Every time we speak of running a business, the things that come to our mind are sales, recruitment, and production. But, unfortunately, we often tend to ignore the people who make sure all these functions are fueled with the right resources. Yes, we are speaking about the department that pays us all our salaries – the accounting and finance department. The last week of every month is the most stressful one for employers and the accounts department. They need to go through the entire employee data and channel the payroll.
How To Make Paying Your Employees Less Stressful And Easier
If you are in charge of the payroll, you understand the stress and the workload that we are speaking about. But did you know that the process does not have to be this stressful? Here are a few tips to make your payroll processing an easy one!
Do It Yourself
Processing the payroll is easier than you think if you learn the nuances right. It is stressful, involves a lot of data and paperwork, no doubt about that, but you would not find it daunting if you learn the easy way to do it. You can start by understanding the process and following tutorials on how to do your own payroll; this would give you an insight into all the taxes, documentation, and information you should have before starting the payroll process. If you are a small business owner, you could save a significant amount of money by doing the payroll yourself rather than hiring an individual or an entire team.
Automate
Automation is the key to efficiency. It reduces the scope for human error and eliminates task redundancy. That’s an advantage, which your payroll system could definitely use. For example, you could invest in a third-party tool or build your own payroll management system where the computer produces the paychecks and manages the payment for your employees and the vendors.
Based on your willingness to spend, you can customize the payroll software to meet your business needs. For example, the automation tool can help you with tax deductions, salary hikes, bonuses, commissions, overtime, deductions, etc. This would save you a considerable amount of time at the time of payroll processing. As the machine takes over your task, you can focus on other business priorities without stressing about the payments.
Have a Payroll Schedule
Build a payroll schedule and follow it to the T. Do not wait until the last minute to look for employee information, banking details, tax forms, and costs. Ensure that you have all the data in place in an accessible format. Check your cash flow to ensure you have funds on the payroll date.
If you see a challenge in sourcing funds by the payday, communicate the same to your employees in advance and let them know the date by which they can expect a payment. You do not want to leave your employees worrying if they would receive their salary on time to pay their bills. If you generally receive client payments on a particular date, schedule your salary payments a day or two after that so that you do not fall short of funds.
Outsource
Numerous companies are jumping onto the bandwagon of outsourcing their payroll process. This means that a third-party vendor or organization will handle all the taxes, IRS documentation, and your employees’ payments on your behalf. If you have the budget, you can outsource the task to a payroll firm. However, if you are looking for the next best economical alternative, you should outsource the task to an accountant. The accountant will do all the paperwork on the processing so that you don’t have to stress about it.
Use Help
If you are working on a tight budget and need to process the payroll independently, don’t worry. It would help if you started early, prepare a payroll checklist, have numerous copies of the documents, and re-check the calculations a few times to make sure you have it right. Payroll processing could be time-consuming, but you could simplify it by spending an hour every day to deal with one aspect of the payroll all month long, rather than battling with it at the last minute.
Once you are done with it, take the assistance of someone you trust to go through the paperwork. Getting a second set of eyes to review the work will ensure there are fewer errors and vouch for the accuracy of your payroll.
Remember that streamlining the process is the most challenging part of any task. However, once you take care of it, everything else will fall into place. Did these tips come in handy?