5 Ways to Improve Your Payroll Process

If you could spend less time working on your payroll process and more time focusing on your business, would you?  After working with small business owners throughout Central Maryland and Southern Pennsylvania for nearly a decade, we think we know the answer to that question.  Fortunately, at Bounds Accounting & Tax Services, LLC, we’re always looking for ways to make your lives a little easier.  Which is why we’ve dedicated our latest blog to helping you improve your payroll process in 5 steps.  Starting with:

1. Sync Your Pay Cycles

Weekly, biweekly, monthly, semimonthly—it all gets a bit complicated when you have different pay cycles for different employees.  Even if it made sense at one point for managers to be paid on one day and part-time people on another, ask yourself a question.  Does it still work for your small business? 

When you have multiple pay cycles, you’re essentially duplicating the payroll process.  Plus, you’re dividing your attention between multiple tasks at a time.  Why not pick the same cycle and day for each class of employee?  Then, you can really maximize your efficiency and free up time to help your small business in other ways!

2.  Choose One System & Streamline

Today, you have a lot of options for your payroll and accounting software.  Each one promising to be more efficient and affordable than the next.  Still, you lose a certain amount of time by having one system for payroll, another for HR, and one more for bookkeeping.  Especially when none of them can seem to communicate properly. 

Although we’re not suggesting that computers can solve all your problems, you should consider how much time you (or your employees) are spending to enter the same information across multiple platforms.  Would it be worth it pay a little more for a service that could streamline your payroll process?  And maybe your accounting software, too?  You might also benefit from greater accuracy as a result of this switch.  No matter what size business you have.

3. Go Paperless

You know it’s the eco-friendly route, but you may not realize how much this simple step can improve your payroll process.  Think about all of the paper you use now.  Between timecards, pay stubs, and forms to formally request off—you’re creating more work for your small business.  All of those papers have to be printed and processed (by someone).  But if you go green and paperless, you can automate a lot of those procedures.  Plus, you and your employees should gain the ability to access necessary forms anytime, anywhere.  Making this an easy decision for your company.

4. Stay in Compliance

Now, this part is a little more complicated.  Mainly because the requirements at both state and federal levels are constantly changing.  For instance, last year the state of Maryland passed the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act requiring employers to accrue sick leave for their employees.  Do you have a dedicated staff person who can maintain the necessary training and education needed to keep your business in compliance?  In this case, you may want to look at the time it takes to research all the rules and regulations as a wise investment.  Since the real cost of compliance comes if you miss certain tax deadlines or forget to file specific forms. 

You also have the option to partner with payroll experts, like Bounds Accounting & Tax Services, LLC who can help you with this particular process.  But we’ll talk more about that in the next step!

5. Outsource Your Payroll to a Qualified Professional

Of course, if you really want to save time and invest your resources wisely, you’ll outsource your payroll to a trusted company.  At Bounds Accounting & Tax Services, we do everything from processing paychecks to paying payroll taxes on your behalf.  We’ll even file your quarterly and year-end taxes.  Plus, you won’t have to worry about taking the first 4 steps to improve your efficiency.  As part of our services, we’ll identify potential liabilities in your payroll process before making our professional recommendations to fix them.

More companies than ever before are outsourcing this particular service—including many small businesses.  So, they can spend less time on payroll and more time focusing on growing their organizations.  Just be sure to partner with a local firm, like us, who can offer more personal attention to your payroll processes.  If you have any questions about our services, please contact either one of our locations.  Whether Taneytown or Sykesville, Maryland is more convenient for you.