Improving Customer Transparency: Automating Payroll and Invoicing for Remote Teams

Have you ever been on the wrong end of a payment dispute when freelancing or outsourcing work? With the right tools, you can provide better customer transparency to: 

• Increase transparency
• Foster trust
• Widen talent pools
• Reduce payment disputes
• Strengthen your reputation

One of the best ways to reap the rewards of better customer transparency is through automating payroll and invoicing processes. Time tracking tools can create accurate, automatic payments and invoices to eliminate pay disputes and strengthen client relationships. 

Ready to take a closer look at customer transparency in payroll? Let’s get started. 

Why customer transparency is crucial in payroll and invoicing

As mentioned, payroll and invoicing are two of the best practice areas for increasing customer trust and transparency. The reason? There’s one key motivation BPO providers, VAs, contractors, freelancers, and anyone who employs them share: making money.  

The link between transparent payroll processes and trust

Cost savings are the biggest motivator for outsourcing work. Meanwhile, stable and consistent income is the biggest motivator for those providing it. This obvious link makes it crucial for both parties to create a culture of trust regarding the financials of any transaction. 

However, nearly 40% of freelancers have lost income due to a payment dispute. While less talked about, the cost of unfinished work from contractors, freelancers, or other outsourced talent is also surprisingly high.

Ensuring accuracy and timeliness in remote contractor payments

Now that you’ve seen how both businesses and the workers they contract can lose time and money from payment disputes, it becomes increasingly clear how important it is to create a culture of trust through streamlined, accurate payments. 

While you can try to juggle work with multiple contractors and clients manually, you could damage trust when late or missed payments inevitably occur. Instead, look to tools like Hubstaff to streamline payments.

How Hubstaff simplifies payroll and invoicing for remote teams

Hubstaff is a time tracking tool that generates automated timesheets, invoices, and expense reports based on tracked time. It’s a useful tool for reducing admin work, streamlining payments, and eliminating payroll disputes. 

Automated payroll for remote teams using Hubstaff

Streamline payments with automated payroll. Set custom bill rates for each team member and approve timesheets with just one click. With flexible payroll integrations, Hubstaff simplifies payroll and helps you pay contractors, freelancers, virtual assistants, and other outsourced workers. 

Streamlining invoicing with Hubstaff

Create your own invoices with custom branding, automated line items, and bill rates for each team member. Then, deploy them via email directly from Hubstaff. You’ll see when invoices were sent, viewed, and paid without leaving the Hubstaff app.

Hubstaff’s integration with payroll tools

Have team members track time to tasks and generate timesheets. Then, set up payroll integrations with tools like PayPal, Wise, or Deel to streamline payments—and on their preferred platform directly from Hubstaff.

Examples of transparency in payroll and invoicing

There are several industries where payroll and invoicing transparency are crucial. Here are a few examples of some industries where clear payment processes can enhance client trust: 

• Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). BPO is a catch-all term that encompasses all outsourcing of business processes. This may include accounting, payroll, customer service, and IT roles that benefit greatly from transparency.
  
• Virtual Assistants. Virtual Assistants (or VAs) are professionals that can help you streamline admin work. It’s crucial to provide transparency in payroll and invoicing, as VAs will often be handling bookkeeping, sensitive emails, scheduling, travel planning, and other roles that require strong trust.  

How clear payment processes enhance client trust

Clear payment processes are crucial for developing and maintaining trust with clients. The better clients understand payment frequency and the tools you plan to use, the more confident they’ll feel working with you.  

Payment transparency can also:

• Make transactions more convenient. 
• Reduce the likelihood of costly payroll errors. 
• Increase the likelihood of repeat business. 
• Provide a sense of security.

Tracking work and billing with real-time data

Disputes over payroll are costly and time-consuming, so it’s crucial to manage billing with real-time data instead. Hubstaff’s fully customizable dashboard allows you to see:

• Hours worked
• Earnings
• Keyboard and mouse activity
• Apps and URLs
• Screenshots

When you start tracking time, customers can monitor business operations and see that their money is spent wisely. 

The role of pricing transparency in payroll and invoicing

Did you know that a third of businesses make payroll mistakes? To make matters worse, payroll mistakes are one of the biggest enemies of retention. 24% of employees will leave after just one payroll mistake. Two mistakes will leave nearly 50% of employees looking for work. 

Considering these statistics, imagine how hard it would be to restore a client’s trust after even one payroll mistake. Clear payment processes and the right technology can help foster client trust and avoid costly invoicing mistakes. 

How Hubstaff’s tools simplify pricing transparency in payments

If you want to increase transparency in your payroll processes, Hubstaff can help. With an emphasis on trust and transparency, Hubstaff provides control for parties on either side of a transaction with: 

• Time tracking. Track time to specific tasks and projects via web, desktop, or Google Chrome. Both parties can see hours worked, earnings, and more from a fully customizable, drag-and-drop dashboard.
  
• Activity monitoring. Hubstaff’s fully customizable activity monitoring features allow you to see each team member’s keyboard and mouse activity, website and app usage, and earnings. You can also enable, disable, or blur screenshots to manage workflows as you see fit.
  
• Automated timesheets. When users track time to specific tasks and projects, Hubstaff develops itemized timesheets for increased transparency. From there, one-click submissions and approvals streamline the payroll process while still providing visibility for both parties.
  
• Payroll. Turn timesheet submissions into streamlined payments in one click. Set bill rates for each team member and configure payroll integrations. You can pay each team member on an array of different apps simultaneously right from the Hubstaff app. 

Building client trust through open pricing models

At Hubstaff, we also believe in transparent pricing. While other businesses require you to contact their sales team for a custom quote, we’ve decided to set a flat $25 per user/month rate for enterprise teams. 

We feel this open pricing model is a great way to build rapport with prospective customers. While we’ll gladly field questions through 24/7 live support or our phone lines, we want our future clients to have a glimpse into the cost of our product so they aren’t blindsided by hidden costs. 

How Hubstaff ensures compliance and accuracy

Compliance is another core tenant of our business. Time tracking and employee monitoring laws vary drastically based on country, state, or region. We do our best to stay abreast of GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, SOC 2, and other compliance standards. 

To learn more about our compliance best practices, please check out our terms of service and other resources. 

Tools and features that improve transparency in remote work

In addition to time tracking and employee activity software, we find that there are an array of other tools that help teams like us hold employees, contractors, and others we work with accountable — and help them do the same for us. Some examples include: 

• Gmail
• Google Calendar
• Slack
• Officevibe
• Jira

We’re constantly adding to our tech stack to find new tools that can help us streamline processes and carry out our guiding principles of transparency, access, and control. 

Hubstaff’s time tracking and reporting for payroll transparency

In addition to real-time updates from the Hubstaff dashboard, users can choose from 20+ detailed reports for Time & Activity, Attendance, Expenses, and more. 

How payroll Integrations with Deel, Wise, and PayPal enhance transparency

Many know Hubstaff as a time tracking and workforce analytics platform; it really thrives as a payment tool as well. While Hubstaff does rely on integrations with popular payment platforms, it provides an added layer of security. 

These premier payroll solutions provide additional authenticity. Some tools like PayPal even offer knowledge centers for payroll and FLSA-related content. Between our own resource hub and customer support and that of any third-party providers, you’ll gain an added layer of security that will increase the confidence of your clients. 

Conclusion

Building rapport with clients is never easy, but we hope that this helpful guide has given you an array of information, strategies, and tools you can use to get started. Customer transparency can make or break your business — especially when it comes to payments.

Tools like Hubstaff can help you increase transparency through accurate time tracking, workforce analytics, invoicing, expenses, payroll, and more. Ready to give it a try?

Start your free, full-featured 14-day trial with Hubstaff.