Company payrolls and the ability for businesses to pay their employees could be severely impacted by the global Microsoft IT outage, says the Global Payroll Association (GPA).
Numerous clients contacted the GPA after they were unable to access their payroll software, with many told to âlog out of their payroll systems with immediate effectâ.
GPA CEO, Melanie Pizzey, said: âDepending on the length of this outage, it could have very serious implications for businesses across the nation, particularly those who process payroll on a weekly basis. Furthermore, we could see a backlog with regard to processing payrolls for the coming month end which may delay employees from receiving their monthly wage.
âAt best, it will require those managing payroll to work overtime to rectify the issue, but the good news is that it doesnât seem to be a cyber attack. This means that the sensitive employee details held within payroll should be safe, although weâre seeing many companies understandably take action to minimise such a threat as a precaution.â
Approximately 4.3 million people in Britain – around 15 per cent of the working population – are paid weekly, according to jobs site Indeed.
Payroll systems ordinarily need to be notified of any issues two days before a designated payday for them to be resolved in time to meet the deadline, experts said. Anyone expecting to receive wages today should get paid without issues but those whose pay day is next week could potentially encounter delays.
To compound the problem some banking services and card payment systems have also been affected
However, IRIS Software Group has confirmed its payroll products are âunaffectedâ, but revealed a limited number of its employees had been impacted by the outage.
The CEO of software company CrowdStrike whoâs bug caused the issue, George Kurtz, said it could be weeks before systems are back up and running.
