Payroll questions that show the steps owners still do by hand
Ask business owners and bookkeepers how payroll and invoicing really run, from the pay cycle to late invoices. Each question below comes with when to ask it and what the answer tells you.
What payroll and invoicing survey questions tell you
Payroll and invoicing survey questions ask the people who run payroll how long a pay run takes, which tasks still happen by hand, whether they trust the numbers and how quickly their own customers pay. The answers show where your payroll or invoicing product saves time and where owners still keep a spreadsheet open beside it.
Ask right after a pay run, inside your web app, while the steps are fresh, or send a short survey by email a few days after month end. Pick four to six questions, and keep the invoicing questions in their own survey if many customers use only one of the two products.
Each written answer gets a category, a theme, a type and a sentiment, and each response an urgency, so a report of a late staff payment reaches support before a feature idea does. Give those responses an owner in the inbox, and open an issue in Jira or Linear for the product team.
- Questions
- 14
- Best asked
- Right after a pay run
- Industry
- Finance
- Where to find them
- From library in the Usertick survey editor, on every plan
The 14 payroll and invoicing questions, with when to ask each
Grouped by what they tell you. Use them as they are or change the wording.
Who runs payroll and the time spent
Ask who does the work, for how many people and how long it takes, so effort scores can be read in context.
- 01Multiple choice
Who runs payroll at your company?
Who runs payroll, from the owner to an HR team. Choose a role in Results, since a bookkeeper running payroll for several clients judges the tool differently from an owner.
- 14Number
How many people do you pay each month?
How many people the business pays, typed as a number. Results shows the median and the middle half; select a range to compare small and larger payrolls.
- 03Ruler
How many minutes does a pay run take you?
Minutes a pay run takes, on a ruler up to four hours. Results shows the median and the middle half; read it beside the number of people paid.
- 02Customer effort
How easy is it to run a pay cycle?
How easy a pay cycle is. Show it in your web app right after a pay run is submitted, using a custom event from your code (from Starter, or on 1 survey on Free).
What payroll still costs you
Find the manual tasks, the late payments and the dreaded steps, the list your product team should automate next.
- 05Multiple choice
Which tasks still happen by hand?
Which tasks still happen by hand, with None of these for teams that automated everything. The bars show what to automate next.
- 04Yes / No
Has a payment to staff ever gone out late?
Whether a staff payment has ever gone out late. Select Yes in Results and give each response an owner, since a late payment is the problem owners remember.
- 07Text
Which part of payroll do you dread each month?
The open question on what owners dread. Answers arrive with a sentiment and a theme, so the step that causes the most stress shows up in their own words.
- 12Text
Which step of payroll should run without you?
Asks which step should run without the owner. The themes give your product team a list of what to automate, in the owners' own words.
The payroll tool
Rate each part of the tool, the trust in its numbers and the pay stubs staff receive, so you know which part to fix first.
- 11Matrix
Rate the payroll tool on each
Setup, running payroll, tax handling and reports in one grid. The heat map shows which part of the tool owners rate lowest, with an average for each row.
- 13Big scale
How much do you trust the numbers the tool produces?
Trust in the numbers, on a 1 to 10 scale. Read low scores beside the tax handling row of the grid; owners who don't trust a payroll tool check its work by hand.
- 06Stars
How clear are the payslips your staff receive?
Stars for how clear the pay stubs are. A low average here can mean staff questions that land on the owner's desk every month.
Invoicing and getting paid
Ask how often the business invoices, how long customers take to pay and whether chasing is automatic, the questions behind cash flow.
- 08Multiple choice
How often do you send invoices?
How often the business invoices, from daily to rarely. Select a band in Results to read invoicing answers by how heavily the business relies on invoices.
- 09Ruler
How many days do customers take to pay you?
Days customers take to pay, on a ruler up to 90. Results shows the median and the middle half, a picture of the cash gap your invoicing tools can help close.
- 10Yes / No
Do you chase late payments automatically?
Whether late payments are chased automatically. Select No in Results to see whether those owners report longer payment times.
Tips for asking about payroll and invoicing
Small choices that get honest, useful answers.
- 01
Ask right after the pay run
Show the survey when a pay run is submitted, or send it the next day. After the following pay run, owners mix the two up.
- 02
Ask the person who runs payroll
Send the survey to whoever submits the pay run, which may be a bookkeeper or an accountant.
- 03
Treat late payments as urgent
Give every report of a late staff payment an owner in the inbox the same day, and reply before the next pay run.
- 04
Split payroll and invoicing
Ask about invoicing in its own short survey when many customers use only one product. Each survey stays short and relevant.
Add these questions to a survey
From the library to the first answers.
- 1
Open the library
In the Usertick survey editor, choose From library, filter by industry and topic, and add several questions at once.
- 2
Or paste your own list
Paste questions reads up to 10 questions from any text on Free, 100 on Starter and 200 on Pro and above, keeps your wording and picks an answer type for each.
- 3
Choose where it runs
Show the survey on your website, send it by email, share its link and QR code, or switch it to a conversation.
- 4
Read the answers
Results counts every score and choice, and Usertick reads each written answer and files it by topic, on every plan.
Templates and more questions about payroll and invoicing
Full surveys that ask about the same things, and neighboring topics in the library.
Templates
Browse all templatesFrequently asked questions
Right after a pay run. In your web app, show the survey when a pay run is submitted, using a custom event from your code (from Starter, or on 1 survey on Free), or send it by email the next day.
Yes. Ask who runs payroll first, then select a role in Results to read each group's answers on their own.
Four to six. Start with the effort score, add the minutes and the tasks done by hand, and end with the open question.
On every plan, workflows can create issues in Jira or Linear. They can also post to Slack, Microsoft Teams or a webhook.
Yes. The question library comes with every plan, the free plan included, and the free plan covers 150 responses a month across your surveys.
Yes. Once a question is in your survey, reword it, change its options or its answer type, and add logic to skip it for some answers.
Yes. The library is translated into Usertick's built-in languages, and in any other language it shows in English for you to translate.
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