The world of software is constantly changing for business owners, and selecting the right combination of payroll integration software to suit your needs, is crucial for the smooth running of your company.
In theory, it would be ideal to find a solution that fits every business, but this is often easier said than done, and opting for a more simplistic approach may mean that some aspects of the software don’t perform as well as others, and you could actually end up making life harder for yourself.
Why Is Payroll Integration So Important?
Payroll integration means that any data you have, need only be inputted once and stored once, making things far easier and quicker when it comes to preparing payroll for your employees and entering data for tax purposes.
Some companies may choose to use a desktop product for software and another separate software package for accounting that has no integration with it. Time must then be spent every month, integrating the two packages and at tax time. Bigger companies may even have yet another software package for their human resources, and you can only imagine how complicated this would make matters. Not only that, but each time data is transferred from one software package to another, there is always the risk of errors being made. Some software is subject to formatting and other such issues that could end up costing you and your employees’ valuable time and may decrease productivity.
Choosing The Right Payroll Integration Software
To enable you to select customized payroll software that will cater for the unique qualities of your particular business, there are a number of considerations to be made before you make your choice:
- The size of your company
- How much your budget is
- How familiar you are with regulatory and legal aspects of payroll
- Tax filing: One of the most complicated aspects of payroll is correctly recording and managing taxes. To avoid costly penalties, you must ensure that you comply with federal, state and local tax regulations. Some integrated payroll software offers tax filing features to help with this.
- Direct deposit: Paper checks are fast becoming outdated and unnecessary, and direct deposits are proving increasingly popular. Eliminating paper checks can only benefit your company, allowing you to save time, effort and resources, so make sure that you look for payroll software that has this feature.
- Employee self-service portal: Personal payroll data can be managed by the employees themselves with a self-service portal; the data keeping process becomes streamlined as the managing of employee’s personal information can be managed by themselves, without the need for employer intervention. Look for payroll software that incorporates this.
- HR integration: Your company may benefit from software with human resources (HR) integration and accounting software, resulting in less paperwork and automatic updating; ultimately saving you time, resources and money.
Once you’ve chosen the right payroll integration software for you, your business will quickly begin to perform more efficiently, and you’ll soon begin to reap the rewards.