GDPR and salary management for bookkeepers

What is the problem with receiving personal information via e-mail? 

Before the new GDPR rules took effect on 25 May 2018, it was common practice for bookkeepers to receive information needed for bookkeeping, salary management, and time registrations from their customers via e-mail. 

Unless you now encrypt your mail and make it easy to search for specific persons, this no longer works for you. 

The reason is that the information we share for salary management is personal, and according to the GDPR rules, we all have the right to protection and deletion. 

Is your inbox still full of personal information?

Even with the best intentions, several bookkeepers still struggle to end the mail cycle with personal information.

Often, the challenge is that customers and colleagues do not consider GDPR when they send timesheets or similar documents via e-mail.

If you encounter a challenge making GDPR work in practice, don’t despair: By changing a few old routines, we guarantee you will emerge from it, maybe with an even better, well-oiled machine and business.

Skip e-mails and ad hoc, add systems and processes

If you think about encrypting your e-mails, for starters, then hang on for a minute! Maybe GDPR is an excellent time to do spring cleaning and exchange your e-mail practice for a more straightforward and GDPR-safe solution.

The challenge of e-mails for personal information management in your bookkeeping:

• Demands high administration efforts
• Carries a risk for leak of information
• If you need to delete data for a specific person, the data may be challenging to search for
• You cannot ensure that the information you need is in a streamlined format or has the same terminology. Again, it costs you administrative hours.

So maybe GDPR is an excellent opportunity to move from mail to system and from ad hoc to processes? This way, you spend less time on administration and clean-ups and more on counselling and core tasks.

Instead of receiving salary information via mail, look for a GDPR-safe system with access to the employees’ time registrations, mileage, absence or flex, expenses and more.

And preferably one that integrates into your salary system.

When your customers use a time tracking system, you have access to the necessary information exactly when needed. You don’t need to waste time on customer reminders, set up different systems, or keep track of Excel sheets.

And when the time registration is integrated into the salary system, you no longer have unsafe GDPR data in your inbox. On the contrary, all data is secured in systems and easily managed.

More time for counselling and customer service

Getting out of the mail limbo alone will free up more time for your core competencies and customer counselling.

If you want an even bigger gold star from your customers, you can also help them select a time-tracking system if they don’t already have one. Then, you can keep track of the process, from time tracking to bookkeeping, and you and your customers are GDPR-safe.

If many customers use the same time tracking system, you will experience synergy effects and save even more time. The time you save on administering personal information and different formats in your inbox can be spent on your core tasks or finding new potential customers.