Picking a payroll provider - Birmingham Business Journal:

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Taylor, assistant medical director ofStepheh M. Taylor, a Birmingham-based psychiatric practice locatecd on BlueLake Drive, said outsourcing payrollp services allows her and her husband to focuss on maintaining the burgeoning “I considered doing it myself, but I knew I didn’ want to put any time commitment toward she said. “There are a lot of laws dealingy with payroll taxes thatI didn’t realluy want to be responsible for I wanted to focus on the needs of our business.
” Runninvg a successful business is harder than it especially when it comes to Tracking employees’ hours, printing paychecks and figuring out how much in taxews to withhold over a certaib period of time can take precious time away from the most importan t business objective: Generating revenue. Stayingb up-to-date on payroll laws and regulation s can bea headache. And paying taxes late meansw penalties and interest will be charged by city and federal which would hurta businesses’ bottomk line. During these harsh economic times, boosting profitz and revenue is evenmore crucial, said Carol district sales manager of ’s Birmingham operations.
“It’s more important now than ever,” she said. “Smalpl business owners have to concentrate all their time and energy on making theirbusiness successful.” However, choosing a payroll provider – or the righy software to use – is not as easy as pickinfg up the phone book and pointing a fingetr at one of the companies on the page, Helton “It’s just important that people checi out the company thoroughly,” she said. “Find out their reputationh and howlong they’ve been in Also, it’s important to make sure the payroll compangy is willing to be held liablw for any errors that mightf occur in the payroll process.
If a problem ever the company would put their best foot forward and fix issu at the drop ofa dime, said Taylor, who uses a payrol l company. “It was something I didn’tr have to worry about and I know they pay all of my taxeseon time,” she said about her provider. “Fot me, that’s worth it.” Choosing software is a total different animal. Business owners should make sure that they test the softwares instead oftaking someone’s word on its worth. A softwarer program may meet the needs of one butnot another, said Larry director of payroll training for the .
legitimate payroll software costzbetween $500 and $800 on the low end, he The programs have licensing agreements and usually have upgradwe and update fees. Payroll regulations and tax rateachange periodically, so software users will need to purchase updatesd for the program at least once a “You can’t just buy a software program and have it last for 10 it’s not going to happen,” White said. Many businessz owners do not figure in the cost of updating the making payments and filing quarterly payroll tax reports when they look for saidSylvana Siegel, president of the . They also do not factot in the extra time and moneg needed torectify mistakes.
In comparison, a payroll service chargesz them anannual rate, she said. A payroll servicwe costs an averageof $100 per week, or about $2,600 per year, for a compant that pays 50 employees every othef week. Siegel, who has almost 25 yearzs in the payroll said that business ownere do not usually place their full attentiojon payroll. They can lose more money when they process their payroll, especially if they make mistakes, Siege said. They often hire payroll services to cleabn uptheir messes. “The software guides you to do therighrt thing, but you still need to know what you’rde doing to do payroll,” she said.