Tips for hiring someone to handle your payroll

Whether you are a new business or an existing well established business all will agree that even the most meticulous and experience book keepers find that handling payroll can be a very big headache.Hiring someone to handle your payroll can provide a less expensive way to pay your employees, help with filing taxes, and can perform many other time consuming tasks.

As you consider hiring someone to handle your payroll, here is a list of some common mistakes made when trying to handle them on your own:

- Deadlines.As the days get busier especially around the holiday season you may forget to meet important deadlines such as sending your payroll taxes to federal and state agencies.This can be costly
- Misclassifying workers.Because you have many employees coming and going, along with independent contractors and consultants classifying workers becomes tricky.You need to know who go where in order to report your payroll information for tax purposes
- Forgetting to send 1099s.
- Record keeping and data entry.There are a large number of companies that have a difficult time keep names and social security numbers straight.You can imagine the repercussions of this mistake.
- Miscalculating overtime.Litigations have increased drastically in recent years as many employees have claimed they were not paid for overtime they have worked.
- Software Payroll programs.Although there are a number of programs available to do payroll for you, there are also many people who neglect to enter all the necessary information in order for the program to calculate correctly.
- Maintaining confidentiality.All payroll information should be handled in a private and secure environment.
- Backup.Although you may have days when you are sick or away from work the IRS and state still need to receive payroll information as do employees.It is almost critical that more than one person be able to handle payroll functions.

So is hiring someone to handle your payroll right for you?
Even if you are a small business, you may already know that handling and processing pay checks is not as cost effective as it appeared at first.You thought you could save money by not having to pay yet another person.You are now spending valuable time and energy trying to keep track of your own payroll.Sound familiar?If it does, then hiring someone to handle your payroll is definitely the right choice for you.

What should an employee or payroll service do?
Small business payroll services will generally handle a wide range of payroll tasks which include paycheck printing, calculation and distribution, tax documents for all employees, and management reports.They will also offer services for filing state and federal taxes as well.

How does hiring someone to handle payroll work?
For each pay period, payroll data needs to be called in to your payroll service provider.The employee hired for your payroll is in charge of making sure that all information for employee work hours, vacation time, and any other information needed is sent to the payroll service provider.

How much will it cost you?
Well, if you decide to go with a payroll service, for a basic small business it usually costs between three and five dollars per check; then there are typically fees you will pay for direct deposit and filing taxes.If you decide not to go with a payroll service provider you will want to check with other companies who have hired employees to handle their payroll books.There is often a base salary or hourly wage, but depending on your needs and how much you can pay all things are negotiable.

Hopefully these tips for hiring someone to handle your payroll will be helpful in your search to make your business run more smoothly and be more efficient.Hiring someone to handle your payroll may cost you a little more money, but definitely save you a lot of time; and we all will agree that time is money.