Businesses that use the payroll solutions app were unable to pay their employees their well-earned salaries last August due to this tech glitch.

Millions of pesos in salaries were not distributed to their rightful owners after a payroll solutions app froze its disbursement feature. According to the company that runs it, it encountered a tech glitch, as well as disparities in its system. 

Salarium, the company in question, admitted to Rappler that “they have frozen all of the funds it currently handles, resulting in belated disbursements.” Its app is known as SALPay. 

As of press time, the company does not know when the issue can be resolved. “In the meantime, to mitigate the possibility of further depletion of funds, we have implemented precautionary measures, including the freezing of all funds under our management,” the company explained.

Legal Action Against Salarium

Salarium’s decision to freeze the disbursement feature of SALPay has caused problems for businesses that use the app to manage the payroll of their employees. In fact, one engineering company disclosed to Rappler that it is planning to sue Salarium over the issue. 

According to Rappler’s report, “A mid-sized engineering company told Rappler that Salarium has held hostage funds amounting to at least PHP 15 million, resulting in employees unable to receive their salaries for the August 15 cutoff.” 

The company also said that employees have resigned due to the problem and that overall morale among employees has been low. 

The owner of another business, a small coffee shop, likewise revealed to Rappler that she has not been able to access PHP 100,000 in funds since the glitch happened. While the owner has reached out to Salarium, she has only heard back from third-party virtual assistants. 

How This Can Be a Learning Experience for Businesses

While platforms such as Salarium’s SALPay undoubtedly make managing employees’ payroll a breeze, companies should not heavily depend on them. This is because doing so will create all sorts of problems once the platform encounters an issue as Salarium did. 

While such incidents are beyond the control of businesses that use such apps, it does not change the fact that employees will complain if they do not receive their salaries on time. In order to avoid this, businesses should have contingency plans that will allow them to still be able to give employees their salaries. 

This should also be a learning experience—not just for Salarium, but for other similar platforms. No platform wants to deal with a glitch that will hamper the services they give to their clients. However, it is just as important to note that these incidents cannot be avoided. 

Given this, it should be of utmost importance that there is clear communication and transparency between the platform and its clients. This will help avoid misunderstandings and miscommunication between the two parties. Doing so can hasten the search for a solution, as well as better shape how companies deal with the problem.