Payroll is a critical part of every business, but it’s not the most fun part for most business owners. Employees rely on their pay and expect it to always be on time, and they count down the days and hours until they see the money in their account, so the pressure is on to get it done. Doing payroll is time-consuming, tedious, and often stressful. It takes time away from working on the success of your business, so the quicker you can finish it, the better.
The key to managing payroll quickly, efficiently, and with as little stress as possible is payroll software. Here are the ways that using payroll software can help you:
1. Saves time
Using Payroll software will save you tons of time. As a small business, with limited employees, you likely spend anywhere between one to five hours each month handling payroll. In business, time is money, and those extra five hours are advantageous to have back. By using payroll software, you can complete your payroll in as little as 5 minutes each month. Use that time to interact with customers, work on marketing, and have brainstorming sessions with employees.
2. Avoid human error
It’s inevitable, everyone makes mistakes, but mistakes in payroll can be a nightmare to fix. Not to mention, mistakes with taxes can leave you facing a tax penalty at the end of the fiscal year. Payroll includes both calculating and withholding taxes, which is a stressful process for business owners. Payroll software automates all calculations for you, ensuring you avoid all common mistakes. They even deal with filing taxes and sending you notifications of tax deadlines.
3. Simplify taxes
When tax time comes around, there is a mad scramble to get all your ducks in a row. You need to organize all the reports, W-2s, and 1099s from the year. When you use payroll software, everything you need is up to date, organized, and ready to file, with no need to catch up on things you never had time for all year. It’s easy to make mistakes when it comes to doing your small business taxes, so eliminating risks is essential.
4. An employee portal
Payroll software will give your employees access to their benefits and pay records whenever they need it. Giving your employees full transparency when it comes to this information is vital as it builds trust and boosts morale. On top of that, it’s efficient as your employees will not need to come to you for access to documents such as pay stubs or tax documents. Even after an employee has left your business, they can still access their details, so no more digging around for old files.
5. Other useful features
Comprehensive payroll software includes features that keep everything employee related in one place. You can sync your benefits deductions with the software, so they come out from payroll automatically. You can also use amazing features like time-tracking, which tracks any hours worked, breaks, and time-off and automatically syncs that with payroll. These features reduce the manual data input and therefore ensure that it is all accurate. They also consolidate all the information you could possibly need regarding your employees is in one place.