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 Manage Business Costs Effectively
Admit it; Coronavirus did a number on us all. While governments the world over imposed stringent control measures in place to curb the spread of the pandemic, businesses (SMEs, startups, and even major heavyweights) took a hit.
Businesses, before the pandemic, operated smoothly and freely with resources (both capital and human) at their disposal. Virtually everything from board meetings, marketing strategies, customer service, to payroll and even onboarding was heavily dependent on the corporate office setup where things were done manually.
But with everything 2020 has thrown on us all, brands have begun to see the need to take advantage of impressive digital tools to run business costs, increase productivity, boost brand presence, and improve the experience of employees working remotely.
Ways you can manage business costs efficiently
If you’re a business executive, how do you manage and run your businesses effectively? How do you ensure your tax-deductible business expenses are inputted accurately? We’ll be looking at the following areas:
Time and Attendance Tracking
Attendance of workers and comprehensive tracking of their work schedules have contributed to the overall success of businesses and improving their bottom-line savings. However, due to the global pandemic, a lot of companies and businesses has resorted to having a higher percentage of their workforce working from their homes.
Your business should take advantage of time and attendance tracking software to garner the working hours of your employees, whether they are making use of their mobile phones or PCs.
This software creates the avenue for your employees to tender the daily hours worked remotely to foster accuracy. Another advantage to this is that as their working hours are being tracked, you will be able to know which particular employee is working overtime and make arrangements for their overtime pay.
Also, these digital tools allow workers to see their time and work schedules for the week in advance, so they can prep themselves for their various tasks.
Payroll
Every employee deserves to be paid handsomely for their service to your business. It is a crucial aspect to boost business productivity and growth. The amount of time spent manually compiling each worker’s tax information, overtime, basic salary, and other allowances may affect other crucial aspects of your business.
Taking advantage of an online payroll service will save you from the long process of computing fees and making costly financial mistakes.
Employee onboarding
For an employee to be quite successful in their job responsibilities, their background and relevant experience has a major role to play. This, you can find out during the onboarding process, as you’d collect vital information from them and inform them about the vision of your business.
Taking advantage of onboarding software, you’d be able to verify that they’ve submitted their ID documentation, state withholding forms, deposit information, I-9 and W-4 forms, and other vital information.
Benefits administration
With the aid of human capital management, managing benefits has become easier. However, more time is spent procuring benefits manually.
With an online human capital management software available, you will be able to securely gain access to forms, make changes and update them in real-time.
Case management
For a business to thrive, it is crucial for it to have a platform that tends to the concerns of workers. With most of your workforce now working remotely, it is important to have a digital case management platform that will accommodate their various concerns.
This online platform also presents the opportunity for your employees to field their progress reports and allow management to review and track the efficacy of business decisions and compliance.
Consultants-In-A-Box is an all-inclusive software that provides impressive solutions to your brand’s concerns. Take advantage of our unique platform by contacting us today. You’d be glad you did.
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.
