Chasing down production crew to fill out and/or sign their timecards is as obsolete as the film canisters of yesteryear. Using digital tools instead saves time, helps you maintain control and accuracy, and remain compliant with IRS, union rates and other contractual requirements. You’ll protect your production from delays and potential cost overruns and save trees, too.
Paper records are a hassle to track and organize, storing them uses physical space that just isn’t necessary anymore, and they can lead to a host of challenges. Digital products, on the other hand, can transform the way you’ve been managing payroll while staying compliant with state and federal laws and applicable contract and union rules. Storing files in the cloud also makes accessing records a breeze.
By switching to a digital platform, you can run a smoother and more efficient process, regardless of your production size, location, or timetable.
With crew members working different schedules and days during production, manually tracking work hours is tedious. Unlike other industries, where employees are paid a consistent hourly rate or salary, entertainment workers often have varied pay rates on a project. For example, someone could transfer midweek to a new position that pays more. Before the development of virtual timecards, managing changes such as this required hours combing through physical records to get individual pay documented correctly.
Digital timecards track working hours and breaks without having to do the manual calculations yourself every pay period. And digital access means just that: You can see worker details through a centralized hub to manage timesheets and pay them in compliance with federal and state laws no matter their location or their compensation level.
Factors such as fluctuating pay rates, accurate tax withholdings, contracts, and deal memos no longer require spreadsheets and hours of reconciliation work. A customizable payroll service can track changes in pay rates and working hours for you, including contractual union payouts and loan-out employee arrangements.
Digital storage of personal documents in the cloud offers everything you have with paper filing and more, including faster retrieval. With the ability to access these important documents online, workers don’t have to come to you with requests for paystubs and other payroll needs. Instead, they can log into their personal accounts and access their documents when they need them, which saves you valuable time.
Gathering documents for compliance audits has traditionally been one of the most time-consuming tasks for administrators. By using a cloud-based storage system and a central dashboard, forms can be collected with a few keystrokes and assembled into the required format. If there are additional records needed, those also can be produced quickly.
A virtual filing system also ensures everyone who needs access to certain records always works in the latest version of a document. It also tracks who made changes and when. You no longer have to engage in a game of telephone tag or trace a mile-long email string to discover when an individual moved from one role and contract to another.
Entertainment includes strict deadlines and a multitude of compliance requirements, unlike any other type of business. A digital payroll system is efficient and cost-effective; employee records are stored in the cloud for easier recording of and access to accurate information, so you pay workers appropriately per their contracts and remain compliant with applicable state and federal laws.
To learn more about how Cast & Crew digital products let you manage your workers’ personal, production, and payroll-related materials, discover Cast&Crew today.