Swingvy Review – 8 Pros & 3 Cons of Swingvy Payroll

 

 

Let’s face it – nobody likes running payroll. It’s the “not so fun” part of running a business.

 

It’s a time consuming, tedious, monotonous, complicated process, and the complications just gets worse the more employees you have.

 

You’ve got to be really careful when you’re doing it too, because one little mistake in calculations might result in erroneous statutory payments, which might then result in expensive compounds.

 

Fortunately for those of us tasked with running payroll (whether by choice or by circumstance), the rise of cloud computing brought along many benefits with it, including Swingvy.

 

 

The Swingvy Story

 

Swingvy is a SaaS (Service-as-a-Software) program with payroll features that turns the bland task of running payroll into a bright and colourful experience, filled with all sorts of number-crunching magic and whimsy.

 

Before we proceed any further with this review, I think we should clarify that Swingvy is actually developed to help SMEs (small & medium-sized enterprises) streamline their HR tasks, but they have a payroll service add-on which we found to be quite deserving of a review because it’s just so freakin’ amazing.

 

 

Swingvy was only established in 2016, but in the 3 short years they’ve been around, they’ve managed to do some pretty impressive things.

 

They’ve grown their team to 30 employees, opened up offices overseas in Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan (they aim to penetrate 1 new country per year), amassed over 6000 clients, and raised a whopping RM36,000,000 in funding from VC heavyweights – Samsung Ventures, Walden International and Big Basin Capital.

 

When big boys like these are confident enough to invest in a company like Swingvy, you just know the products they produce will be satisfactory.

 

The Swingvy Vision

 

Swingvy’s vision was simple – their goal was to create a piece of software to make HR tasks as simple, streamlined and convenient as possible. However, because payroll and HR duties are so interweaved, they found that they couldn’t create an efficient HR software without creating one for payroll tasks as well, so they rolled up their sleeves, put their heads together and voila – just like that, Swingvy’s Payroll add-on was created.

 

Well… I’m pretty sure a lot more time and effort was put into the research and development of the add-on, considering how comprehensive it is, but for brevity’s sake, let’s just pretend it happened this way.

 

Anyway, we’ve given Swingvy’s Payroll add-on a little test drive, played around with some of their HR features, and we’re nothing short of impressed. We feel that everything about Swingvy is so well thought out and properly planned, they left almost nothing for us to gripe about.

 

Be that as it may, the purpose of this article is to bring you the pros and cons of using Swingvy’s Payroll add-on, and deliver we will, so here’s some things worth gushing and complaining about the app.

 

Without further ado, we present to you…

 

 

8 Things We Love About Swingvy

 

1. They spent a lot of time on UI!

 

A software’s user interface (UI) is arguably one of the most important parts of the program. You see, no matter how reliable, functional or useful an application is, if the UI is bad, people aren’t gonna know how to use it effectively.

 

In my humble opinion, a good UI needs to be simple, easily navigable, and intuitive. It’s best if the user can log on, and just *know* where all the buttons are without having to sit through a lengthy tutorial.

 

Swingvy’s UI is exactly that – simple, easily navigable, intuitive, and also very easy on the eyes.

 

 

Although the software is packed with features, the clean layout, well-designed icons, strategically placed buttons and cleverly thought out colour scheme makes the Swingvy experience an easy, simple to use one.

 

In short, Swingvy’s UI & UX team put a lot of thought into building the interface of the app, and it shows. They’ve successfully simplified a complicated process just by making the app as user-friendly as possible.

 

 

2. You can run payroll more than once per month!

 

Although most companies pay their staff monthly, some prefer to dangle the carrot and give the employees a wee bit more incentive by providing them with a mid-month payment.

 

Thing is, most of the other payroll software we’ve tried only allows the user to run payroll once a month, rendering them useless for companies that practice salary disbursements twice a month.

 

Swingy is savvy enough to foresee this as a feature that some companies might find useful and included it in their payroll software.

 

All we had to do was to head over to payroll settings, hit edit and check the “enable mid-month pay” box.

 

 

Once that’s sorted out, you should be able to select payroll type under your “run payroll” panel. This is actually a good way to improve employee morale, and since it’s so easy to run payroll with Swingvy, paying your employees twice a month might not be such a bad idea after all!

 

 

 

3. Migrating to Swingvy is super easy!

 

The team behind Swingvy understands that it’s not always easy to change the way a company runs payroll, especially if that company has been doing things a certain way for years.

 

Even though some business owners KNOW their payroll system needs an upgrade, they’re hesitant because of the sheer amount of complications they might run into.

 

That’s why Swingvy made it as easy as possible for you to migrate over to their payroll platform.

 

When you sign up for Swingvy’s free trial, you’re provided with demo data, so you can play around with their system, test the waters and see how much you like it.

 

 

You can do whatever you want with this demo data – run payroll, change salaries, make claims, run reports… literally whatever you can think of regarding payroll, you can do.

 

Once you feel like Swingvy is the right payroll software for you, you’ll find that they’ve also made it easy for you to upload your own employee data into the system.

 

While other payroll systems will have you key in your employee data one by one, Swingvy allows you to bulk upload the data you probably already currently have in an excel spreadsheet.

 

 

All you need to do is download their template, copy and paste the data you have into it, and upload. All of your data will then be automatically updated in Swingvy’s system.

 

You won’t have to mess with salaries or benefits – everything will be conveniently auto-populated and sorted out for you!

 

 

 

4. Swingvy allows more than one person to run payroll!

 

Currently, our favourite payroll app is actually PayrollPanda. We feel that the simplicity and ease of use of the program are unparalleled, but there is one drawback – PayrollPanda only allows for one user to run payroll.

 

Now, this is not an issue for small business owners, but can be problematic when the business grows or if you prefer someone else to run payroll for you.

 

If you’re in a similar situation, you’ll be glad to know that Swingvy has a little feature called Groups, where you can assign employees, admins, and even create new groups for any splinter parties you wish to set up.

 

With the Groups feature, you’ll be able to assign and add people in the Admin group, which gives them administrative powers over the account, including the ability to run payroll!

 

 

That’s not all, my dear readers. With this feature, you can literally give your employees permissions to access their own data, such as address, contact information, relationship status (this may seem irrelevant, but it’ll totally affect PCB calculations if the data is incorrect).

 

This way, they can update their own data, instead of downloading forms, filling it up, submitting to HR, and risk getting it lost. A process that usually takes a few days can literally be done in minutes with groups!

 

 

 

5. Swingvy has a mobile app!

 

 

Dude, what good is a mobile app when it comes to payroll?!

 

Plenty, my simple-minded friend, plenty.

 

You see, earlier on I made a big deal about Swingvy being able to have more than one user running payroll.

 

When it’s payroll week, the person tasked with running payroll will have to make adjustments to claims, add overtime, etc. After everything is confirmed, they’ll then have to hit the submit payroll button.

 

But the payroll isn’t exactly submitted yet! It will still need to be approved by the business owner, i.e. you.

 

With Swingvy’s mobile app, EVERYTHING that needs approval will be pushed to your mobile device, enabling you to check anything that needs to be checked, and allowing you to hit the approve button, regardless of whether or not you’re playing Candy Crush on the loo or in your private yacht at the Bahamas.

 

This isn’t just limited to payroll approvals. Leave applications, claims, anything at all that requires your approval can be done via the mobile app, which gets things done a whole lot faster.

 

You can also assign your managers with the authority to approve leaves, leaving you free to attend to other business owner duties without the distraction of operations.

 

 

6. Unique payroll features!

 

It’s the little things that Swingvy has thought about which makes their payroll add-on stand out from the competition.

 

Things like this little PCB auto-verify button.

 

 

It’s something that doesn’t really affect the payroll process, but it’s just little conveniences that really add-up to make the whole experience a really pleasant one.

 

Let me explain a little bit about what I mean.

 

In every company, there’s bound to be one outlier, the guy that believes that his and solely his own information is correct, and everyone else with their combined wisdom and experience can go screw themselves.

 

This guy will be hounding the admin every month because he believes that the admin has somehow incorrectly over or underpaid the PCB from his salary, and it doesn’t matter how many times we tell him he’s wrong, he’s still right.

 

This person shall henceforth be known to us as, ‘That Guy‘.

 

With the PCB auto-verify button, when That Guy comes a knockin’, all you need to do is click that button and you’ll be sent to LHDN’s very own PCB calculator, which provides you with a detailed calculation of how they arrived at that particular PCB number.

 

 

You’ll get to rub it in That Guy’s face that the PCB deductions have been correct all the while, and he’s been a giant waste of everyone’s time. Then you’ll get to enjoy watching him slink back to his desk and sulk while he eats his expired protein bars.

 

Screw you, That Guy!

 

Another little thing we found useful is that Swingvy has a little summary page under payroll, which makes it easier for you to monitor the total of all your payroll expenses, including payments to EPF, PCB, SOCSO and EIS.

 

 

Like I previously mentioned, this isn’t a very important feature (I don’t think we can even call it a feature) but it allows you to conveniently see all your expenses at a glance, so you’ll know exactly how much your company needs to fork out every month.

 

Once again, it’s the little things, small conveniences that makes using Swingvy such a pleasant experience.

 

 

7. Make batch payments easily!

 

One of the biggest pains of running payroll is actually making payments to your staff, and all the required statutory bodies.

 

The business owner has to sign all the cheques manually and let their admin or finance department make the cheque deposits. If they’re internet-savvy enough, they’ll make direct transfers via online banking.

 

Either way, it’s a much abhorred time-consuming process as you would have to manually slog, making payments to one account at a time.

 

Swingvy’s batch payment function changes everything.

 

 

After you’ve submitted payroll for the month, you can download a bank batch payment file from the reports page, log on to your favourite supported bank and make all the payments with just a few clicks!

 

Swingvy’s got 4 banks that are integrated with their batch payment system right now:

 

 

If you don’t have an account with these banks yet, I highly suggest you take a look at their catered-for-business accounts. You won’t just get to make batch payments, you’ll also enjoy exclusive benefits from the banks!

 

Batch payments are also applicable to statutory bodies, so all that hassle you used to have to go through to make payroll just got their asses kicked by Swingvy.

 

 

8. Swingvy is LHDN approved!

 

Personally, one of my biggest fears of running payroll is the uncertainty of new rules being rolled out by KWSP or LHDN that I’m unaware of.

 

Not all of us have auditor friends we can rely on to update us on the latest requirement changes, and I believe most business owners won’t have the time to keep up to date with all the rules and regulations.

 

This is a real worry because a simple mistake can result in serious fines for employers!

 

With Swingvy, those worries become a thing of the past, because although they don’t tout it, Swingvy is LHDN approved.

 

LHDN conducts regular checkups with Payroll software providers, to ensure that all contributions are compliant to the latest requirements.

 

When you use Swingvy, all the contributions to statutory bodies are automated according to LHDN, so there is absolutely no way you’ll be under or overpaying your employee’s PCB!

 

 

3 Ways Swingvy Can Improve

 

1. No phone live chat support

 

In this age where everything is online, we expect some sort of live chat support so that we can get our issues sorted out as soon as we can.

 

Granted, you can argue that a cloud platform like Swingvy doesn’t need live chat because nothing should go wrong with the platform, however, user errors still can happen and it’ll be nice to have a team we can message or call to fix it as soon as possible.

 

They do have a little Help Centre Widget which is quite useful. This should be sufficient to help you fix common issues, but sometimes, we just need human help.

 

 

Although Swingvy provides same-day email support, they can’t guarantee same day service over the weekends, so keep that in mind if you’re one of those that likes to hop into the office on a Sunday to run payroll without the distraction of employees and meetings.

 

 

2. Payslips aren’t automatically sent

 

This is a minor gripe, and honestly, payslips can be sent to all employees with a click of a button.

 

My question is, if it can be done at a click of a button, why not just automate the process and save users the trouble?

 

Having said that, employees are able to download their payslips through their app once payroll has been run.

 

 

3. Slightly steeper learning curve

 

Swingvy’s payroll add-on is by no means a difficult software to learn how to use. As a matter of fact, it’s quite easy and very intuitive.

 

It’s just that it’s also very comprehensive and packed with features. The more features you have, the more time users will have to spend to learn how to use everything.

 

I dare say that users must attend training if they want to be able to use the software as efficiently as possible.

 

 

Swingvy’s Plan & Pricing: Overview

 

 

Swingvy’s Standard plan is actually free to use. All you have to do is sign up and you’re free to use all their HR features, minus their very premium functions comprising of their comprehensive Leave and Claims benefits, which will cost RM8.50 a month per employee, billed annually.

 

 

To use their Payroll add-on, it’ll cost you an additional RM8.50 a month per employee, billed annually.

 

It’s not bad at all, considering if you don’t really want to use the HR software, you’ll only have to pay RM85 per month if you’ve got 10 employees. It’s quite the proverbial bang for your buck!

 

 

 

Swingvy VS Other Competitor

 

Swingvy VS PayrollPanda

 

 

 

 

 

Swingvy VS Kakitangan

 

 

 

 

 

Verdict: What Do We Think About Swingvy?

 

We are absolutely thrilled with Swingvy’s Payroll add-on.

 

Not only is it affordable, it’s functional, really easy to use and very comprehensive.

 

We like that the software has SME friendly perks, such as allowing more than one person to run payroll, remotely approve stuff via the mobile app, ability to run mid-month payroll and create groups with permissions so that employees can update their own details, etc.

 

There are a few minor gripes we have with the software, but really those are just us being nitpicky.

 

The platform is fantastic for small business owners and SMEs alike, and we would be happy to recommend Swingvy to our other business owner friends.

 

Two thumbs up for Swingvy!