Payroll Services

AbeBarker

Gentlemen,

I'm giving up on being a one man operation and stepping up to more responsibility.

I've recently hired someone I like employing and opened up a comp policy on him.

How do I go about getting him and possibly myself onto a payroll service?

Any advice on what to avoid and what to seek?


Cheers...

AbeBarker

Geeeez all the know it alls have nothing to say now.

RobertCDF

I use a local payroll service... They cover comp too. All I have to do is call them every 2 weeks and tell them the hours. When I pick up the checks I give them a check. I would never think of doing it any other way.

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KillerToiletSpider

We use this company.

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georgia dawg

I've heard too many stories of folks getting into trouble with the IRS for ignoring proper payroll procedures (taxes). I'm a one man operation and use paychex. Some nice lady calls me once a month. I give her the amount. (They can do it any time frame you choose. You can also entire the amounts/hrs online if you desire). The net paycheck is direct deposited into my account. They take care of paying all the various taxes out of my account and filing all the paperwork on time. I can view detailed reports online without getting them mailed to me. I can also print out a paystub, which can help with personal loan qualifications as I am seen as an employee. I'm now set up to hire a hundred people if I wanted to. The proper procedures are now set for growth.

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ChrWright

I use a full service payroll co...and pay my guys weekly. They handle everything and direct withdraw withholdings, etc. from my business account. I pay about $100 a week for 6 guys. They file all my taxes and keep all the required records. It's an added expense but much cheaper than hiring a bookkeeper and a whole lot more reliable.

This is the only way I would recommend it unless you want to be buried in paperwork. Your time is too valuable to deal with this on your own.... and if you make any mistakes--the IRS holds YOU responsible.

Also, by setting things up to be automatically deducted everytime you pay--you avoid the temptation to "float" on your employees witholdings when times get lean (of course you'll pay it all and get caught up on your next draw, right?) As my attorney says, whenever a business starts borrowing from withholdings/401ks, etc... it's is GUARANTEED that business is going to fail, it's only a matter of time.

Grumpy

paychex, every other week and somethign like $45 per pay period, however theya re responsible for all tax filings which is the REAL reason I use them.

You may be chocked, or maybe not, to know that 99% of your competitors will just 1099 their employees and let them deal with their own taxes. Either they don't know or don't care that they are breaking the law.

Mike Finley

Do you use Quickbooks now?

Luke

A payroll service is the way to go. Quick, easy and efficient if going by my experiences with my service is any indication. We have six full time employees and one part time employee and pay weekly. Call in the time on Monday, get the checks delivered to our office on Wednesday for a Thursday pay. They keep track of all pto time, retirement plan deductions and pay all taxes on time with the correct amounts. All we have to do is make sure the money is in the account when it is withdrawn, and then take the employees time from their time sheets and enter it into job costing in Quickbooks. I have a full time office manager who used to complete the payroll in house but with so many changes in taxes and retirement plan details it just made sense to pay the $100 or so each pay period for someone else to assume most of the liability and keep up with the myriad of details. It frees my office manager up to do other, more important tasks like marketing, detailed job costing and projections, etc. I wouldn't complete the payroll in house even if we only had a couple of employees. From what I understand, completing it with Quickbooks isn't any less expensive since you have to pay the fee to Quickbooks for the tax table integration. It may save a step in entering the job costing information but that only takes a little while anyway.

AbeBarker

Do you use Quickbooks now?
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No, I don't use Quickbooks now. I work long hard hours and keep track of my records with spreadsheets. Now that I feel like exspanding is feasible I will look into it.

So what do you think Mr. Finley, Quickbooks or Paychex?

Your opinion is appreciated as with all others.

Thanks for the insight guys.

pstorey

http://www.tjhpayroll.com/
$12.50 per payroll, 2 times a month.
They're excellent. I've used them for 3 years, they file all my taxes, i can call or e-mail in my payroll and get CA overnight for $5.

Mike Finley

Well, we use Quick books and I only have 3 paychecks to write so it was kind of a no-brainer for me to just use Quickbooks for payroll.

My accountant set it up and all I do every week is click on the employees name and change the hours from the last paycheck he got and click print. There is some reporting that my wife does for me, I think it is once a month, or maybe once a quarter. It only seems to take her a few minutes. If she didn't do it I'm sure my accountant would do it for a small fee. I like the automatic job costing that goes along with it when you write the payroll checks using Quickbooks. It allows me to assign the hours to jobs to see labor ratios and stuff.

To be honest I think it would take more time to send my payroll information to somebody else then it takes to print the checks every week. If I had a ton of employees maybe it would make more sense to use a service, or maybe I'm just missing the boat on this topic.

I have a friend who has about 10 employees and he swears on a payroll service (and swears at them too all the time! ) but he swears by it because he isn't that organized and they are responsible for any reporting that is wrong and have to eat it if there is a fine or something. He likes it well enough just for that reason of taking the liability off himself.