Managing Your Company Payroll

Managing your company payroll can be time consuming and may require the assistance of a qualified payroll accountant. As an employer you are liable for reporting and depositing the payroll taxes to federal, provincial, state or local tax agencies. Depending upon your business model and number of employees, there are various ways through which you could process the payroll for your employees. Proper accounting of your money flow is essential.

Manual Payroll Processing

Manually processing the payroll can help you to save a considerable amount of money and offer greater control. However it is prone to errors and requires hard work and expertise in the field of accounting. The method of manually processing the payroll has significantly diminished because of the advancements in computer technology. Nowadays most companies use payroll software or seek the services of a payroll service provider, with an exception of very few small businesses. There are software packages for small and large companies alike.

Payroll and Accounting Software

Payroll software like Intuit’s “Enhanced payroll for Quickbooks” can help you to save considerable amounts of time and can eliminate the possibility of errors in accounting. Payroll software can automatically calculate the earnings and deductions of each employee in your business and print the necessary paychecks. It can also help to generate the necessary tax forms for filing the payroll taxes as per the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) or CRA standards.

Tips For Selecting Good Payroll Software

a) You need to make sure the payroll software is compatible with your current accounting software
b) The payroll software should be easy to learn and use.
c) Make sure the payroll software is suitable to process payroll for the number of employees in your company.
d) Make sure it supports direct deposit of employee’s salary and can generate the required tax forms
e) Make sure it comes with a money back guarantee. If in case you find it hard you could always return it to the vendor.
f) The checks, invoices and statements used in your business should be compatible with the payroll software you intend to purchase.
g) Make sure the payroll software can provide free tax and other updates.

Outsourced Payroll Management

This is another way to manage the payroll of your company. There are various third party payroll companies that can help you to manage your company’s payroll. Since there is a good amount of competition in this service sector, many companies would be able to provide their services at a competitive and affordable rate.

Outsourcing the payroll can save a considerable amount of time for you as they take care of everything right from data entry to tax remittance. Moreover payroll companies would employ experienced payroll professionals who could be more productive, posses great knowledge on payroll taxes and prone to less errors. Even if there are mistakes in accounting or delay in filing payroll taxes, the payroll company would take the responsibility for the penalty. Through outsourcing the payroll, you and your employees can spend more time on critical business operations.

Before you decide to choose any of the above mentioned payroll processing methods, you need to carefully analyze if it would suit your business and can really help you to save time and money. For those that would rather spend their time away from sometimes complicated math, using a comprehensive accounting/payroll software package is the better route to take.

Tags:   accounting · business · company · outsourcing · payroll · salary · software · tax · taxes