Payroll Services

What do payroll companies typically offer?

So what do payroll companies typically offer? The name of course implies payroll services, which entails, payroll calculation, tax administration, payment delivery and periodic reports (weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly or quarterly). However, payroll companies offer way more than payroll related services. The payroll outsourcing industry did start with mostly payroll tasks when it was started more than half a century ago, but these days they also offer tax administration and compliance, HR tasks like training, recruitment and selection, employee benefits administration including workers' compensation and liability management.

Payroll Services

Payroll tasks entail more than issuing checks. There are, as a matter of fact, multiple payroll distribution options for most companies, such as debit cards. Other companies offer direct deposit which makes the tax administration more effective. Under payroll processing, data processing, establishing vacation and sick leave information and reports generation is also included. There may be electronic time sheets involved, while others use time card information. Reports can be made through online accounts, in paper, or by receiving data in compact disk format although downloading information from the internet is now the most common.

Tax Administration and Compliance

A huge part of payroll is tax administration and the two generally goes hand-in-hand. Payroll companies can also take care of other government compliance aspects such as the required employee benefits particularly worker's compensation, obtaining applicable business licenses, state employment and unemployment tax compliance, establishing employee termination stipulations, drug testing, Social Security Number verification and immigration compliance among others. This means that you greatly reduce the chances of lawsuits and getting in a clash with the government.

Human Resources Services

Payroll companies can also do a good deal of general HR tasks such as hiring and selection as well as employment orientation. They can run initial screening and interviews, pre employment skills testing and background checks. They can also create and release employee manuals, provide employee orientation. Provide wage and salary data and carry out drug testing.

Employee Benefits Administration

The benefit of a satisfied and motivated workforce is not only high productivity. Satisfied employees also tend to stay with you and you know how high turnover rates in terms of employees coming and going are bad for business. With excellent employee benefits, you also get to have better labor buying power, not to mention that for some states, one such aspect –workers' comp– is actually required by law. Payroll companies can take care of employee health benefits and insurance plans, life insurance, personal accident, insurance, disability insurance or plans, hospital plans, educational assistance and individual retirement plans among others.

Liability Management

To say that liability management is time-consuming is an understatement. Not only will it drain your time and good vibes, it also tends to drain your resources and it requires more than good business sense – it requires astute legal knowledge as well. This may not always be included in what most payroll companies typically offer, however some payroll companies do offer these services. It entails a two-punch approach, the first one being risk and the next is the liability management aspect which involves establishing the necessary insurance policies (liability insurance and workers comp), claims investigation and claims processing.