Take control of your payroll with these easy tips
As a business owner starting out, it’s easy to think about all the tasks directly relating to your operation.
Owners are likely masters of their craft, so whether it’s curating the perfect menu, perfecting the service they provide or working on their products, the actual job usually comes naturally.
What’s not so easy is all the likely unexpected administrative responsibilities which come along with opening and running a business.
Between managing payroll, human resources, ensuring the business has proper insurance coverage, is compliant with local ordinances and numerous other administrative tasks, actually focusing on your business can fall to the wayside.
Our company is based right here in the Bay Area, and our goal is to allow business owners to focus on what really matters and leave the administrative tasks to us. We have helped several businesses in the Livermore area, and today we would like to give a few quick tips for business owners who are managing a payroll system.
Our first tip is to ensure all of your payroll policies are clearly written down and explained to all employees. Determine how often you will pay people, if they will be hourly or salaried hires and any potential bonus opportunities should be clearly defined as well.
Also, it’s important to have a payroll bank account which all paychecks are drawn from. This allows for direct deposits to be made if you choose to provide those and lets you to see what payments have cleared, and to see if there are any issues with payments going out or being accepted.
While payroll is obviously important for your employees, it’s equally vital to adhere to all deadlines for tax compliance. Part of any payroll system is continuing to adapt to changes in payroll laws, and ensuring all withholdings are correct for every paycheck.
Investing in training for your in-house payroll coordinator or your human resources staff is critical to ensuring success with your payroll operations. An error in withholdings could mean tax issues for your business and your employees.
Payroll should never be calculated on a spreadsheet. We understand many small business owners are trying to perform these tasks in-house, but the potential for error in the many important calculations which determine paycheck amounts when using a spreadsheet opens the door for employee and regulatory issues.
It’s important to use some sort of payroll software to assist you in these calculations. Some businesses can use a simple solution they can use in-house and others need a full-service company to handle their payroll entirely.
While these tips will hopefully help you run an effective payroll program, it will still take time, resources and money to ensure it’s done properly.
If you want to take back control of your time and your business, we would love to help you with payroll so that you can focus on your employees, product and/or services.
Our solutions are customizable to fit any size or type of business, so we can create a service to perfectly fit your needs. Give us a call today, we can help you focus on what really matters.
