As your business grows, so do your employees and your responsibilities. If you run a small or medium-sized business or a startup, you may still be manually processing payroll, thinking it’ll save you money. However, you’ve finally realized you’re mistaken if you’re here.
Manually doing payroll consumes long hours of your day and only leads to errors and miscalculations. And even if you delegate this task to an employee, it’ll only consume their day as well. Then, you finally go to your accountant or CPA to help with payroll, which costs you a lot.
Online payroll software is a quick, efficient, and cost-effective way to get payroll done without any needed accounting expertise. It’s something you can do yourself in just a few minutes without needing any help. Today, most businesses, even big corporations, use online payroll software to get things done because they realize that this is the best solution for managing payroll.
Still hesitant? Here is a list of all the benefits of using payroll software and why you need to start looking to find the best payroll software for you.
10 Ways Payroll Software Can Save You Time and Money
1- Online Timesheets:
Some payroll software providers have a time tracking feature that monitors employees’ working hours. In addition, it keeps track of absences, leaves, vacations, and anything that will affect payroll.
However, most of the popular payroll software such as QuickBooks, iSolved, Patriot Payroll, and others focus mainly on payroll tasks and allow you to automatically upload online time tracking sheets onto the system for payroll. Online time tracking means you don’t have to manually track working hours or enter them into the system, which consumes a lot of time and leads to errors.
Paper timesheets or punch-hole cards for tracking working hours is an ancient way that must be put aside. Employees can easily forget to enter their timings or manipulate them by adding false timings or increased hours.
A simple mistake like a false entry, untracked leaves, or even lousy handwriting makes a big problem in payroll. It will affect the employee’s salary and mess with your budget.
2- Accurate Calculations:
Payroll calculations depend on the accuracy of the input the system receives. That is why our previous point is the start of the whole process. When the working hours are automatically added, the system takes care of everything else like overtime, deductions, bonuses, commissions, raises, etc.
Set specific controls to automate this every month. You no longer need to go through these monthly calculations that waste many hours, sometimes days.
The automated system even sends out paychecks for manual payments and performs direct deposits. However, the employee responsible for payroll must not neglect to make the correct entries before payroll to avoid miscalculations.
3- No Accounting Expertise Needed
Before the invention of this fantastic phenomenon, businesses spent a lot of money on a CPA or accountant to get payroll done. However, today, you can do payroll yourself with no previous experience with automated, web-based payroll software.
If you don’t want to do it yourself, you can delegate it to one employee to handle, knowing that it won’t take up their time or distract them from other tasks.
This is great for startups or small businesses looking to save money because it requires less workforce, so you won’t need a whole department to get it done. Also, fewer people making calculations, compensations, and deductions mean fewer errors. Since all calculations are done automatically, employees will get their right salaries on time.
4- Tax Deductions
The employer must make specific wage deductions from employees, including federal income tax, social security tax, Medicare tax, and in some cases, state income tax.
An automated payroll system has tax deductions coded into the system; it calculates deductions according to the inputted data and applies them to salaries. Manually processing this will lead to miscalculations which would mean mistakes with IRS fees and state tax agencies.
5- Automated Payslips
Most payroll software solutions can automatically create payslips. You can customize the info on the payslip and send them to employees with their salaries to be up-to-date with their salary details.
6- Secure Payroll Database
U.S Department of Labor requires you to keep payroll data for at least three years, and IRS also requires you to keep tax records for up to four years. There are many ways why this could be a problem for a small business or startup. Firstly, it’ll clutter your office. An automated payroll system eliminates paper timesheets, paper payslips, manual paychecks, and more. If you manually handle payroll, your paper storage will increase, and your office space will decrease.
You can utilize that space better, like setting up cubicles or for meetings, but instead, it is cluttered with essential paper. Secondly, paper is a glaring sign of inefficiency. Losing a tax form or an employee timesheet can mess up your whole tax filing process and cause you trouble with IRS.
An online payroll system generates and stores your employees’ payroll and tax data. This cloud-based storage provides excellent backup in case your computer breaks down. With an online database, you can quickly pull out what you need; tax season won’t be as hard.
7- Tax Updates & Management
Tax filing is one of the most taunting and stressful things for small businesses. But with a payroll system that stores all tax records and implements tax deductions, you can get it done faster with less stress and time.
One of the best benefits of payroll software is that it is automatically updated with all new tax updates. You can even set reminders for tax submissions to keep you alert ahead of time.
8- Forecast Costs and Budgets
An automated system allows you to monitor payroll and calculate your expenses accurately. Some programs generate reports with estimated future payments, raise rates, etc. When you have a good idea of your current budget, it’ll help you plan your costs better in the future regarding new hires, raises, or promotions.
9- Advanced Security
When you delegate a third party like an accountant to do your payroll, you need to be extra careful. There is always some uncertainty with handing over sensitive employee data or bank info that it will fall into the wrong hands. Since payroll software handles critical information and numbers, they feature the highest security standards.
No one but you needs to access this info, guaranteeing it will be well protected on a secure online system for safekeeping.
10- Cost-Effective, Flexible Solution
Automating payroll allows you to set customized settings to be done monthly according to your needs. This cost-effective solution will be great when you expand and hire more workers. In addition, it saves you money on an accountant or paper storage that could be put towards something more important in the business.
Also, those long payroll hours can now only take an hour to get done so that the accounting department can focus on other significant tasks.
Time and money are two vital factors to consider, and in the end, they are the problematic points that’ll make us want to look for a solution.
How to find the right Payroll Software for you?
Many providers offer a payroll management solution, but some are better than others. Go to the Payroll Software section in the Categories and check the various products’ prices, ratings, reviews, and features. Some products are more convenient for small or medium businesses looking to save a few bucks, while other products accommodate more prominent corporations.
Once you’ve settled on the best payroll software for you, get busy and start automating payroll for quick and efficient results!
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