Are Payroll Errors from Bad Dashboards?
Are Payroll Errors from Bad Dashboards?
Let me tell you a quick story about a CFO at a mid-size construction company that was growing fast—real fast.
More projects, more staff, more pressure on payroll. And then… the complaints started rolling in.
- “I was paid the wrong amount.”
- “My leave wasn't deducted properly.”
- “Payslips don’t match my timesheets.”
Week after week, the finance team was getting hammered by managers asking, “Why is payroll always wrong?”
The CFO Was Copping It
Internally, it looked like the finance team was dropping the ball. But the CFO had a gut feeling—it wasn’t them. They were following process. The numbers were being handled by the book. So what was actually going on?
That’s when we stepped in.
The Dashboard That Changed the Conversation
We worked with the CFO to build a simple dashboard—nothing fancy, just clear visibility on where payroll queries were coming from.
What we found?
It wasn’t finance.
The root issue was scattered across the business:
- Incorrect timesheet entries
- Leave not being logged
- Staff not trained properly on the payroll system
- Inconsistent inputs from project teams
The finance team was doing their job—but the data coming in was a mess. Garbage in, garbage out.
The Shift in Accountability
That dashboard gave the CFO something they didn’t have before: proof.
Instead of constantly defending his team, he was able to sit down with the rest of the management group and say:
“It’s not us—here’s where the real problem is. Let’s fix this at the source.”
The dashboard flipped the conversation. It shifted accountability back where it belonged—at the point of input—and removed unnecessary pressure from the finance team.
The Takeaway
If payroll’s constantly wrong, don’t assume the problem is with the people processing it.
- Check your inputs.
- Look at the process.
- Give your CFO and payroll team the visibility they need to defend their work and fix the root cause.
Sometimes all it takes is one clear, well-built dashboard to stop the blame game and actually solve the issue.
