Behind every successful business is a talented team of individuals working together to accomplish the business mission. Supporting a staff, big or small, adds layers of complexity to a business—but running payroll shouldn’t be one of them. If your payroll process is stuck in a spreadsheet or spread across multiple systems, it’s time for a streamlined solution.
A payroll app can help you every step of the way, from the job posting and creating an offer letter to hiring, onboarding, and managing many aspects of the employee experience. Best of all: it’ll help you stay in compliance with payroll tax and other requirements. The following are the top benefits of using a modern, secure app to manage payroll.
Simplified onboarding
Whether you’re hiring your first employee or bringing on new talent during times of growth, the onboarding process can be time-consuming. If you don’t get it right, important information falls through the cracks. When onboarding employees or contractors, one of the most important pieces of information to collect will be Form W-9 (for contractors) or W-4 (for employees). Collecting this information during the onboarding process will ensure you are prepared to complete and file 1099s and W-2s in January. A cloud-based payroll app, such as Gusto or Paycor, helps you collect all vital information and forms from the start.
Contract workers and employees will also experience a seamless onboarding process, with access to review and complete necessary documents from anywhere, regardless of location. By providing a cloud-based payroll system, you’re set up to acquire remote workers and remove geographic boundaries on the talent pool.
Timekeeping tools
Whether you’re paying people hourly or on salary, there are many reasons to ask people to track time. With a payroll app, business owners can quickly and efficiently see all employees’ hours associated with each project or task, enabling insights into workforce costs and workload trends. You can make business decisions and future plans confidently when you know they’re based on actual costs.
Using a payroll app with an integrated time tracker helps to streamline your tech stack. If your workers’ hours are teetering on overtime, you can set a notification for managers or even the employee. Your employees will appreciate the ability to view their hours, holidays, vacation time balances, and schedules in one place. There is no need for manual double entry when time tracking and payroll are integrated. With the right review gates in place, you’ll save loads of time managing the process each payroll period.
Employee benefits
To build a great team, you must provide a great place to work. Attracting and retaining top talent is about much more than offering a competitive wage. However, accessing available benefits can be quite the process for employees and oftentimes requires the business owner to make calculations to determine available PTO and other benefits.
Your employees will thank you for the easily accessible benefits view with a payroll app. Employees can request time off, view accrued PTO, sick days, and 401(k) to name a few. Some payroll apps even offer options for health benefits. Gusto offers in-app integrations with many of your existing benefit providers, making the adoption process seamless.
Automated payroll taxes
Gone are the days of manual payroll, tax calculations, and setting reminders to submit payments or write paper checks. If payroll is a tedious, time-consuming process, you’re doing it wrong! As an example, Gusto users spend an average of 13 minutes to run payroll. Imagine what you could do with all of your extra time! Every time you run payroll, Gusto calculates and files payroll taxes directly with the government, ensuring you don’t miss a payment or make a costly error. Payroll apps go a long way in helping to ensure compliance with state and federal payroll regulations. If you’re paying global workers, choose an app that keeps you in compliance in their home countries too.
The list goes on and on with the many benefits a payroll app can provide you as a business owner, as well as your employees. A paperless payroll process means your employees have access to records from anywhere at any time, without the need to be in the office. To top it off, Gusto and many other payroll apps integrate with Xero, our favorite central hub for your back office. Send us a message if you’re ready to hand off your payroll process to a cloud-based technology designed to save your business time and money.