Looking for payroll solutions?

Payroll is an important part of your business. Staying compliant with payroll tax filing and paying employees on time are both crucial functions. The right payroll solutions help businesses stay compliant with taxes, keep employees happy, and streamline payroll processing.

Here are some of the first things to think about on your journey to finding good payroll solutions, and more specifically, the right one for your business!

Basic, Medium or Advanced Payroll Solutions

Basic: most basic of payroll programs can often be purchased easily off the internet or on the shelves of retail stores. These programs often work very well for business that are just starting up and have only one or a few employees. Remember, you will need to get updated tax information so your tax forms are up to date. Once it’s time to get updated tax forms, this will typically incur a cost. Also, once you reach a certain number of employees or other data, the software provider may require you upgrade to a paid service to accommodate that. One popular provider of basic payroll is Quickbooks Payroll by Intuit. They offer several basic options. Signs you need a basic payroll solution:

• You only have one or a few employees.
• You are just starting to run payroll.
• You don’t have any special payroll needs.

Medium: When your business grows, you start growing in your payroll needs as well. Adding more employees means more employee garnishment types, more ways to pay employees (such as salaried, commissioned, piece rate, and more), and maybe even the management of multiple company payrolls. These are just a few of the signs you need a better payroll solution. Many companies start tracking information by hand and quickly find it frustrating and inefficient. Medium payroll solutions can usually handle the tracking of that information for you, streamlining your job and ensuring accurate payroll data. For medium solutions, you should write down your specific needs and work with a company representative to be sure their software can meet all you are looking to accomplish. Check out CenterPoint Payroll Software by Red Wing Software, which helps thousands of businesses in the U.S. accommodate their growing payroll needs. Here are just a few of the signs you are ready to move to a medium solution:

• Spreadsheet tracking of payroll information is cumbersome.
• You need to enter and track payroll information for multiple locations or multiple states.
• Functions such as pay or deduction codes are more complex than your system can accommodate.
• Your system is bogged down, slow, or experiencing crashes and lock-ups.

Advanced: If yours is a very large business, you may start to require more advanced functions than small or medium payroll solutions can offer. Detailed human resources management, employee and manager self-services resources, and time management are just a few of the things large companies may require for the efficient management of payroll. For advanced payroll solutions, you will likely work at length with a company representative or team about your needs. Implementation and training may take weeks or even months. Check out Lawson Software. Some of the signs your business needs advanced payroll:

• Standard systems just cannot handle your business needs, so software code changes are required.
• You are using several different systems that don’t work well with each other.
• You need much more detail than offered by a payroll solution, such as human resource management, benefits administration, or a multitude of other functions.

Do the words ‘cash flow’ strike terror deep within you? If you are in business, you know that cash is king. If you run out of cash, you basically are out of business. Therefore it’s a smart idea to pay attention to your cash and your cash flow. Using financial tools such as software can help ensure you manage your cash flow well. Even a profitable business can go out of business if they don’t manage their cash flow well. No cash flow=no business. Here are some tips on cash flow to keep in mind. Consider these points for managing your cash flow better.

Profit or loss does not equal cash flow. This is because profit and loss are only one contributor to cash flow, and there are other equally important factors to consider: inventory management, accounts receivable, accounts payable, capital purchases, loans and debt payments, and timing. Considering profit and loss equivalent to cash flow is a mistake, since it does not take into account other important factors.

Software programs can help manage your cash flow. Good accounting software will let you budget income & expenses and will in exchange budget your cash flow. This makes it easier to make wise spending decisions, and not to overspend. After all, it’s hard to argue with the facts when they are sitting right there in front of you! Cash flow reports can also be a great help. These reports show information about the cash intakes and outflows for your business for the selected date range.

Good cash flow budgeting can save you money. Creating and sticking to a budget can help you in many different ways. Not only can you make better and more profitable decisions, but you can also pay less in late fees, attain discounts for paying early, and you can even lessen or eliminate your need for short term loans, sparing you the cost of paying interest. The flip side of this is also true: if you don’t analyze and plan your cash flow, it will cost you!

Use budgeting and financial analysis tools to do “what if” analysis. Using your financial and budgeting software to help you run ‘what-if’ scenarios can be helpful for your bottom line, and can therefore help improve your cash flow. For example, if I purchase an updated piece of equipment, what will the short and long term financial affects be? Using ‘what-if’ analysis can help keep your expenses in check, which can in turn improve your cash flow.

Pay close attention to your cash flow, use every tool at your disposal to help you, and you will be on the road to better cash flow and a flourishing business.

Situation: You are using an outdated software system, and there are distinct benefits such as improved efficiency and improved customer satisfaction. But you don’t want to move because the economy seems dismal, and you want to keep your money instead of spending it on software. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help make the decision easier. If you are honest with your answers for each of these questions, your decision will be an easy one, either way.

• Will the time and money saved pay off the new system? How long will it take?

  Accounting software and payroll software for your business typically costs money. If a system is good, it will improve your efficiency enough that the money paid is well worth it. For instance, invoices are processed faster, bringing in cash more quickly. Inventory is accurate, so you know how many items to order and when to order them, so you keep just enough in stock, saving you money on costly ‘dead stock’ or backorders. These are just a few of the benefits you may be gaining by upgrading your software. Be sure that the benefits you gain are immediate enough that the cost of upgrading is worthwhile.

• Will customers benefit daily from the switch?

  You might be wondering, “What can accounting and payroll software do for my customers?” One shining example is that you can give your customers the information they request while they are on the phone, saving you the time of checking and calling them back. How many items are there in stock? What is my outstanding balance with your company? When is my payment due? Every time you have to check something out and call a customer back, that customer is waiting and you are spending double the time on the phone. If you upgrade to a new system, consider your customers. If they benefit daily from your software upgrade, it is probably worth it.

• Do you have a plan to make a smooth transition?

  Any software move involves a learning curve. With a plan in place, you can make that curve much shorter, and the whole process much smoother. Work with your software sales representative to help you develop a plan and timeline for your software switch. This plan can include steps for your own company, as well as additional tools offered by the company providing the software. Many software companies provide a variety of training and support methods. Find the ones that are right for you, and put them in your plan, so you won’t be tempted to ditch the new system halfway through the transition.

• Is there a compelling reason to move, outside of just technology?

  Some people just love technology for the simple fact that it’s new and cool. Especially during a slow economy, you have to ask yourself if this is the reason you are switching, or are there other compelling benefits? Switching for the sake of only technology is not a good idea unless you happen to have lots of spare money sitting around, or your software simply won’t work with new operating systems. Switching because there are true benefits to you, your business, and your customers is definitely reason enough to make the switch, especially during a slow economy.

Remember how excited you were to start your job? The anticipation, the nervousness, maybe even downright terrified for that first day. You worked hard to be a team player, built relationships with your co-workers, and gave 150% to show everyone you have what it takes to get the job done. Flash forward a couple of years, how’s that motivation now? I bet many would say comfortable, maybe even in auto pilot mode, and the enthusiasm that you had that first day has waned a bit. I think at one point or another, we have all felt that way. How can you get your mojo back? Two words; continuing education. Don’t roll your eyes and start thinking how am I going to go back to school when I have little extra time or money. I am talking about venturing out and attending a conference in your field. There’s nothing like spending a few days networking with people, learning new ideas and rejuvenating your mind and spirit. And the best part, most employers will pay for it. One of the things I appreciate the most about my boss, is he truly believes in the value of continuing education. In fact, it is part of our job description; we are encouraged to have 40 hours of continuing education each year. We receive credit for books read in our field, trade shows and online Webinars we attend, and of course outside conferences or workshops.

I just returned from a content marketing conference in Cleveland that included over 600 professional marketers from all over the world. The networking opportunities were amazing and I attended break-out sessions lead by industry leading experts and authors, whose books by the way, I have read and are on my Kindle. The best part of the conference? The friends I have made and the new information I learned, left me motivated and excited to come back and work harder at my job. You might say I found my mojo!

When it comes to business, playing games is not a good strategy. However, there is something to be learned from those board games we have played over the years. Use these game strategies when you are searching for the right accounting software vendor for your business.

Pictionary

Don’t get out your paper and pencil just yet. Play Pictionary with accounting software vendors by having them show you instead of tell you. It’s easy for somebody to simply say, “Yes, our software can handle that.” Ask the vendor to show you in a demonstration how the system can actually handle the function, for instance, if you need recurring invoicing, have the vendor show you how their system handles that. By seeing it, you can be assured it works how you want it to.

Trivial Pursuit

Thankfully, you can do this without brightly colored pie shaped pieces. Play trivial pursuit with vendors by making sure you find out about even the most trivial of needs. If the shipping department really needs a piece of information on the packing list, ask about it! Just imagine the time you can save over a matter of years by ensuring your system can handle a wide number of processes or functions that may seem trivial. On the other hand, purchasing a system that cannot handle those things can cost your business big in time and money. Clarify on paper your most trivial of needs, so you can be sure that the new system you choose has something to handle them.

Chutes and Ladders

Do you remember this game from childhood, and how frustrating it was to be a space or two away from winning and then fall down a big slide or ‘chute’? In real life, nobody wants to climb a huge ladder and unexpectedly or mistakenly go down a monstrous slide. In much the same way, you should have a team of support experts standing behind their software and able to help when you need it. When you are trying to reach accounting software support, being transferred from person to person or infinitely on hold is nearly as bad as falling down a giant slide!

Monopoly

Hey, just because an accounting software vendor is well-known, doesn’t mean they have the monopoly on the market. There are many accounting software vendors and one of them is right for your business, you just have to do your research to find out which one is right for you!

All this game playing is really just another way of saying, be sure to put accounting software vendors to the test before purchasing a new system for your business. Since you will work with this vendor for many years, these are details you want to work hard to get right.