Navigating Payroll as a Small Business

Is your small business getting bigger? If you’re about to hire new employees, it’s important to have a good payroll system in place. But this is easier said than done and you might be confused about where to start. Don’t worry, starting your payroll doesn’t have to be that complicated, especially with these top tips. This way, you can get things right straight away, leaving you with less chaos to clean up at a later date.

Choose Software

By choosing software for payroll, you’ll be making your life a whole lot easier. It will help you to organise your finances and stay on track with your payment schedule. Missing payday can be a disaster for not only you but your employees as well, and longer delays only make the problem even worse.

Software allows you to send out wages automatically, taking a huge weight off your mind. It will also produce payslips automatically, saving you from calculating taxes for each member of staff individually. Not calculating tax properly can have a knock-on effect further down the line. Employees may have a lot more money deducted from their wages than they realised, giving them financial difficulties.

A common need for an individual, nonprofit organization, or business is to create a pay stub. There are many different software programs to help you accomplish this task. The paystub creator will give you the ability to create your own pay stubs online which can save you both time and money. It will also allow you to generate your own paycheck stubs for payroll purposes.

Outsourcing

Depending on how much your business is growing, you could consider outsourcing your payroll needs to an external company. This will help you to make sure everyone is being paid a pension and is receiving the correct holiday and sick pay. Some agencies even offer HR services alongside payroll, which can really help you to manage a new group of employees if you’re not used to it. Even if you do decide to use payroll software, a freelancer can take over the weekly or monthly handling of processes to make things easier on you.

Stick to a Schedule

Your payment schedule will mostly depend on your business’ cashflow. While most companies pay their employees monthly, you could decide to send out a paystub every two weeks or more frequently if needed. This might be particularly beneficial if your employees don’t work every month or have been hired on a contractual basis.

Make sure you stick to the schedule once you’ve decided it and don’t keep changing payday, as this will only make your employees disgruntled. It’s also a good idea to have the same rules for everyone. It might be tempting to bend the system for an employee who has a special request for a different payment schedule, but this can throw your whole payroll system out of balance.

Get Planning Today

If you’ve already made steps to hire new employees, sorting out your payroll needs to be a priority. Your new staff will be starting sooner than you know it and you can’t keep them waiting for their wages. It might take a while to find a payroll provider you’re happy with and to get everything set up and running, so the earlier you think about it the better. This will also give you extra time to familiarise yourself with taxes and legal requirements.