Payroll
Automation Solves Payroll Headaches
If you’ve ever done payroll for your own business or a client's, you’ll understand just how stressful the process can be. Employees are extremely proprietary about their paychecks and will notice the smallest discrepancy.
Oct. 07, 2021
If you’ve ever done payroll for your own business or a client’s, you’ll understand just how stressful the process can be. Employees are extremely proprietary about their paychecks and will notice the smallest discrepancy.
Luckily, most payroll software and service providers have made the entire payroll process a lot easier than it used to be. But even with simpler payroll methods available, the payroll process remains one of the more complicated processes a business needs to deal with regularly.
For example, here are just a few of the things that a payroll department is tasked with:
- Adding new employees to the payroll, including entering base pay, any additional pay, direct deposit information, and local, state, and federal tax deductions
- Paying hourly and salaried employees
- Paying contract employees
- Setting up additional deductions such as health and life insurance, retirement plan deductions, HSA deductions, and any other miscellaneous deductions
- Entering and accurately tracking available vacation time, sick time, comp time, or PTO
- Calculating and entering overtime for qualified hourly employees
- Paying taxes to correct tax authority
- Paying insurance premiums to the appropriate vendors
- Entering any salary adjustments
- Removing terminated employees from payroll
- Ensuring that all local, state and federal labor laws are properly adhered to
- Passing out paychecks or paystubs to employees
These tasks can be time-consuming for a small firm with a few employees. Imagine processing payroll manually for hundreds or thousands of employees.
That’s why businesses small and large are turning to an outside payroll software or service provider to do all of the heavy lifting. Designed to make life a lot easier for payroll departments, in many cases, the only thing that payroll department employees need to do is ensure that hours and employee pay amounts are properly entered, and run the payroll.
That’s because much of the work of the past has been removed from the plate of the payroll department employee and put squarely on the shoulders of the employee. With a self-service option offered by most major payroll service providers, the new employee is now responsible for entering personal information, direct deposit details, and desired tax deductions. That same self-service option also allows your employees to access all of their pay stubs, update personal information, and even change their tax deductions, all on their own.
Because many of these small businesses do not have a human resources department, most of these payroll services have now added HR resources that can be accessed by both the employee and payroll staff.
While payroll will always remain one of the most scrutinized tasks a business undertakes, by using an outside payroll provider, you can decrease the amount of paperwork that your payroll employees normally need to tackle each pay period. Another benefit of using an automated payroll system is that you’ll likely experience a reduction in errors, which in turn will make your employees much happier. And by reducing the amount of paperwork, you’ll be allowing your payroll manager to manage the process rather than spend the majority of their time correcting errors or entering data.
Payroll services come in all shapes and sizes, allowing you to make the choices that best suit your business. There’s never been a better time to make the move to an outside payroll service. So why not get started today?