Today, very few businesses use manual payroll systems. The reason for this is that they are complicated, repetitive, tedious, and prone to human error. If you've been struggling to get through payroll manually for some time, it could be about time that you pass the task off to an automatic service online. Switching to cloud-based solutions could minimize mistakes, reduce costs, and provide you with the time you need to focus further on improving your business. However, an important part of making the right step is knowing the questions to ask when choosing a payroll provider or service.
What Services Do They Provide?
There are numerous payroll services available on the market today, with additional providers making their way onto the market on a regular basis. If you want to choose the service that could provide the ideal fit for your company, then you'll need to identify your particular requirements, and track down a company that delivers exactly what you need. Most payroll providers will provide a number of online services, with access to accounting reports and more. A good vendor should track any paid time your employees take off, including sick days and vacation leaves, deduct health and insurance benefits, handle various deductions and earnings such as commission, bonuses and reimbursements, as well as file accurate payroll taxes.
What's The Price?
An important factor in the questions to ask when choosing a payroll provider, is knowing how much you're willing to spend. Many payroll providers will charge a monthly subscription fee, that can start from anywhere between $10 and $200 a month depending on the number of services you want to be included. On top of that monthly fee, you may also need to pay an additional fee each month per employee in your staff.
How Do You Get Started?
Once you have decided on a particular payroll provider, you will need to know how you can log in to your user dashboard, deal with your account, and add or remove users and employees. You should be able to access your account and run details from just about any device capable of accessing the internet, from your tablet or smartphone, to your laptop or desktop computer.
How Secure Is The Service?
A vital step in covering all of the questions to ask when choosing a payroll provider, is finding out just how safe that provider is. You need to be completely confident that all of the private accounting information about your company stays out of the hands of malicious individuals. It's important to make sure that your chosen provider keeps all of your data as safe as possible by using the highest level of encryption standards available, in order to help defend against password and login information theft.
Today, a lot of online payroll providers make use of the same security features that are used by online banking services. All of your information, including social security numbers, passwords, and personal information should be protected by authentication and firewalls. Additionally, your information should be backed up in secure locations, to ensure that it will always be available to you when you need it.