Still Wasting Your Time on Payroll Processing?

This article describes the benefits of outsourcing your business's payroll to a payroll service. Learn how many businesses waste time and resources by doing their own payroll processing

Is your small business still processing its own payroll? With the advent of modern technological advances that can streamline businesses, Doing your own payroll processing is the equivalent of using a typewriter instead of a laptop. You may think that you are saving money by not using a payroll service, but have you considered the value lost by not using your valuable time to instead build your business?

Your business has the potential to move from small start-up to large corporation in a shorter period of time by letting an outside company handle administrative tasks, like payroll processing. Your business could also improve other support services like marketing, customer service, new products, etc. A quality payroll service saves nearly every business money in the long run and more importantly, gives you more time to focus on growing your company.

First, a payroll service can save on salary costs, as well as reduce your bookkeeping and accounting costs. A study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers confirms that payroll outsourcing is actually less expensive than handling it internally. Secondly, allowing another company to handle your payroll processing puts that responsibility into the hands of a specialist (or a team of specialists) who knows the ins and outs of payroll administration. Furthermore, having payroll services handled by an outside company eliminates the need to constantly update payroll tax schedules and software. Payroll services also enable employers to offer direct deposit and other conveniences to their staff.

According to Business Week, "processing your own payroll requires 54 steps and eats up between 40 to 60 hours each year, even for two-employee companies." How much would you and your business benefit from an extra week and a half of productivity each year?

Furthermore, payroll processing is extremely time consuming, requiring precise tracking of complex withholding tables, payroll regulations and IRS paperwork. Substantial calculations, mountains of paperwork and frequent check printing (and corrections) eat up even more of your valuable time. Don't forget about the dreaded task of making proper end-of-year filings for federal, state, and local payroll taxes. Plus, in-house payroll processors must handle time-consuming daily employee inquiries. Retaining a payroll service puts all of these grinding responsibilities onto their shoulders instead of yours.

The International Communications Research study estimated that $15 - $17 billion is lost annually in productivity by time-consuming administrative tasks like payroll processing. Think of what your company could accomplish each year by outsourcing your payroll service! So stop wasting time and save your business-go to payroll outsourcing!