FREE Small Business Payroll Solution [ Important Steps to Set Up ]

Business’s employees are one of the most valuable assets that a company can have. It is important for every organization or business to have an effective payroll. What exactly is a payroll? A payroll is a complete list of the company’s employees, whether they are regular employees or independent contractors. This allows them to have a proper employee record of the salaries, bonuses, wages, and the taxes of their employees.

Keeping an accurate record ensures that the business will not have any problems when compensating their workers, as well as in paying taxes. Creating a payroll in excel is also essential in the accounting aspect of the business since it affects the net income of the company, which is subject to various laws and regulations.

Through a well-recorded payroll, employees will also be able to keep track of any errors and irregularities, especially with the taxes and deductions. These are only some of the reasons why having an accurate payroll system is important in every business, whether you are running a small business or a large corporation. Furthermore, if you want to know more about the importance of having a payroll system in your business, the important steps in setting one, and the common mistakes that typically happen when using a payroll, we also have some tips that will be useful to you. If you need payroll samples and templates, you can browse through our selection of payroll templates available on our website.

What Is the Importance of a Payroll System?

Manually maintaining and managing your business’s payroll template can be time-consuming and complicated especially when you have just started your business. Having a payroll system will make the task of calculating and managing the salaries of a company’s employees easier. This is to ensure that all the information and report samples being generated are accurate and reliable. The importance of a payroll system are as follows:

• A payroll system is important since it allows businesses to handle transactions done with other companies. It is not only on the record of employees’ salary where payroll is importance. Using a payroll system accordingly can help businesses to present themselves to other businesses especially in terms of legal transactions.
• A payroll system is also important since it provides the business with a detailed report regarding all the transactions for a particular period of time. The financial condition of the business is important to be documented in a precise manner so they can see whether they are profitable or not within a particular time period or during the entirety of annual operations.
• A payroll system can accurately calculate the bonuses, salaries, and the commissions of a company’s employees. As mentioned above, a payroll system is very important as it provides the calculation that can be presented to employees. The payroll provides transparency to how or why a particular employee receives an amount as his/her pay within a cut-off.
• A payroll system is important for small businesses since it keeps a record of the employees’ profiles allowing them to track any information that they may need. Payroll systems can present the monetary details that are needed by other businesses when background checking is necessary for relation to employees. The payroll tax of the business contains all the amount that the employees receive in exchange for their services.

Important Steps to Set Up Your Small Business Payroll Solution

Here are the important steps for setting up your payroll for your small business:

• Before you start setting up your payroll, it is essential for your business to have an employer tax ID or an EIN. This EIN is important for business, especially small business, when reporting estimated tax form and other documents.
• When hiring new employees, it is important for you to clearly understand the difference between a regular employee and an independent contractor agreement. Knowing the difference between the two helps businesses when filing income taxes, social security, and insurance coverage.
• Complete the important paperwork by letting new employees sign income tax forms and other documents.
• Decide when employees will be paid whether it is on a monthly basis or bimonthly pay periods. This is required when setting up your payroll.
• After you have decided the pay period, research on the various payroll systems and choose the most appropriate one for your business. This will allow you to effectively implement your payroll.

Common Payroll Mistakes

Making mistakes is inevitable especially when it involves operating a small business plan. There are many things that can go wrong when you create a payroll. Before you start, it is important that you understand the basics of creating a payroll, as well as the labor laws that you have in your country. To help you avoid mistakes in your business’s payroll, we have listed below some common mistakes that you can encounter when doing your payroll.

Incorrectly Setting up your Payroll System

One of the important aspects when doing a outsourcing payroll is the taxes. This aspect of a payroll can be complicated, which is why it is important for the business to know the amount of tax the business will deduct from their employees, as well as the amount that the business has to pay. If the business is new, you can set up a payroll system to make the task easier.

Providing Multiple Payroll Access without Prior Organization

A payroll system can only be deemed highly usable if all the updates are properly documented. This may not be the case if there are several people who are given access to the payroll system. Usually, companies and businesses have two or more human resource plan officers. However, they should ensure that the person who has access to the payroll should have proper bookkeeping methods to follow. This will prevent misrecording if an emergency occurs and there is a need for another person to place items in the payroll.

Using Misleading Grid/Column Titles

The format and layout of the payroll play a big role in the sustainability of the payroll system’s usage. Human resource managers should ensure that the placement of column titles specifying information about the employees’ payroll can still be easily understood even when a massive amount of data is already supplied.

Inconsistency of Tax withheld Records

The payroll of the business serves as the basis on what will be deducted from the salary of the employees responsibilities for payroll. More so, it is also used to ensure that the business is well aware of its tax obligations. Tax withheld records are usually presented during audits, may it be an internal or an external process. Not being able to present the proper taxation both for the employees and that of the business can result in legal disputes and investigations.

Improper Consultancy on Previous 

It is not only on current and future transaction where the importance of payroll records can be applied. It is important for businesses to keep track of how they record past payrolls so they can be well aware of what to improve, develop, retain, and maintain.Though there are a lot of payroll mistakes that may occur, being aware of this information can help companies create a call to action that will allow them to minimize or fully remove the impact of these mistakes to the operations. Using proper measures and regulations when doing the payroll can help a business in a lot of ways, especially in ensuring the business and the employees’ satisfaction when it comes to achieving their financial smart goals and aspirations.

Additionally, there are other payroll templates and samples available for download on our website. These include a payroll timesheet, payroll authorization form, and a payroll deduction form.