How do you pick the right Payroll Service that suits your business?

Are you thinking of investing in a payroll service for your small business? Every company that has a hiring process requires a payroll process to pay its staff. With times changing, companies today prefer a payroll service for its process simplification and convenience over processing it themselves or outsourcing the job. Let’s try to understand a bit more about payroll services and how you can pick one for your small business.

What is a Payroll Service?

A payroll service provider is someone who processes payroll calculations, year-end taxes, payroll tax statements and much more. An online payroll service will offer you various services like handling deposits and withdrawals for employees, withhold and pay garnishments, and new-hire report-making. Using an online payroll service means you have to input all the data and process the payroll yourself.

What services do online payroll offer?

An online payroll service is an excellent tool for small businesses and budding entrepreneurs to handle their payrolls. Since online payroll services work on the cloud, you do not need separate software to install and manage. Apart from that, an online payroll service means that you can run it from anywhere, anytime.

Some standard services that online payroll offers are:

Processing the payroll: Online payroll service can easily calculate how much each employee must be paid during their pay period. It can address the shift differentials, holiday pay, benefits deductions, wage rates, and more. Once the service makes its calculations based on all the factors, it then pays out all the employees through direct deposit or other means.

Payroll taxes: Online payroll service can effectively withhold employee taxes, fill the company’s quarterly payroll tax reports, and even pay the employee’s tax withholdings. Most online services also distribute employee tax forms at the end of a tax year.

Integration: These online services include various payroll-significant solutions, attendance programs, human resource solutions, accounting software, etc.

Employee assistance: Most online payroll services offer employees access to their individual PTO balances, end-of-the-year tax forms, due pays, etc.

Online Payroll Service: How to pick one?

Even though hundreds of online payroll services are available, not all are trustworthy, and not everyone offers the same quality service. Here are some particular areas that small businesses require from an online payroll service:

Usability: As a small business owner, you are already occupied with complete business management. At this moment, you want an online payroll service that is easy to grasp and use. The interface should be simple enough to run payroll and complete employee addition at any time within minutes.

Features: While payroll processing and tax handling are the main features, an online payroll service should also offer other features like different payment modes, wage rates, employee compensation manager, payroll reporting, PTO manager, etc.

Integration: A small business owner like you would be handling different software at once. An online payroll service that you choose must sync with your other software like an accounting system, attendance software, etc.

Cost: Cost is an essential part of selecting an online payroll service, and it is not only about the initial cost but also if there is a subscription or contract mentioned. Some online payroll service providers offer a monthly subscription, while others ask for yearly payments.

Concluding note

Online payroll service offers the flexibility of in-house payroll management while giving the accuracy of a bookkeeper. For any small business which wants to keep the initial business costs low, online payroll service is an excellent medium while providing all the benefits. All you need are proper research and time to find the one that suits your business requirements.