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.
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.
