The Smart Approach to Payroll

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Payroll responsibilities are a necessary evil when it comes to managing a business. Ensuring T&A is tracked, deductions withdrawn, and paychecks distributed is just the tip of the iceberg; truthfully, there’s so much more to payroll than simply calculating paychecks! In this article, we’ll be taking a look at a few of the ways to turn this laborious burden into a relatively easy routine using modern technology and a small variety of payroll tactics. Read on to learn more!

Standardize Your Onboarding Procedures

When you’re hiring employees, it’s important to use the same onboarding procedures for every new hire. It’s fairly easy to standardize this if you’re using manual processes by simply providing the same paperwork for everyone, but you can also standardize onboarding procedures using onboarding software. This will actually allow you to onboard new employees faster, since the software can import duplicate data from one form to another, reducing the amount of time new hires spend completing onboarding forms. The sooner the initial paperwork is completed, the sooner you’ll be able to start on-the-job training.

Ensure W-4 Information Is Up-to-Date

Although Form W-4 is an important piece of paperwork during the onboarding process, you should also encourage your current employees to ensure their information is up to date. There are a variety of reasons employees may be required to update their W-4s, such as getting married, having a child, getting a second job, or even their spouse switching employers (for joint filers). Ultimately, the goal of updating Form W-4 information is to reduce the employee’s tax bill for the following year. If left unrevised, employees may find that they receive a bill from the IRS instead of a tax refund come tax season. Employees whose employers use payroll software may be able to update their W-4 information from the employee self-service center, rather than needing to manually complete another form.

Unify Your Pay Schedule

It’s fairly commonplace for different levels of employees to be paid on different pay schedules. For example, hourly workers may be paid every two weeks whereas salaried employees may be paid monthly. This may not seem like much of an issue, but maintaining two separate pay schedules is an unnecessary complication. If possible, you should try to line up both pay schedules so payday falls on the same day, and if you have more than two pay schedules in your payroll system, you should consolidate these to one or two pay schedules. This will reduce the likelihood of payroll errors moving forward.

Take Advantage of Direct Deposit

Although there are still some employers who prefer paper checks to a digital deposit, the vast majority of businesses prefer using direct deposit to compensate their employees. Direct deposit not only provides many benefits for the employees (such as faster payments and trip-free deposits) but to the employer as well! The possibility of check fraud is completely eliminated, payments are securely transferred via ACH, and routine paychecks can even be automated using payroll software like UZIO, ensuring your entire workforce is compensated for their efforts on time and without fail.

Integrate Your Systems

The payroll department and Human Resources department use a lot of the same information to complete their daily tasks, but too often, these departments use separate systems to manage data. This presents an issue when one department requests information from another since data needs to be manually copied from one system to another (a process that is prone to errors). However, it’s possible for both payroll and HR to maintain a centralized database of employee information simply by implementing complete payroll solutions. These types of payroll systems integrate both sets of data into a combined hr and payroll software, allowing for instant data retrieval and transmission between the departments.

Payroll Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

By implementing the tactics above, you’ll instantly see a positive result in your overall payroll management process. Although using different approaches can certainly help make your payroll seem more manageable, the biggest change you can make is switching from using manual processes to payroll software for small businesses. Once you combine the simplicity of online payroll solutions with smart payroll management tactics, your payroll will be much more streamlined, and much less stressful. Work smarter, not harder!