Signs It’s Time For Payroll Help
New business owners are faced with a wide range of difficulties and obstacles when getting their feet on the ground, but most people won’t properly prepare themselves for the payroll process. It might seem easy in the beginning, but you’ll eventually be screaming for payroll help as your business grows.
The more employees you hire, the more difficult it becomes to manage and maintain your daily, weekly, and monthly payroll challenges. It’ll get to a point where you simply don’t have enough time in the day to focus on your responsibility as owner AND manage your company’s payroll.
While most owners find themselves in a pickle when forced to decide between the two, Consultants In-A-Box is here to change that perspective and provide reasonable solutions to your payroll challenges. We’ll become the payroll assistant you’ve always wanted!
When Is It Time for Help?
We assist you with every part of the payroll process -- not just the part where you pay your employees. New hire paperwork, W-2s, quarterly payroll taxes, and much more are required on a consistent basis, taking away even more of your time.
We’ve helped many companies -- just like yours -- solve their payroll issues and we understand the biggest warning signs when it comes to needing payroll help. Let’s take a look at some of those warning signs, that way you can avoid disaster with your own business.
1. Late Payday & Tax Forms
Paying your employees late because you were too busy with other work or didn’t have enough time to process them sooner is unacceptable as a business owner. Your employees depend on receiving their hard-earned money on-time and won’t settle for anything less.
While timing is important with paychecks, it’s also important to the employee’s W2s and 1099s, which need to be sent out in a timely manner so the employee can file their taxes properly. Failing to send them on-time will surely lose your employee’s trust.
2. Payroll Errors
Errors in payroll are never welcomed and put your employee in a tough spot. Spelling their name or address wrong on the check can cause delays when cashing the check. Furthermore, the wrong amount in the check leads to distrust and more delays.
If errors are plentiful when processing payroll, consider finding a payroll assistant or software. They’ll help cut down on the mistakes and ensure everything is handled properly and accurately.
3. Missed Tax Deadlines
Constantly missing tax deadlines can result in some serious fees and charges against your business. These are an important part of owning a business and something most people aren’t aware of before they start a business.
The last thing you need is the IRS on your back. Talking with a professional ensures you know exactly how much to pay, when to pay it, and how to pay it so your business remains in good-standing with the IRS.
4. Depleted Cash Flow
Cash flow is essential when processing payroll. Without the money, you can’t pay your employees. This is the worst case scenario when doing payroll because it brings the entire process to a halt -- even if you’re ready to complete it.
If you’re having issues in this area, payroll software can help you stay better organized and ensure you have the necessary funds when you need them. You won’t need to rely on loans to pay your employees anymore and can start to build a level of financial stability.
5. Hourly Employees
Hourly employees present a wide range of difficulties without the right tools or resources. Especially in today’s digital world, technology is your best friend when taking control of your hourly payroll. If you’re having a tough time accurately keeping track of hourly employees, a payroll software or assistant helps you stay diligent.
At the end of the day, payroll should be an easy process for the owner that requires minimal work and more reviewing than anything. You shouldn’t be running into issues left and right. If you are, it’s time to search for some help -- and there’s no shame in that. It’s a smart move!
Are You Ready to Save Your Payroll?
A quality, smooth, and accurate payroll process is essential to a business. It keeps your financials in order, it keeps you prepared, and leads to more employee loyalty -- which benefits your business in so many more ways.
If you need help keeping everything in check, there are three quality options you can consider immediately -- outsourced professional, payroll software, or both.
The payroll software will make things easier for anyone, whether you’re taking care of the payroll yourself, already have a payroll team, or plan on hiring one. Outsourcing your payroll to a professional might cost money each month, but it’ll add time to your day and accuracy to your books.
Of course, the combination of both is what puts your business in the best position to succeed. Choosing a professional who knows your payroll software is important, but having a professional with their own solution is even better.
When you’re ready to save your payroll and prove to your employees that your company can be a reliable place to work, contact Consultants In-A-Box today to be connected with one of our highly-rated professionals.
How To Choose The Right Bookkeeping Software
Most small business owners aren’t considered experts at financial management. Since your business’ financials never stop, having to manage this yourself with ineffective tools can be frustrating and time-consuming. It’s what makes small business bookkeeping such a dread.
Finding the right bookkeeping software for your company is essential to maintaining an organized environment that limits mistakes and confusion. Below, we’re going to discuss some of the most important factors when determining the best bookkeeping software -- that way you can make a more-informed decision.
Finding the Best Bookkeeping Software
First and foremost, you need to understand what your business needs. Some businesses need something simple, while others need something complex. Some companies might be looking for something that can support both if they plan on scaling the business in the future.
Either way, you need to have a deep understanding of this before you start looking at software or consultants. It’ll help you narrow down your options initially so you can focus on the things that separate the best bookkeeping software from everything else.
In order to determine that, there are five major factors you need to consider -- customization, simplicity, accessibility, customer support, and integration. To limit any confusion with these factors, we’ll break them all down one-by-one for you.
1. Customization & Personalization
When it comes to small business bookkeeping, every business is unique and they all have their own way of operating. In order for a bookkeeping software to be of any assistance to your needs, it needs to be flexible enough to customize and personalize to your liking.
Whether you have hourly employees or contractors working for you, need assistance managing income and expenses, or need general help when it comes to taxes, your bookkeeping software should have a solution for you.
2. Ease of Use is Crucial
No small business owner wants to invest company funds into a bookkeeping software that provides more confusion and frustration than it does assistance. In fact, it would defeat the purpose of investing in bookkeeping software to begin with.
Your new software shouldn’t have a steep learning curve for any business owner or accounting team. It should streamline the process and save you loads of time in the process. If you’re receiving anything less than that from your bookkeeping solution, it’s time for new software
3. Accessibility At All Times
Much like you want the software to be simple, you also want it to be accessible. This means having the ability to view your books and financial insight whenever or wherever you need to -- especially since most small business owners are constantly on-the-go.
It doesn’t matter what device you’ve grown to love over the years, your new bookkeeping software should be supported on it. Phones, tablets, laptops, PCs, you name it!
4. Excellent Customer Support
Any product, service, or software needs excellent customer support. Nothing is perfect and you’re sure to run into an issue, question, or comment at some point. Since bookkeeping is a stressful process in general, having courteous and helpful customer service agents by your side is a must.
That also means having easy access to these agents, whether it be live chat, phone call, email, by mail, in-person, or through social media. The more options, the better!
5. Integration At It’s Finest
Over the years, every small business owner has become attached to certain software, apps, tools, and resources when running their business. Having a bookkeeping software that easily integrates with your existing operations is essential to finding one that works for you.
When you have all your technology working together, it makes everything that much easier for you and your team. Since putting yourselves in a position to succeed is crucial to achieving success, you’ll be in a good spot moving forward.
Now that you know what to look for, put that knowledge to good use and find a bookkeeping software that works well with your business. Contact Consultants In-A-Box today to learn more about our solutions and how we can help you take control of your business’ financials.
Six Reasons For Outsourcing Payroll
The vital role outsourcing plays in business growth cannot be downplayed. A lot of major players in the marketing industry have long taken advantage of these ‘outside expert services’ to streamline and boost the productivity of their business.
The strategic services of outsourcing companies have been utilized in times past, and if success stories are any indication, it is quite beneficial to hand out some core responsibilities to these outsourcing firms—and that includes payroll.
We, at Consultants-In-A-Box, will be exploring some of the reasons why you need to outsource payroll to an expert firm. But first things first.
What are Payroll Outsourcing Services?
Payroll outsourcing services, like Consultants-In-A-Box, are employed by companies to handle their payroll process in an efficient and specialized manner. As a payroll provider, these outsourcing companies bring their expertise and efficiency in procuring payroll to the parent company.
Why Do You Need A Payroll Outsourcing Service?
There are several beneficial reasons to hire the services of an expert payroll service. We’ll be looking at 6 of them.
Less Time Calculating The Payroll Of Every Worker.
An employee in charge of payroll will always have a long, rough day before or after payment day. He or she would have to constantly and accurately calculate the net salary of every worker in the organization.
They’d have to calculate and remove the taxes, include benefits such as child supports, pension, healthcare, transportation allowance, and other additions or deductions. And that’s just one person!
When you factor in the amount of time that he or she would complete the task, ensuring all your staff is accounted for, it’s going to take a huge slice of the week.
Contracting this specific task to an expert payroll outsourcing firm is beneficial for you in the long run.
Limit Common Payroll Mistakes.
When it comes to payroll and calculating workers’ paycheck, mistakes do occur, and this negatively impacts the business or the employees directly. When a worker’s work hours aren’t correctly inputted to calculate his gross salary, he or she would notice a decrease in their pay.
Also, when tax deductions are properly removed, a huge chunk of the worker’s salary is removed. This may breed resentment towards the company, and if they take legal actions against your company, they’d be right to do so.
To avoid mistakes like this, you need a reliable payroll outsourcing service to take the weight off your shoulder.
Professionals With Relevant Experience In Payroll.
When it comes to payroll, no one does it better than a professional company set up for just that purpose. They understand the many complexities of payroll processing and still deliver the very best. Some of their duties include:
- Submitting year-end and quarterly payroll taxes.
- Adjusting the correct tax deductions by updating W-9 forms.
- Handling healthcare, social security, and FICA deductions.
- Background knowledge of national regulations as regards with payroll deductions.
- Ensuring state and federal tax laws are strictly adhered to.
Security Of Payroll Data.
Hiring the services of professional payroll providers guarantees you of payroll data safety. Most companies still struggle with issues ranging from embezzlements, identity theft, and intentional tampering of records.
Hiring a payroll outsourcing company means your confidential records are safe and secured away from prying eyes inside your company.
Compliance With Government Laws.
When you’re managing several workers at once, having to track their allowance and deducting federal, state, as well as healthcare taxes can be really tasking, and mistakes may occur.
To remain on the side of the law, it is important to hire the services of a payroll provider to remit accurate taxes and returns to the government.
Generating Reports For Company Use.
After a payment period, the records containing the pay earned by employees, including tax, miscellaneous deductions are documented and kept for future use. When you’re making use of an in-house staff for this, mistakes may occur and negatively impact your business.
The services of seasoned payroll providers should be hired to accurately analyze and document these reports.
When with all this information at your fingertips, the need for an outsourcing payroll company arises. Consultants-In-A-Box, since our inception, has prided ourselves in delivering the best payroll service that your business needs at the moment. Contact us today to take advantage of our awesome packages.
Money-Saving Accounting Tasks That You Don’t Need to Outsource
Most small business owners fear the term ‘accounting’ and run from anything considered ‘bookkeeping.’ While outsourcing your accounting needs is beneficial to your company, it also costs money. The key here is limiting the amount of work you need to outsource with the right accounting tips.
How do you do that, exactly?
You take some of the easier responsibilities for yourself and leave the more difficult accounting tasks for the professionals. Don’t worry, the accounting tasks you take on won’t take any special skills and won’t be time-consuming.
They will, however, be money-saving and that’s what’s most important.
Today, we’re going to discuss five of the simplest and easiest-to-manage accounting tasks small business owners should learn to take care of themselves. With the right software and accounting tips, these tasks will be as easy as checking your social media.
1. Invoicing
Microsoft Excel is an amazing tool that can provide a wide range of benefits to any business -- including managing and recording invoices. Unfortunately, using Excel puts you at risk of constant data entry errors, wrong dates, incorrect amounts, and more.
Of course, this all leads to a delay in receiving payment from the client or customer, which is what no small business owner wants.
Avoiding this requires the right accounting software and accounting tips to help you not only automate your invoicing, but allow you to easily and quickly preview an invoice before being sent. This makes it much for manageable for any busy small business owner.
In addition to that, accounting software can help you change currency for each client, accept deposits up-front for work you just signed a contract for, receive notifications about overdue invoices, allowing the ability to duplicate past invoices for easy editing, and much more.
2. Accepting & Recording Payments
Getting the invoice to the client is essential, but making sure they have the resources to quickly and easily pay that invoice is just as important. It’ll put a smile on your face when you see clients and customers paying you in a timely manner.
The right accounting software helps you not only keep track of who paid you, but also how they paid, whether the payment was cleared, when it was sent, when it was paid, and just about anything else you’ll need to track when it comes to accepting and recording payments.
The right software also saves you time by giving you an all-in-one solution when depositing checks, handling payments that bounce, and even helping you with foreign currency exchange when dealing with customers overseas.
In terms of accepting payments, you can integrate an easy option built into the invoice. That way the client can pay that invoice the moment they receive it with little work on their end. You can set it up so the money is deposited directly into your business bank account.
In terms of recording everything, a majority of data is recorded automatically to make it easier on the business owner. It’ll keep everything under the same roof so you can easily manage future, current, past, and overdue invoices.
3. Expenses
When it comes to accounting tasks, managing income isn’t so bad when watching your business grow and receive payments. Unfortunately, things aren’t as fun when managing the money your business is losing -- but they’re just as crucial to the process.
When using a spreadsheet, tracking expenses is difficult and leaves your business prone to mistakes. With the right software and small business accounting tips, you can connect your business bank account directly to the software. That way all your expenses are automatically uploaded to the software every single day.
It’ll make keeping track of expenses a lot easier because you’ll only have to add in the cash expenses, which don’t happen as often in business. Simply snap a picture of the receipt, add in what it was for and how much, and save the entry. You can always label them to further organize, as well.
Accounting software can also help you manage tax deductibles, including meals, business travel, vehicle-related costs, home office expenses, and technology costs.
4. Sales Tax
Collecting sales tax helps cover tax costs for any small business owner, but most neglect the process of recording and keeping track of the sales tax collected over the past year. This leads to the sales tax being added into your income and used with your spending money.
Of course, a nightmare is bound to happen when you don’t have the funds to cover tax payments. To avoid this from happening, it’s important to manage sales tax collections and keep them separate from everything else you’re receiving.
You’ll always have access to your data and can easily manage how much you’ll owe in sales tax whenever you need to.
5. Financial Knowledge
When running a business, it’s essential you understand where your business stands financially at all times. You need to know how much cash flow you have, how much money is coming in, how much is leaving, and knowing what the future has in store for you.
Most business owners wait to take care of all these things at month’s end, but that leaves you prone to rushing and making mistakes. Having a software that keeps everything right in front of you throughout the month allows you to stay on top of where your business stands whenever and wherever.
Financial reports should be easy to run and easy to read, they shouldn’t add more frustration to your situation. When choosing a software that’s right for your company, take this into consideration to avoid making the wrong investment.
Once you start to turn these small business accounting tips into habits, you put your business in a much better position moving forward. You’ll have the confidence you need to grow your company and inspire your employees to do better every day.
Tips For Preventing Payroll Fraud
While businesses are affected externally due to the global pandemic and economic crisis, another enemy lurks within: Payroll fraud. It is a crisis that continues to rear its ugly head in and cripple businesses, big or small.
In this article, we’ll explore what payroll fraud is, its forms, and preventive measure you can implement to minimize the risk of being defrauded in your business.
What is Payroll Fraud?
Payroll fraud is a type of accounting fraud perpetrated by employees (or even employers) of an organization who exploits the excesses of a payroll system to enrich themselves. This typically results in workers falsifying their timesheets or any other forms of deceit to receive payments for hours not worked.
In the case of an employer or supervisor, payroll fraud could mean withholding deserving payment of a worker’s wage. According to a report, payroll fraud happens in 27% of all businesses, and twice as much in businesses with a staff size of fewer than 100 workers.
Types of Payroll Fraud.
Payroll fraud manifests in different forms in businesses. They include:
- Padding working hours.
This is one of the most common types of payroll fraud. This typically occurs when an employee with ill intentions falsify the hours worked on their time sheets so as to get greater pay for less work. In some cases, a worker may clock in hours for a co-worker that isn’t present. This practice thrives in businesses when the line manager isn’t closely monitoring the time sheets.
- Pay rate alterations.
This is another deceitful practice that is occurring in most businesses today. Here, a worker (or group of workers) connives with the accountant or payroll supervisor to illegally increase the amount of their monthly or hourly pay. This happens days before payday and is reverted to the original rate shortly after payment.
- Outstanding advances.
This type of payroll fraud involves a worker demanding an advance payment and doesn’t pay back even after their regular payment has been paid. This fraud can only work when the payroll supervisor changes this advance fee to company expenses and will not be detected.
- Workers misclassification.
This type of payroll fraud is facilitated by an employer. Workers in an organization are classified as either employees or independent contractors. Recruiters sometimes make the mistake of misclassifying their workers. But some are done intentionally in a bid to evade payroll and unemployment taxes.
How to Prevent Payroll Fraud.
Now that you’ve learned what this fraud is and how it can be perpetuated in businesses, how can you as an employer prevent it?
- Designate different duties to different employees.
Payroll fraud typically thrives when a worker is responsible for multiple duties in the same department. For instance, if a worker is in charge of processing payroll and writing payroll reports, fraudulent activities may go undetected. You can mitigate payroll fraud by assigning different duties to different workers.
- Critically review payroll reports.
Another payroll fraud prevention tip is to critically review payroll reports from the payroll manager before signing off on it. Payroll frauds may thrive in a business when the pay reports are not properly analyzed for errors.
- Monitor canceled checks.
Another way you can prevent payroll frauds is to monitor canceled checks to ensure that they’re truly canceled. Payroll managers with ill intentions make the habit of processing checks that have been canceled.
- Never sign off on a blank check.
No matter the reason, you should never sign off on an empty check. Your business finances can take a hit and it’d be quite unfortunate to realize that you authorize such transactions.
- Hire a professional payroll provider.
An effective and lasting solution to the payroll menace is to hire the services of a professional payroll provider. A reputable payroll provider, like Consultants In-A-Box, will handle all the complexities involved in processing payroll and give you a concise report void of any financial fraud.
Consultants In-A-Box is a reputable payroll provider that offers the best solution to your payroll needs. Do contact us today to enjoy the best payroll service that your business deserves.
