As a small business owner, you know the importance of responsibly managing the payroll. One option is to outsource this function to a reputable partner. As you look around, there are those who offer what’s known as full service payroll support. What does that mean? Here are four elements that are sure to be part of the package.
Processing the Payroll for Hourly and Salaried Employees
A key function is taking care of your weekly, biweekly, or monthly payroll calculation. While you supply the raw numbers, the partner takes that data and processes the payroll for all of your employees. This ensures that everything is in place to pay them on time.
For salaried employees, this may involve confirmation that they are still with the company for the period under consideration. It may also involve providing details of any vacation, sick, or personal days that are used. These can also apply to hourly employees as well. Include those details in the data that you send to the partner, and the service will take care of the rest.
Calculating and Withholding Taxes and Other Deductions
Part of the process involves calculating and withholding any taxes or other deductions that apply to each employee. The taxes that your business owes will also be calculated at the same time. This makes it easier to forward the direct net amount to each employee while retaining whatever needs to be directed to a tax agency, a court, or some other entity.
This process also involves ensuring that running tallies of all deductions are maintained for each employee. Along with receiving details about withholding for every pay period, your employees also have cumulative totals for the year once the final pay period is processed.
Handling the Distribution of Checks and Direct Deposits
With the payroll calculated and all withholding completed, there’s the matter of getting the net payments to your employees. Part of a full service payroll plan focuses on the disbursement of those payments. Today, it’s more common for employees to receive their pay via direct deposit. This often posts on the designated payday, or may even post on the previous business day.
If there are employees who continue to receive checks, those are either sent to your place of business for distribution, or mailed directly to each employee. The goal is to mail them so that the checks do arrive by the designated payday.
Preparing Tax Documents and Remitting Tax Payments
The withholding done for taxes also means preparing documents that must be supplied to local, state, and federal tax agencies. You can depend on the partner to take care of that. Once the forms are ready, you will have the chance to view them before they go anywhere.
The partner also remits the payments on your behalf. Funds to cover those payments come directly from the checking account that you designate for the purpose. This ensures that you are always up to date on those obligations.
You’ll find there are more services that are included with this type of payroll support. Talk with representatives from local partners who provide these services. You may be pleasantly surprised at what they can do to help keep your finances in order.
