Are Payroll Services Right for Your Small Business?

Any company that has employees must run payroll. That is a simple fact. Even small businesses that have few employees must do payroll.

Running payroll can be a burden. Your business does not earn any money from payroll; instead, your business loses money. Processing payroll can take up your valuable time. And, if you are not a payroll expert—which you probably are not—payroll can be frustrating.

Purchasing a payroll service is one way you can make payroll less painful. Payroll software as a service has many perks that might benefit your company. Here are three reasons payroll software might be right for your business.

1. Reduce Your Payroll Errors

Payroll errors are easy to make. You might forget to add a number, not know how to calculate overtime for salary employees correctly, or miss a payroll tax deadline.

Even if you quickly realize your mistake, payroll errors can be costly. If you underpay an employee, the employee could sue you. You might owe back wages, fines, and penalties. The same is true with payroll and income taxes. If you miss or underpay taxes, you could end up owing more money than you initially did.

Using a payroll processing service can help you reduce the number of payroll errors you make, especially if you currently do payroll by hand. Online payroll software will automatically do the payroll calculations for you. The service provider should guarantee accurate calculations.

You could also choose to use a tax filing service. Many payroll service providers offer payroll tax filing. The service provider will collect, file, and remit taxes for you. You will not need to worry about reporting due dates and underpayments.

With payroll software, you do not need to worry about simple mistakes. With a few clicks, your payroll and taxes can be done correctly.

2. Manage Your Time

Many small business owners are working managers, meaning you do not have a lot of spare time. Doing payroll can take up a lot of your time. You have to find gross wages for each employee, add any overtime wages, and calculate payroll tax withholding and other deductions. Doing all necessary payroll tasks could take hours each week.

Using a payroll service can significantly reduce the time it takes you to run payroll. The software will do calculations for you. Not having to do calculations can save a lot of time. Payroll service providers can also file and remit taxes, which is another task you won’t have to do.

Instead of payroll taking up hours each week, it could take minutes. You simply need to double check that the software processed everything correctly.

Another payroll service your company could benefit from is time and attendance software. With this type of software, employees enter the hours they work. If you’re using an online payroll service, those hours are sent to the payroll software to complete the payroll calculations.

With time and attendance tracking software, you do not have to add up and enter the amount of time employees worked because the employees did that task for you. Payroll services can save you even more time by cutting out the need to do timekeeping.

3. Save Your Money

Every time you run payroll, your business loses money. You have to pay employee wages and taxes. Do you want to lose any more money to payroll?

You could hire an accountant. But, then you still have to pay that new employee’s wages. You could outsource your payroll to an outside accountant. But, accountants tend to have expensive hourly rates and additional charges.

Using a payroll service might be right for your business. Payroll services tend to be much cheaper than using an accountant. There are many affordable options. You can choose a software package that has the features you need, but does not make you overpay for extra add-ons.

Are Payroll Services Right For You?

If any of the three perks caught your interest, using a payroll service will probably be a good fit for your small business. As a small business owner, you are probably strapped for time and money. So, why would you not want to conserve time, save money, and reduce errors?

When you start searching for a payroll service, look for free trials and demos. Many payroll service providers will let you try the software for free. A free trial gives you a chance to try the software before you pay for it, which allows you time to find out if a specific software is right for your business.

Guest Author Bio:

Kaylee Riley is a content writer for Patriot Software, Inc. At Patriot, she translates tricky payroll and accounting topics into the language of the small business owner.

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