How Payroll Service Providers Can Help With Your Year-End Tasks

Operating your own business isn’t easy. It comes with the responsibility of handling many different tasks efficiently and in a timely manner. With the end-of-the-year just around the corner, there are deadlines to be met and things to do if you want to be prepared for next year. 

As a modern business owner, the first thing on your mind isn’t usually your end-of-year tasks. After all, there are things that need to get done now, and the end-of-the-year’s still ages away, right?

Oh, it isn’t? It’s just over a month and a half away? You see, this is really why it’s so essential to make your end-of-year targets a top priority, right now especially, regardless of whatever else is currently going on in your life or business. Whether you’re a new business owner or have extensive previous experience, there’s a lot to do before the end-of-the-year.

Luckily for you, working with payroll service providers can actually help you finish out all of your end-of-the-year tasks. Not only will this save you time, but you can focus on whatever other tasks or projects may be most important to you right now. 

Let’s take a closer look at how our services at Vision HR can help you and your Port Orange business get ahead of the year-end so you can focus on more important things.

End-of-the-year Payroll Checklist

Before you can bring your business forward into a new year, you’re going to want to make sure you’ve closed out and organized any remaining tasks so nothing’s left outstanding. Then you’ll be ready for the next chapter. 

Here a few ways you can prepare for the next year, which include:

• make sure you have recorded all paychecks, including bonuses and holiday pay
• balance time-off hours
• order the correct number of W-2 forms for all of your employees
• check that all your employees’ information is correct 
• verify all of your employees’ wages, deductions, and benefits 
• determine your deposit schedule for the new year

And yes, you guessed it: payroll services can help you with most if not all of these tasks. You can prepare yourself for the new year best if you stay organized. Doing this takes the stress out of your end-of-year tasks and helps to start your business on the right foot for the new year.  

Setting Up W-2 Forms for Employees

A W-2 is used by employers to report wages that have been paid to your employees and the taxes held from their paychecks. This form goes to the IRS for tax return processing, taxpayer services, and enforcement.  

As an employer, you are responsible for giving each of your employees a W-2 Form. Your employee needs a W-2 form if you deduct taxes from their paychecks which then gets reported to the IRS. 

This form is necessary for employees to file their income taxes by April of the following year. By law, employers are supposed to distribute these forms to their employees by January 31st to give them the ability to file their taxes early before the deadline on April 15th. And, for the record, Vision HR’s payroll service means the manual work of all of this is actually done for you. 

We issue W-2 forms. We handle all garnished wages. Easy and simple.

Organizing Payroll

Another added benefit to payroll services is extra help with end-of-the-year payroll. This process involves calculating a few different aspects of your business, such as:

 

• compensation

• taxes

• deductions to be withheld

 

All information needs to be submitted correctly on every form; therefore, it’s crucial to be meticulous and careful to catch any possible mistakes. A mistake can cost you and your business and create issues with the IRS, which is never worth it. Typically, this process lasts from the fourth quarter of the calendar year to the following year’s first quarter. 

It’s also essential to account for bank holidays, bonuses, and holiday pay. If you give your employees an extra paycheck at the end-of-the-year for bonuses and holiday pay, they need to have the proper payroll taxes withheld just like any other paycheck. Failure to do this could end up getting you or your employee in trouble with the IRS. A payroll service can help ensure that these extra paychecks are handled accordingly and that the proper taxes are taken out and submitted to the IRS. 

Figuring out your end-of-the-year payroll can get complicated if you don’t account for bank holidays. A bank holiday is when financial institutions are closed, with examples including:

 

• Presidents day

• Memorial Day

• Labor Day

 

If the day that the bank is closed falls on your predicted payday, this will mean that your

employees will not get paid. To keep this from happening, you’ll need to plan payroll earlier. 

Generating Spending Reports 

To plan for the new year, it’s important to generate a spending report. This will show you how much you have spent on your payroll for the year. Having access to these reports can also help you alter your budget to account for money spent. 

If you are a new business owner, these reports can also show you how much money you should account for next year to be prepared for the upcoming end-of-year payroll. It can also be helpful to share these insights with your accountant or bookkeeper for future reference.  

Payroll Services 

The end-of-the-year can be hectic for anyone, especially business owners. With everything going on in the world and Christmas just around the corner, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s essential to not forget about the most crucial thing going on for many of us around this time, however: the end of the business year. 

Payroll Service Providers

Why not turn to our team of professionals at Vision HR for that extra help with your end-of-the-year tasks. As one of Florida’s leading payroll service providers, we are here to work with you and your business to relieve the stress that comes with this time of year. Visit us today to learn more about our payroll services and how we can help bring your Ormond Beach business out the other side of the end of this financial year. 

Outsourcing Payroll Management

Does your Orange City business manage its own payroll process? It’s not uncommon for companies to try and consolidate this work with an internal team. But it’s an idea that has several drawbacks, with outsourced payroll simply bringing more benefits to the table.

Don’t believe us? Let’s take a closer look at three reasons why outsourcing payroll management can do awesome things for your business.

1. Cut The Costs Of In-House Payroll

Having a specialist team working from their own office within your office comes with its own expenses. In-house payroll services can actually be considerably expensive, with full salaries and benefits coming along with each member of your team. Then, there are the unexpected labor costs, from staffing and onboarding to retention and the extra resources they use by just being at work, day-after-day.

For small-to-moderately sized businesses, the benefits of an outsourced payroll team are plain to see. Weigh up the cost of employing a fulltime team with the cost of an outsourced payroll service. In the longterm, offsite work does a lot to offset these costs, making it a great resource for keeping your budget trim.

2. Avoiding Expensive Payroll Software

We live in a time where online applications can do literally anything. Yet, for some reason, personal payroll software is still incredibly expensive, even for all of its benefits. Doing your payroll in-house means you’ll need to purchase and update your software if you want reliable results. Not only that, but you’ll need to train your staff in the use of this software so it doesn’t go to waste.

In contrast, payroll services are much simpler. Using a professional service, all you need to do is stay subscribed from month-to-month. No maintenance fees or unexpected updates. Just the service you need at a consistent price. Having the services of a payroll team doesn’t have to mean high costs, training, and maintenance.

Keep in mind, this upkeep isn’t just convenient – it’s a matter of compliance, and could get you into legal trouble if you aren’t up-to-date. If you complete your own payroll work, there are very serious risks of errors and penalties. None of which is your problem if you’re outsourcing your work to a professional. 

3. You Might Be Overpaying Your Employees

It might not sound likely for you, but most businesses have been shown to overpay their employees by about as much as 4%. More often than not, this comes down to issues in the payroll department, which can be compounded when that department is working onsite.

Outsourced payroll operations tend to use more accurate attendance records to carry out their payments. Onsite payroll reps might take an employee at their word that they got in at 8 AM, or use a clock-in system with no verification. When you go outsourced, the best way for your payroll department to do their job accurately is to use a no-nonsense timekeeping system. Online or system-based clock-in systems show exactly when an employee got to work. And that’s how much they get paid.

What’s nice about this approach is that it also takes some of the responsibility off of your hands. The payroll system is locked in and, if your employees want accurate, fair compensation for their work, they’ll have to pull their weight and clock in and out, on time, every day.

Outsourcing Payroll Management: The Way Forward

Payroll administration is a crucial part of the makeup of any business. It’s time-consuming, high-risk, and can cost a lot in terms of salaries and office resources to do in-person. With Vision HR’s Payroll Essentials Plus services, you get access to professional payroll processing and human resource management support.

Ready to change the way you run your Orange City office’s payroll? Visit Vision HR, today, to find out more about outsourcing payroll management with us.

Checking In With The 2020 Business Tax Holiday

In August, the US Treasury Department and the IRS announced new guidelines for employers to stop withholding taxes, temporarily. For Altamonte Springs business owners using taxpayer deferral in the case of their new employees, this new postponement is important. As a presidential action, this “tax holiday” provides short-term relief for employees. This is in spite of the fact that payroll taxes can still be paid later. 

There is one very enticing reason to consider it, for both business owners and staffers alike. There is a real possibility that the taxes will just be forgiven, instead of postponed. So your employees may be hoping for legislators to cut or lower these taxes, instead of paying it all back.

But let’s put this “tax holiday” under the microscope.

Payroll Tax Deferral: What You Need To Know

Before anything else, it’s important to note that the “tax holiday” is completely optional. Businesses are not compelled to take part. If you do choose to make use of it, both you and your employees will need to follow certain specific rules. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of these rules:

Restrictions

As with other deferral plans, the Treasury’s recent tax deferral comes with a cap that must be adhered to. Deferrals are capped for any employee earning less than $4,000 every two weeks, or whose salaries come in at less than $ 104,000, annually. With that in mind, if your employees make under those amounts, they qualify, and there is an opportunity for you to stop withholding taxes during a specific time frame in 2020.

Timeframe

For those of you who still aren’t sure: the holiday season actually started a few months ago. The whole offer came into effect on September, 1st, 2020. Now that might seem a little alarming, but there’s still a little time to take advantage of this offer, as the plan runs all the way through to December 31st, 2020. 

From the employer’s side, you’ll still need to pay taxes for this period by April 2021. You’ll need to collect additional social security from employee salaries from January 1st to April 30th, 2021.  That covers the entire tax holiday period, and failing to meet these deadlines could result in various fines and penalties. 

Various Fines and Penalties

So, if this is all a little strange to you, don’t worry: we live in interesting times and there are many other business owners out there dealing with these same concerns. There are some penalties to consider if you fail to pay off your outstanding taxes in time, so let’s cover it. 

If the tax amount you’ve deferred isn’t paid by April 30, 2021, you will start to accrue penalties and interest. It should also be noted that, if the employee leaves the company before the tax is recovered, the employer will still be held responsible for paying this tax. This is actually one of the most contentious points of the whole tax holiday debate right now and may develop as further updates come out. 

The 2020 Tax Holiday: What Happens Next?

For many of us, reading about the tax holiday in the news, perhaps, it’s easy to feel a little confused. “Do I need to pay this back or don’t I?” There are a lot of conflicting points of view and discussion regarding this, right now, with employee rights groups even taking up investigations in some cases.

One concern many have is that small businesses may use the deferral program as a short term solution, only to be crippled by massive paybacks later on. As with most deferrals, this is something you’ll just need to weigh up when considering whether to defer your taxes.

And, for right now, the American business community waits with bated breath as the President has already indicated the treasury might postpone the deferred payment date. Congress, in the meantime, has the ultimate power to waive this tax completely. But, as it stands, the IRS has confirmed employers will be required to repay deferred taxes until further notice.

For more on managing payroll in your Altamonte Springs office, from special exceptions to management, call a professional. Vision HR has been providing outstanding service to Florida businesses since 1998, and our comprehensive payroll offerings will save you time and keep you up to date. Visit us, today, to find out more!

Paycheck Protection Program: Frequently Asked Questions

In the wake of Coronavirus, the American government created a loan program known as the Paycheck Protection Program. They did this in conjunction with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The $350-billion project was created to provide small businesses with eight weeks of advance cash-flow assistance via federally-guaranteed loans. In late April, the program expanded with an additional $310 billion in the form of the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. This changed the program in several important ways, allowing businesses more time to use their funds and streamlining loan forgiveness.

Wondering if Paycheck Protection is a good choice for your Orange City business? Not sure you even qualify? Join us, today, as we take a look at some of the most common FAQs we’ve heard regarding paycheck protection, and find the answers you’re looking for.

Can I Only Apply Through One Lender?

Not at all! Businesses applying for PPP can approach as many lenders as they like. The thing to keep in mind is there’s no risk of accidental approval for two loan applications. Lenders processing PPP loans will receive an SBA approval number for any business that qualifies. The SBA only issues one of these numbers (known as PLPs) for each tax identification number, which means two PPP loans can’t actually be approved for one applicant.

What happens to your application with one lender if another lender approves it first? Simple: they will reject any outstanding PPP applications once the PLP number is approved. If you don’t want to be rejected, you’ll want to withdraw your application from these lenders once you’ve confirmed it is approved.

Is This The Same As The SBA Disaster Loan?

The SBA’s Economic Damage Disaster Loan (EIDL) is a separate initiative that shares a lot of DNA with Paycheck Protection but is 100% unique. The SBA’s Disaster Loan (as many people call it) can demand collateral for any loan amount greater than $ 25,000. Paycheck Protection doesn’t require personal or commercial guarantees in order to be approved.

The SBA’s Disaster Loan usually requires that you not have any other lines of credit open anywhere else. Paycheck Protection does not. Paycheck protection loans are also forgivable, provided you followed the terms, whereas disaster loans require a mandatory repayment.

Could I Apply for Both a PPP and an SBA Disaster loan?

Absolutely! But they can’t be for the same purpose. 

Does Reducing The Size Of My Workforce Impact My PPP Request?

Only if you have no plans to re-hire any of them or reestablish your standard pay for regular work hours. Prove that you’ve maintained your employee wages and that your pay hasn’t dropped below 25% of your monthly average, by December 31st, and you should have no problems with your application.

Paycheck Protection Program compliance is a central issue in the new payroll regulations currently on their way to American businesses. We’ll be taking a look at some more of these in the coming months, so make sure to check in with us for updates. For payroll and timekeeping services from a professional to help you stay on top of this changing business landscape, get in touch with us, today.

7 Payroll Best Practices

One of the biggest mistakes many companies make, year after year, is in underestimating their payroll process. This is something that calls for strategic thinking, solid teamwork, and consistent execution if you’re going to do it right. And you want to do this right. 

Remember: you’re dealing with a messy combination of numbers, budgets, timesheets, and governmental departments. Payday takes a lot of work to get right, and it’s your job as payroll manager to make make it happen.

Looking for payroll best practices to use in your Deland office? Check out our official list of recommended practices, and let’s sharpen up your payroll process a little.

Maintaining A Policy Manual

Take some time out, right in the beginning, to set up a payroll manual which you can update as you go along. This will make a handy reference tool and give you something to call up for pay periods, W-2s, and PTO policies. 

Distribute the manual to all relevant employees and ask them to reference it when they have a question. Send out notifications whenever important updates are made. 

Map Out The Year Ahead

Worried about tax deadlines creeping up on you? Quarterly tasks keeping you up at night? From Deland, Florida to Juno Alaska, the one thing you can count on is that these dates will remain the same, across the board. Maintain a complete calendar of important dates and deadlines for the year to stay up to date with your upcoming deadlines.  

Provide Forms In A Timely Manner

This may sound like obvious advice, but make sure you execute your W-2s, 1099, 1095-C and other submissions. Late filing penalties are no fun for anyone, especially smaller businesses, so keep track of your deadlines for submission, both to the IRS and your employees.

Classify Employees Properly

File the right tax forms more easily by making sure you have your employees properly classified ahead of time. Full-time employees. Independent contractors. Exempt. Nonexempt. Whatever your staff makeup, make sure you properly classify your employees and you’ll be off to the right start.

Be warned: IRS fines aren’t the only consequence of incorrect classification. This can also lead to miscalculating state wages and reported ACA hours, which could lead to further financial penalties. Save yourself time and money by simply classifying employees correctly in the beginning.

Track Everything

Keep records of all employees, and consider a staff management system to keep everything together. Once you start hiring, firing, and retiring across your workforce, these numbers can get complicated quickly.

Reconsider Your Payroll System

Test our your payroll system for any potential errors. Chances are, you’ll identify several things you didn’t know didn’t work. Once you’ve seen where you can improve, consider an automated system to help save yourself a little time and a lot of potential errors.

Develop A Strict Payroll Approval Process

It’s important to know your budget, understand your pay periods, and keep track of your schedules. There’s got to be a payroll process that you integrate and stick with, developing an approval process for hours worked and revising anything a manager may have overlooked. All of this adds up and can speed up your payroll budget significantly if you figure out the best process and stick to that, permanently.

Payroll Best Practices

So now you’ve gotten the hang of your payroll process with our expert payroll best practices. Congratulations. Want to make it even easier, with a highly-rated payroll service in your Deland business? Get in touch with us, today, to find out how Vision HR can help you succeed.

Payroll Auditing for Deland Businesses

At their most basic, payroll best practices include completing a payroll process and understanding where your shortcomings are so you can fix them, moving forward. Both processes sound easy, but you’d be surprised how often people trip up on them. 

Payroll is one thing. If you don’t have a proper process in place to guarantee those checks are going out on time, every week, you’ll find yourself in hot water quick! And then there’s auditing.g The process of checking and re-checking your system for issues, inaccuracies, and inefficiency can seem impossible, especially if you aren’t some Deland payroll specialist with all your financial ducks in a row. 

Not to worry about that audit, though: we’ve got just payroll auditing guide for you.

Payroll Auditing: The Why

A salary manager who’s on top of the payroll process will typically check the incoming and outgoing salary numbers about once a quarter to make sure everything is as it should be. A well-orchestrated audit can help in the following ways:

* maintaining accuracy
* ensuring compliance
* identifying issues before they develop
* strengthening financial processes

 

What Does An Effective Payroll Audit Include?

Internal payroll audits need to hit specific notes to be effective, and one of those is consistency. Make this part of your standard business practice, checking off items from our checklist to help you get started.

And remember: every organization has unique needs. Not all payroll audits will look the same. Give some real consideration to your specific needs and how best to serve them.

Verifying Payment Rates

Start simple: employee-by-employee, confirm that the pay rate you have on file for them is the same one on your payroll records. Mistakes can happen, and now is a good time to catch them. Make sure your records are accurate and you are paying what is owed.

Compare Pay With Time and Attendance

For your next trick, check on the overtime, sick days, and holiday time of each employee. If your employees are classified correctly, you’ll have an accurate picture of how much overtime they are eligible for. Check for overtime hours which exceeded the payroll budget and make sure to report it to financial. Pay close attention to detail, during this process.

During this phase, make sure to check that everyone who received a salary actually worked during those pay periods, as well. This is not very common, but there have been examples of larger companies neglecting to tell payroll about a termination in time and former employees hanging around to receive another check.

Verify Independent Contractors and Sellers

In companies where a contingent workforce is part of your operation, you’ll also want to confirm the status of those contracts over the specific pay period for which they were compensated. This is also a great time to evaluate independent contractor relationships, with an eye to making sure they are still properly classified.

Compare Bank Reconciliation With Internal Ledgers

Make sure to compare your bank account with any internal ledgers. You’re looking to validate your reconciliation and make sure all balances are aligned and all checks reflect the amount they issued. 

Check Your Tax Statements For That Financial Year

Is your business handing over the correct amount of tax based on your work and employment payouts? Remember, this includes: 

* Social Security taxes

* Federal and state unemployment taxes

* Medicine taxes

Reconcile your payroll tax expenses with your payment reports for a clearer picture of your overall financial management. And remember: effective payroll auditing keeps you in control of your spending. It may seem tedious but, if you run your payroll effectively, you probably won’t have much to worry about.

What’s that? You’d rather bring in a professional to help keep your payroll process in line? Well, as luck would have it, Vision HR offers expert payroll administration services, both in Deland and in other cities from Jacksonville to Titusville.

Covid-19 Tax Tips and SBA Payroll Options

Covid-19 has put the entire nation on the edge of its seat, as we wait for developments, scale back business, and try to weather the storm. Lake Mary businesses are feeling the pinch right now, as is most of Central Florida. 

Luckily, the government has come to the table with several options for managing, deferring, and lowering business tax and other expenses for the betterment of both businesses and their employees.

Not sure where your payroll is going to come from during a national lockdown? Worried about paying extended sick leave to employees who contract the virus? Join us today as we break down three ways you can mitigate these costs and take care of your employees with these Covid-19 tax tips for relief during this difficult time.

SBA-Guaranteed Low-Interest Loans

To call Covid-19 a stressful time for business owners isn’t saying anything new. You may not have enough income coming in, right now, to cover your most important expenses. Payroll, among many other things, has become a source of stress for many businesses. It’s for these reasons that bank loans have become such a talking point. Specifically, Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, or Economic Injury Disaster Loans.

In response to the outbreak, President Trump recently announced that the American government would provide millions in funding for these federal disaster loans. These loans apply to qualifying businesses, providing coverage in the form of:

• Low interest rates for companies and non-profits, at 3.75% and 2.75%, respectively
• Long-term options for repayment, for up to 30 years

It’s worth noting, to all the Lake Mary companies with outstanding credit somewhere else, that you will not be eligible for these loans in this situation. The SBA allows businesses to apply for these loans to cover bills they can’t pay, due to Covid-19, making it well suited to payroll expenses.

Employer Tax Credits

The American Senate’s March 18th bill proposes paid sick leave and leave benefits, mandated by the federal government. With the aid of the relief package, eligible employees must receive paid sick leave for up to 14 days, at the standard rate of pay. This caps out at $511-per-day, in addition to any paid sick leave those employees still have due to them. 

It’s important to note that employers cannot change their sick leave policies at this time, or retaliate against employees who make use of them. The new legislation provides business tax credits to help offset these costs, equivalent to 100% of the benefits distributed during this time. This directly reduces your company’s tax liability, making it a much more clear cut choice for both you and your employees.

Lastly, Lake Mary employers who don’t actually have enough payroll taxes in place to cover paid sick leave request an expedited payment from the IRS. More information will be made available by the IRS, soon.

Government Cash Payouts

One of the more talked-about safety measures for businesses, right now, is the government’s groundbreaking stimulus package. The CARES Act provides checks as a means of direct assistance to US adults on both sides of the employment spectrum.

Enacted on March 27th, the CARES act provides cash payments of up to $1,200, per person, as a means of helping residents pull through in this difficult time. People who earn more than $75,000 in gross income, as confirmed by their 2018 tax returns, receive less, while anybody without a federal tax liability will receive $600.

Tax Deferrals

As a final note, companies are making use of tax deferments during this time as a cost cutting method. Deferral of federal income tax for employers and Social Security payroll are on the table for businesses across the country.

The following operations are eligible for a business tax refund deadline of October 15th:  

• sole proprietors
• single-member LLCs
• corporations ending their year on December 31

Across various states, tax and payment filing guidelines are also available, and you can view those here. 

Covid-19 Tax Tips

At Vision HR, we understand that many of our clients are experiencing slowdowns related to the COVID-19 outbreak. This obviously makes it much harder to manage additional expenses and facilitate regular business operations. During this time, we encourage you to reach out with any business requests, Covid-19 tax tips, and to encourage safety in the workplace if you are remaining open.

Paperless Payroll: Discover The Benefits for Your Business

Prior to Internet payroll solutions, companies finished their payrolls off with pencil, paper, and the might of a well-trained accountant’s eye. This soon evolved into Excel spreadsheets, which eventually migrated from desktop to online. To this day, HR branches around the country still spend hours manually processing payroll and cutting paper checks. 

Which is cute and unexpectedly antiquated, but also leaves companies vulnerable to payroll mistakes, leaving them responsible for adjusting paychecks and other miscellaneous errors. 

Now, though, technology has made it so that companies can automate these time-consuming payroll procedures.

Paperless Payroll

Making the switch to paperless payroll can seem like a daunting task, particularly if you’ve always processed payroll by hand.  When you realize the benefits of switching to paperless payroll, the choice is a no-brainer. Here are a few reasons why your company must make the change to paperless citizenship:

24/7 Employee Access

Employees can enjoy 24/7 access to their pay information. Self-service portals allow for communication between companies and employees. 

Saving Money

The money and time saved from removing paper check prices are substantial.  The typical operations cost of paper checks is $24,450, annually, in terms of labor, materials, fees, and stamps. Go paperless, and you can save yourself and your company unnecessary expenses and time.

Removing Clutter

Removing paper-based payrolls from your business saves you the headache of organizing and locating actual reports for an audit. An online platform manages your payroll processing, allowing simple access to real-time analytics dashboards.

Paperless Payroll: The Way Of The Future

It’s no secret that paperless payroll is an important part of streamlining the whole payroll procedure.  Now more than ever, organizations are removing the supply of paper reports, direct deposit coupons, and also checks.  Ditching a paper-based payroll process can help save you time, money, and physical distance, in addition to eliminating potential errors.  

Visit Vision HR today to find out more about our paperless payroll, payroll packages, and other human resource services, today!

Payroll Service Questions

The payroll process is important for obvious reasons, not the least of which is keeping your employees happy and your workplace operational. This is what makes it such a big deal when salary processing goes awry. And payroll mistakes can happen quicker than you might think, and require a lot of resources to fix.

Using payroll services is a solid first step in minimizing your own financial risk, as well as doing right by your employees. The thing is, as with any other service, not all payroll services are as good as each other.

Join us today, for our rundown of three must-ask questions you must ask when choosing a payroll services team to help your business.

Tax Protection

The benefits of payroll services often boil down to taking an important process off of your hands so that it never gets overlooked and you don’t have to worry about it. Accurate, on-time payments are a pillar process in any business, making payroll services extremely important.

But you need to know they have your best interests at heart, and a big part of that is tax protection. In whatever shape it takes, your payroll service provider should help keep your tax obligations clear and, hopefully, as low as possible. Ask about what your service provider will do to keep your payroll taxes filed, and to resolve potential tax issues and penalties in the future.

Customer Service

No service is complete without a prompt, available, and well-informed customer service team. You’d be safe to assume that there are a lot of questions to ask when it comes to payroll, whether upfront or later on, especially because with it being managed offsite.

A good payroll services company will make themselves available, at least during office hours. Ask about how to get in touch with someone who can solve problems. You shouldn’t get left hanging when you need answers, so make sure to find out what their policy is ahead of time.

Payroll Service Process Timing

Prompt payments are obviously important, and it’s to that effect that you should find out what your payroll services window is going to be. You’re going to want to know how long it takes to process each set of payments via your payroll company so you can plan ahead and nobody’s left waiting.

Payroll services will also often feature contingency services to help cover your payments during an emergency or when things don’t go as planned. Whether it’s a next or same-day scheduled payment option, payroll cancellations, or automated payments, it pays (literally) to know what your options are.

Looking for a better payroll experience at your business? Visit Vision HR today and let us help you take the hassle out of your salary payment process.

The Real Costs Of Payroll Errors

It’s not uncommon for salaries to be the single largest expense in any business. Your employees are an investment and, profitable or not, that investment comes at the price of their salaries.

When a payroll error occurs, the expenses can add up quickly, sometimes becoming bigger than the salaries themselves.

Here are some costs you might run into if your pay system gets away from you:

Man Hours For Error Correction

Over the course of the payroll process, we should correct every single error as soon as possible. Beyond being good to your employees, your financial records have to be accurate to retain favor with the IRS.

All of which sounds reasonable, until you account for employees who stop their work and to work on corrections instead. This amounts to a loss of valuable labor in various departments.

Sometimes, this loss of man-hours won’t impact your bottom line too badly. Others, it can actually add up to more than the salaries you’re paying in the first place. It can be difficult to identify errors, let alone fix them. But inaction can have a negative effect on your bottom line.

Compliance Failure Issues

Maintaining compliance with the laws governing businesses in your state or industry can be difficult on the best of days. But, difficult or not, non-compliance penalties can add up to significant costs.

These laws tend to focus on payroll processes, making this one of the most important areas in which to take precautions. Making late or incorrect payments even due to unexpected payroll errors or submitting incorrect employee information can all result in fines and lead to other problems.

Retroactive Taxes and Misclassified Employees

When an employee is classified as an employee, the company is responsible for handling overtime, workers’ compensation insurance, some taxes, and benefits. There is also the question of their potential unemployment benefits, for which the company is also responsible.

Employees who are classified as independent contractors are a different matter, and the company is not held responsible for these processes. However, when companies classify an employee as an independent contractor but treat them like employees, the results can be expensive.

It’s important for companies to pay and compensate their employees according to their real classifications. Otherwise, they could have to present retroactive overtime pay and even pay back taxes, as enforced by the Department of Labor and OSHA.

Payroll Errors: Never Again

Payroll software systems services like those available from Vision HR can help prevent potential payroll errors and their associated costs. The business world has moved on from manual salary calculations, which are prone to errors. Visit us today to discover for expert payroll management services, and save yourself potential payroll-related headaches down the road.