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January 24, 2025
Salary is a sensitive topic. When payroll data ends up in the wrong hands due to human error, it causes concern within a company. Understandably so: sensitive information about money and personal data deserves the highest level of security. Yet it happens more often than you might expect.
A file gets saved incorrectly, giving colleagues access to data not intended for them. A spreadsheet with salary information accidentally gets sent to a general mailbox. Printed payroll documents are left unattended at the printer, visible to anyone passing by. An employee mistakenly shares a document containing sensitive data via a public link. The list goes on.
In some cases, such mistakes make front-page news. Football club Manchester United faces a damage claim of one hundred thousand pounds because in 2018, they accidentally emailed a file containing salary data of 167 employees to their staff. Several of them took their case to the British Supreme Court to demand compensation.
The risk is not limited to employee errors. Hackers target payroll information, especially from large companies or multinationals. Computer or email system breaches regularly put companies in a tight spot. Last year, a hacker collective stole 383,000 files from the waste management company Limburg.net. Among other things, they captured network administrator passwords through an Excel file. In 2022, cybercriminals stole sensitive data from the Zwijndrecht police force, including salary information and thousands of police reports.
Europe's privacy legislation ranks among the strictest in the world. Through GDPR regulations and national legislation, Europe has shown since 2018 that it takes the protection of personal data seriously. It gives individuals whose data has been leaked the opportunity to go to court and demand compensation if it appears that insufficient security measures were in place.
Companies that have not digitized their HR data and instead rely on spreadsheets face the greatest security risk. Because we are so familiar with spreadsheets, we quickly turn to them, but they cause problems on multiple fronts.
Spreadsheets are designed to store, edit and organize data, but not necessarily to share. You can protect spreadsheets with a password, but passwords are easily passed on. This cannot be controlled.
As a storage location, a spreadsheet is difficult to secure. The risk of security breaches is significantly higher than with other storage methods, such as a web tool. To process, share or analyze, spreadsheets leave the controlled environment of ERP software, for example. At that point, they become vulnerable to theft or mismanagement.
Spreadsheets can lead to non-compliance with GDPR rules. According to these regulations, the personal data you store must be complete and accurate. But as soon as spreadsheets are sent or stored on different computers, multiple versions easily emerge. Changing one document does not automatically update the other versions. This means you cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information.
Spreadsheets are free and accessible to everyone. Most people have taught themselves how to work with them. Although many can somewhat manage Excel, true experts are rare. This makes errors inevitable, especially with superficial knowledge of the program.
Typos, logical errors, or carelessness happen quickly. The risks are so significant that international researchers have united in the European Spreadsheet Risks Interests Group think tank to address these problems and find solutions. Research shows that as many as nine out of ten spreadsheets contain at least one error.
GDPR legislation also requires data to be processed in a guaranteed secure manner. In the event of a data breach, it becomes difficult to prove that you had sufficient security in place. Spreadsheets can be emailed to anyone. Old versions of spreadsheets remain on employees' computers, sometimes even after they leave the company. This creates problems regarding compliance with privacy and security rules.
Cumbersome procedures are meant to make working with spreadsheets safer, but there is a much simpler solution that is also more efficient and cost-effective. A secure SaaS cloud system is the right choice. Youbo is a SaaS solution specifically designed for compensation processes.
The advantages of a SaaS solution are clear. Your data is secure, centrally stored, fully traceable and accessible based on strict role-based rights.
Youbo is ISO certified according to the highest security standard, ISO-27001. To guarantee this, an audit takes place annually.
Youbo uses enhanced authentication and access security through single sign-on and two-factor authentication.
Thanks to integrations and automation, manual errors are a thing of the past. The payroll information is automatically integrated with the payroll system.
The reward letter is automatically sent from the secure environment to the employee at the push of a button. In a separate email, they receive a verification code to access the data.
Youbo has two access levels. The superadmin (for example finance, HR or the CEO) has access to all data. They grant access to specific users whose tasks and responsibilities they determine, such as department head, reviewer, reader. A user only sees the data of the team assigned to them.
The audit trail in Youbo shows who makes which changes to payroll data and when. The filter options make it possible to more easily see patterns, for example by department or user, or to provide an overview of all promotions.
Software offers more benefits than just improved security. Think of efficiency gains, automated workflows or real-time reporting. Forget Excel for managing the distribution of raises, promotions and bonuses in your company. With Youbo you work safely, accurately, compliantly and save enormous amounts of time.
