5 best practice tips: Human resources

Five HR best practices to reduce risk, improve workforce visibility, and support better decision-making. Practical tips for complex, regulated organisations.

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Payroll trends that will define 2026 and beyond

Payroll is under more scrutiny than ever. Regulatory complexity is increasing, compliance expectations from boards and regulators are rising, and the workforce models organisations rely on are becoming harder to manage.

In Australia, for example, the introduction of Payday Super from 1 July 2026 is one of the most significant payroll changes in recent years. Employers will need to pay superannuation in line with each pay cycle rather than quarterly or monthly. According to the Australian Payroll Association, this should be treated as an organisation-wide change program, not a technical exercise - affecting finance, payroll, HR, and cash flow simultaneously.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also reshaping expectations. The APA's 2025 Payroll AI Adoption Report, based on data from 856 employers, found that 74% of payroll professionals see AI as a tool to strengthen compliance and reduce errors.

Yet 49% of organisations report no AI adoption in payroll at all. The gap between potential and current practice is significant - and closing it is becoming a competitive and compliance necessity.

Getting the fundamentals right is the most effective response to a more complex environment - and that starts with the four practices below.

4 best-practice payroll tips

Effective payroll management goes beyond processing pays on time. Here are four practices that help reduce risk and support confident decision-making across your organisation.

1. Connect payroll to your finance function in real time

Payroll is typically an organisation's largest cost, or one of at least. And when it runs separately from your finance function, budget visibility lags and workforce costs only become clear after the fact.

Real-time integration between payroll and finance means labour costs are visible as they occur, supporting more accurate forecasting and faster executive decision-making. It also removes the need for manual reconciliation between systems.

Mornington Peninsula Shire, for example, eliminated its daily payroll integration file entirely after combining disconnected systems onto a single platform with TechnologyOne, significantly improving data accuracy as a result.

2. Establish clear approval workflows and audit trails

Every payroll change - whether a new hire, a pay adjustment, or a termination - carries risk if it bypasses proper review. Structured approval workflows ensure changes are validated before they affect a pay run, and that the right people have sight of them at the right time.

An audit trail serves a different but equally important function. When something is queried - by an auditor, a regulator, or an employee - a complete, timestamped record of every change and approval is the difference between a quick resolution and a prolonged investigation.

Role-based access controls add a further layer of governance, ensuring sensitive payroll data is only visible to those who need it.

3. Run payroll in real time, not just at cycle end

For many payroll teams, errors only surface once a pay run is finalised, by which point correction is both disruptive and costly. Running payroll with real-time visibility changes this.

Teams can identify anomalies mid-cycle, meaning they can chase missing timesheets earlier and resolve discrepancies before payment is made.

GOTAFE experienced this shift directly. After moving to TechnologyOne, workforce data that previously required days of manual work became available on demand.

"I can be asked how many people left last month, and I can answer on the spot," said Lynda Southgate, GOTAFE People and Culture Systems Administrator.

Read more: GOTAFE’s fintech upgrade pays off.

4. Treat payroll data as a strategic asset

Payroll generates more organisational insight than most teams realise. Headcount trends, overtime exposure, leave liabilities, and cost-per-position are all visible in payroll data, but only if the right tools exist to surface them.

The shift toward treating payroll data strategically means using it to inform:

• Workforce planning
• Budget forecasting
• Executive decision-making and more.

GOTAFE's experience illustrates this well. Having moved away from disconnected systems, the team now uses payroll data to understand workforce composition and plan ahead.

"We're not just paying people," said Ms. Southgate. "We're understanding the workforce [and] telling the story with data."

The #1 tip? Build it all on a single ERP foundation

All four practices above are significantly easier to implement - and sustain - when payroll sits within a single integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) environment rather than operating as a standalone function.

Disconnected systems create the conditions for manual workarounds, data duplication, and delayed visibility. When payroll connects directly to finance, HR, and reporting within one environment, the benefits described in this article become structural, rather than something teams have to engineer their existing tools around.

AI adds another dimension to this. TechnologyOne's agentic AI product, Plus, is built directly into our ERP environment, allowing payroll teams to instantly query workforce data, investigate variances, and action tasks using natural language, rather than navigating multiple screens.

Those getting payroll right are investing in a connected environment where good processes can actually work. An ERP foundation is what makes that possible.