Presently, many small and large businesses are turning to applications that are more efficient in payroll   processing for various reasons. Moreover, payroll applications are becoming more advanced in an attempt to assist organizations in expense reductions while at the same time improving employee productivity. The outcomes for the advancement of payroll systems  such as a reduction of the  “leave leakages” , identification  of  employees  with “risk  in flight”, remuneration trends  and work patterns have  a large impact  in an organization’s  operations and  general performance.

Application in payroll systems is constantly changing owing to the changing legislations for many countries concerning its applications.  These are characterized by upgrading, risks, cost and inconveniences. Further,   payroll information and data is becoming more confidential and sensitive while being stored on computers that are easily accessible or an organization’s network. Many organizations are now moving to  more sophisticated  payroll systems  such as  the cloud payroll system  to make  the information  and data  more secure by not relying on the company  network  or computers (Alderman, 1999, 3),

Most start up businesses however; employ low cost and simple pay roll applications when the businesses are still at young age. The aim is to use minimal effort in facilitating compliance while focusing at growth and revenue maximization. On the other hand, medium and large business organizations have complex requirement for payroll systems and in most cases, they need a professional to operate them. Apparently, the aspect of many organizations   moving their payroll into other sophisticated applications is constantly rising for a variety of reasons. Additionally, companies dealing with payment systems are constantly developing newer and   more advanced payroll applications. Consequently,  the new applications  in  payroll systems are  constantly leveraging  the information value  that exist in the data bases  and this could be beneficial to business organizations  including  higher performance  among employees (Alderman, 1999, 23)

 Today, the computerized payroll system   may be inform of  stand alone systems, for instance, the Pensoft system, which is  an accounting system   with a feature named as the Peachtree or a payroll and  human  resource  system  called the ultimate software. In essence, there are many choices, which can be selected by an employer to meet her needs. For example, small organizations would require QuickBooks or the Peachtree for their payroll applications because they are less costly and facilitate payroll task and accounting in these small organizations. In the case when such a company needs more features in the payroll, they could go for an improved one such as the stand-alone systems. Large organizations with multiple functions would require the most costly software with personnel who are capable in working with them. The software payroll application system is continually being upgraded in order to enable the processing of payroll much easier. These include calculation of taxes W2, wages, payment and benefits, garnishments and so on. (Brag, 2004, 23)

In  particular,  development  of the payroll systems  is characterized  by  manual  systems, In-house  computerization,  and  external systems. The manual systems is simply a requirement that payroll personnel execute   the tasks related to payroll manually, or in other words by hand. The In-house computerized system on the other hand, is where such a worker uses the automated payroll systems in processing of the payroll. Apparently, the external payroll system is where an employer uses a payroll service provider from outside the firm for processing of the payroll in her firm.