When you’re running a small business, there are a million things you have to keep track of. Dealing with unhappy customers, trying to grow your brand, and managing your employees, all while keeping everything organized. It’s no easy task.

If you can make any of the dozens of administrative tasks the slightest bit easier, not only will it make your business more efficient but it takes one more thing off your always crowded plate. This is where this article comes in. 

This piece will highlight the problems you can run into with your payroll, some potential solutions, and why you may want to outsource your payroll. As a small business owner, there’s always a lot on your mind. Don’t let paying people to be one. 

Common Problems 

Overtime Pay

The government mandates that all employees who work more than 40 hours a week get compensated for working overtime. Tracking which of your employees worked overtime and how much can be difficult, especially because overtime work usually comes from some sort of extenuating circumstance occurring.

If you mistrack overtime pay, it can take days of combing through records to accurately correct the mistake. 

Miscalculating Pay 

A payment miscalculation can lead to lost profits for your business, disgruntled employees, and lots of time wasted trying to correct the error. If you employ people who don’t work a consistent number of hours, or don’t have a clear electronic clock in the system, it’s possible to miss hours worked or pay extra.

When you’re bringing on new employees, pay miscalculations are especially likely because they’ve probably been brought on some time in the middle of a payment cycle. 

Tax Errors

In order to employ people in a tax-compliant manner, there’s a multitude of forms you need to fill out and rules you need to follow. Whether it’s figuring out tax withholding information, issuing correct W-2s, or paying the correct amount due to employer deductions, it’s easy to miss a critically important step. This becomes even more complicated for businesses that work with independent contractors and/or international employees and must process payment and taxes for them.

What Steps Can You Take? 

Employ a Payroll Service 

Keeping track of hours worked, overtime and taxes is a lot for any business owner to handle. If managing your payroll is taking time out of your week, and preventing you from doing the things which actually generate value for your business, you should consider employing a payroll service. Many small businesses outsource their payroll, it’s affordable, efficient, and easy. If you want a comprehensive overview of the best payroll services for small businesses, click here.

Benefits of Payroll Service  

-Affordable

-Flexible

-Frees time for you to work on your business 

-Professional understanding of legal requirements

-Simplifies business taxes 

-Better employee experience 

Some services are better suited to serve different types of businesses. The article above will walk you through which of the industry leaders can be the best fit for your business. 

Establish Clear Policies 

If you want to manage payroll yourself, there are some steps you should take to optimize your process. Make sure everyone in your company is on the same page about how payroll will be executed. Set clear expectations, and delegate specific responsibilities.

This will avoid confusion about who’s responsible for what, and when things need to be done. This will also mitigate employee confusion and frustration about how and when they are getting paid. 

Create an Organizational Structure

A haphazard system where you’re simply trying to remember who needs to be paid and what tax paperwork needs to be filed is destined to fail. Set up an organizational plan which encompasses everything you need to do payroll.

Assign a specific place where all work documents will go. Assign another where tax documentation will go. Keep clear records of how much people are working, and keep how you do consistently. If you can implement some sort of digital clock-in system, do. These are far superior to a system where employees have to report hours themselves. 

Closing Thoughts 

Managing payroll can be stressful, time-consuming, and something which takes you away from doing whatever it is that makes your business successful. Between accurately tracking hours, keeping employees happy, and being tax compliant, payroll management can take a lot of work.

If you’re trying to run your own payroll, you should make sure you have clear policies and a designated organizational structure. If you’re getting bogged down in payroll every two weeks, you should strongly consider outsourcing to a payroll management service.