 2012). This means that new employees that had not been captured in the system would not be paid.

Trained employee backup

“Other Box” should have alternative employees trained on how the payroll system works and be given a chance to get on the job training by allowing them to authorize some payments. It is normal that humans make errors or fall sick sometimes which might lead to delay in payment of employees. Therefore, Other Box should have a reserve employee(s) that can assist in case an outage occurs.

Payroll backup

During the implementation process, the company should do backups on a regular basis because system failure happens unexpectedly which might lead to loss of important payroll data. The more often a backup is done, the lesser the risk of losing confidential and critical payroll data due to system failure (Bragg, 2016). The company can have a schedule where they do a backup after every payroll cycle to ensure that backup data is updated. The removable and hard disk should be where the backup is done.

Review and audit of the payroll system

Management should regularly review the implemented payroll system so that they can spot how correct and efficient is the system. This will allow the company to rectify mistakes and avert potential risks in the system and it also assures employees that their payments are guaranteed (Bragg, 2016). Furthermore, payroll procedures and policies for this system should be documented to ensure there is proper management of payroll practices.

Involvement of external experts

In the process of implementing the contingency plan, and ”Other Box” realizes that they do not have the capacity to handle payroll system failure adequately, they may involve a payroll contingency planning technician (Seese, 2010). Sometimes outsourcing gives an organization the best in ensuring that payroll processes are updated and run smoothly in the organization. Outsourcing will also allow Other Box to focus on other core business processes. It is quite important to ensure that the Human Resource department has a standby working and efficient payroll contingency plan.

References

Bai, X., Nunez, M., & Kalagnanam, J. (2012). Managing Data Quality Risk in Accounting Information Systems. Information Systems Research, 23(2), 453-473. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23274433

Bragg, S. M. (2016). Payroll management.

Seese, M. (2010). Scrappy business contingency planning: How to bullet-proof your business and laugh at volcanoes, tornadoes, locust plagues and hard drive crashes. Cupertino, CA: Happy About.

Suryanto, S. (2011). Design and Analysis: Payroll of Accounting Information System. Commit (Communication And Information Technology) Journal, 5(1), 24. http://dx.doi.org/10.21512/commit.v5i1.555