Payroll software vs spreadsheets for Cambodian SMEs
Most Cambodian SMEs do not run payroll on a software product. They run it in a spreadsheet — and for a small enough team, that is a defensible choice. Here is exactly where it stops being one.
What a spreadsheet actually gets right
It costs nothing, everyone in the finance team already knows it, and it bends to any rule you invent at short notice. For a team of five on fixed salaries with no NSSF registration yet, a spreadsheet and a careful accountant will produce a correct payroll every month. Any vendor who tells you otherwise is selling to you rather than advising you.
The four points where it breaks in Cambodia
Dual currency is the first. A salary agreed in USD, tax and contributions computed in riel, and a National Bank rate that moves between payroll dates means every month carries a conversion decision that has to be recorded, not just performed. The second is the audit trail: a spreadsheet records the number, never who changed it or when, which is the first thing a donor auditor or a labour inspector asks for. The third is seniority indemnity — paid twice a year rather than once, so it disappears from a monthly sheet entirely until it is suddenly due. The fourth is simply headcount: reconciling attendance, leave, advances and deductions by hand stays accurate to about twenty employees and stops being accurate well before anyone notices.
The real cost of the spreadsheet
Not the licence — there is none. The cost is the two or three days a month a senior finance person spends assembling it, the rework when an attendance sheet arrives late from a province office, and the exposure when a filing is wrong. Price those days at what that person actually earns and compare the number against $2 per employee per month before deciding the spreadsheet is free.
Side by side
| Criterion | Humaneti | Spreadsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Licence cost | From $2 per active employee per month | None |
| Setup effort | Configuration and data migration up front | Open a file and start |
| USD/KHR conversion recorded per run | Yes, with the rate stored against the payroll run | Manual, and usually not recorded |
| Who changed a figure, and when | Recorded on every change | Not recorded |
| Seniority indemnity tracked between instalments | Accrued and scheduled | Usually remembered only when due |
| Works when the person who built it leaves | Yes — the rules are configuration, not formulas | Often the single biggest operational risk |
| Bilingual payslips (Khmer/English) | Built in | Possible, but maintained by hand |
When the spreadsheet is still the right answer
Under about ten employees, all on fixed salaries, one location, one currency, and a finance person who is not going anywhere: buy nothing. Software will cost you money and a fortnight of setup to solve a problem you do not have yet. Come back when you register for NSSF, open a second location, or start paying anyone in a currency other than the one you quote in.