The ability to complete your payroll in a timely and accurate manner is essential to running a small business successfully. In order to establish trust with and commitment from your employees, they need to be assured that they will be paid the correct amount on the predetermined dates without error or delay. In addition, mistakes made in payroll calculations can quickly topple your company’s financial stability. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of payroll completion, below are some best practices for small business owners.
Put all employees on the same pay cycle.
Payroll is one area of your business where you do not want employees to multitask. Having some workers who are paid monthly and some who are paid every other week not only creates extra work for those processing payroll, but it can cause sufficient confusion as to result in duplication errors. Your business definitely does not want to be known for accidentally paying people twice, or not paying them at all.
Make sure all of your software is fully integrated.
You do not want to purchase a software system for your payroll unless you know that it will fully meld with the software you already have in place. Otherwise, you will lose valuable time and money data entering current information into the new system, and in the future, someone will have to place new entries into two different systems. In all of this, you clearly run the risk of mistyping key information crucial for filing local, state, or federal taxes.
Consider outsourcing.
A wonderful way for a small business owner to achieve peace of mind regarding their payroll is to leave it to the experts by outsourcing to a payroll services company. Outsourcing your payroll will ensure accuracy in records of employee pay, leave balances, benefits deductions, and tax filing.