Remember the days of using a calculator and a typewriter to process payroll? Thankfully, those days are gone, and there are much simpler tools to make the process more efficient. Today, there are tools available to help ensure timely tax payments, accurate and complete payrolls, and to make sure employees are paid on time. These days, most businesses use one of two methods to process payroll: in-house payroll software, or a payroll service. As a business, you must choose the method of payroll processing that works best for you. Start out by asking yourself these simple questions.

What staff is available to manage the process?

No matter which processing method you use, you will need staff to manage the associated tasks. Many in the business world tend to believe that a payroll service takes less staff time, since it handles the tax payments and processing. While this may be true, be sure to account for all of the time your staff must spend collecting and entering time data for employees (if applicable), updating employee earning and deduction changes, running payroll reports, and generally making sure that data is accurate and timely. When using a payroll software program, it is a good idea to have at least one employee who is familiar with your payroll processes, and your payroll software. He/she should be able to set up employee information, enter time in the appropriate manner, process payroll, run reports, maintain tax filing schedules and be able to file them using your system.

Who manages what?

It is important to consider your current staff and their expertise, when you are deciding on payroll processing. For instance, if you don’t have a skilled HR person, you may lean toward a payroll service, since some of them offer HR services. If you have a person who is skilled in using in-house payroll software already, you might find it easier to stay with that. Consider who you have on staff and their expertise, and then whatever system you choose will come along with a much smoother transition.

Where is my data safest?

There is a major different in the location of your payroll data when comparing a payroll service to in-house software. With a service, your data is typically stored in a remote location and accessed via the internet. Of course, most services use strong encryption to provide security for your data. For payroll software, your data is stored on your own server, so the information is not available via the internet. However, you still need to be sure there is a good internal security system, since payroll data is sensitive, and you don’t want unauthorized employee’s to log in and view or edit sensitive data.

No matter whether you use payroll software or a service, payroll solutions are definitely a key way of ensuring your payroll is easy to manage, accurate, and that taxes are paid on time! And of course most importantly, that your employees get their checks. There are a few additional steps you can take to make your employees happy. Just by adding features that may already be included within your payroll solution, you may increase the happiness level of your employees!

Add direct deposit

You might just be surprised how much happier employees would be by receiving their pay directly deposited into their bank account, rather than receiving a paper check. Direct deposit allows employees to eliminate the hassle of going to the bank, and also reduces the chances of lost checks. Some payroll solutions even allow for the depositing of funds to unlimited bank accounts, allowing for Christmas savings accounts, additional checking accounts, child savings accounts, and more!

Offer pay card option

Some employees may not have bank accounts, and in those cases it can be difficult or costly for them to find a way to cash their paychecks. Pay cards can be a great way to solve this problem! Deliver employee pay on reloadable debit cards instead of paper checks and you have just made some of your employees very happy by providing them an easy way to access the money they have earned.

Translate pay stubs into employee language

Do you have employees who are not native English speakers? Depending on their language skills, these employees may be better able to understand the important details of their pay and benefits if you have them printed on their pay stub in their native language. Payroll solutions that offer this feature will typically allow you to enter the translation one time, and assign it to the applicable employee(s), and the pay stub will be printed that way automatically from then on.

Add important information to pay stubs benefit summary etc.

Are employees constantly asking how much vacation time they have left? How much they’ve contributed to their 401K? Details like this, and much more can be included on a pay stub. Surely your company has its own unique set of details which you may want to include on the pay stub, so add whatever is most important to your business and your employees.

Add online pay stub access.

Many payroll solutions are now offering the ability for employees and previous employees to access their pay stubs online! No more searching around for slips of paper to access the information they need. Provide employees or previous employees with a password, and they will be able to look up their pay stubs and even W-2 forms online, making it easy for both them and you.

Don’t assume that what you are doing is the best or only solution available! You could make your own job easier as well as bump up employee happiness by adding features you may already have in your payroll system.

You’ve heard the saying “people don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan”. Well, that’s not always true. Several years ago, (long enough that the statute of limitations has long passed), I was on the board of a not-for-profit organization that would consistently budget a negative cash flow for the year. They didn’t want to lose money, and didn’t think they would lose money, but they always planned to lose money. I didn’t understand that philosophy. I am certainly in favor of conservative budgeting, so if something doesn’t quite go according to plan, there are still prospects of survival.

Now that we’re in the New Year, you should have your plan for 2012 in place and have started executing that plan. Some businesses have to start executing their plan long before the beginning of any calendar period by buying inputs for commodities they grow or parts for finished goods they produce. In this case, their plan has to be more perpetual than based on a twelve month period. While I don’t believe the old Wall Street movie that proclaimed “greed is good”, I also don’t believe profit is a four-letter word. The best thing we can do for ourselves, the people that work in our companies, our local communities, and our country, is to plan to be successful and execute the plan. So, don’t fail to plan, and don’t plan to fail.

When it comes to tools to help a farmer manage an operation, is the most basic and widespread option always the best? Just think about your equipment, the tools you use out in the field. Do you buy whatever is cheapest, or do you like a certain brand or type of equipment? Do you buy the first thing you see, or research everything that is available first? The same logic applies to your agricultural accounting software. The software you use is a crucial piece of equipment that can help you stay on track and be profitable. Don’t trust it to whatever is easiest to find or cheapest! Instead, have a careful look at your options and what fits best for your farm. At least then if you decide to purchase the cheapest and most basic package, you will do so with your eyes wide open, and you will know exactly what you are getting. So a good question here is, with so many basic software packages available, who needs Ag software?

Farmers who want information in their own language.

You probably won’t find anything about enterprises, farms, fields, production, or other farm-related activities within a basic accounting program. That’s because those programs have to fit a huge variety of business types. Ag software presents tools and features to you in a way that is familiar and makes more sense.

Farmers who want to know how they are doing compared to established guidelines.

Did you know there is now a software tool available to help you understand where you should be with industry benchmarks? This same tool can also help pinpoint areas of strength and weakness in your farm, so you can increase your profits and reverse negative trends. This tool is ratio analysis, and some Ag software has this as one of its features. Ratio analysis includes guidelines, ratios and indices that are specific to Ag, so you won’t have to guess how you are doing; you can see it for yourself, using the numbers you have already entered into your system.

Farmers who want to plan how much profit they will have, and where it will come from.

Software specifically for Ag gives you tools to track information in the way that is most useful to you, whether it’s by profit center, by enterprise, by account, and much more. Tracking information helps you understand which areas of your farm are profitable, so you can focus on your income generating enterprises and increase your profits. Another helpful tool for planning is the ability to run ‘what if’ scenarios. Doing this allows you to project future sales, cash flow, income states, and assets and liabilities. Once this information is tracked and reported consistently, managing your finances becomes much easier and can become more goal-oriented.

Using an Ag-specific program to run your farm can make your information much easier to enter and understand. No matter which program you choose, make sure it can provide you with the financial information you need, in the way you want to see it.

When a company needs new accounting software, where do they go to do their research? The majority of people these days begin their search on the internet. Yet, when you search Google for the word “accounting software reviews”, the first page of search results do not typically offer you a comprehensive list of accounting software reviews. How can this be? Here are some of the most common myths about searching for accounting software reviews, and suggestions on how to really get the information you need.

Myth #1: Reviews must be unbiased, since they are on the internet.

The internet is a land of fierce competition, where millions of people are competing to show up on the first page of Google. There is big money to be spent and earned in online advertising. So when you enter the search term ‘accounting software reviews’, you will likely find some sites that review accounting software packages. Just because they review a variety of software packages does not mean that they picked all the best ones out there they could find! Many of these sites feature only products that pay to be there. Therefore, the list may not be a comprehensive one. Also, if they are paid reviews, you might not get the most honest results, since the reviewers are being paid and want to keep their customers. This is something to keep in mind.

Myth #2: Google knows what you are looking for.

All of us have been guilty, at some point, of thinking that whatever shows up on Google page one must be the best result for what we are looking for. After all, most of us don’t sit and contemplate how Google retrieves its results! However, Google is not a person, and it doesn’t ‘know’ anything at all! It uses a proprietary algorithm to display the most relevant search results. (An algorithm is a computer program.) Of course, Google’s algorithm is very good, and that’s why the majority of people choose it as a search engine. However, a computer program cannot tell what you really seek. You can enter the term ‘accounting software reviews’ and Google will serve you results based on what it knows. But what it doesn’t know is that what you really want are unbiased results provided by people who have actually used the system in real life. You might not get that by simply searching for ‘accounting software reviews’.

So despite the above, you are still hoping to find some good reviews for your prospective accounting software! Do not despair; there are better ways to get what you are looking for. One great way to find a comprehensive list of accounting software programs is to visit www.Capterra.com. Companies can pay to have top placement, but there is still a comprehensive list of accounting software vendors for you to search through, by feature or simply in list format. There are also customer reviews along with many of the software packages, which are not biased since they are submitted by actual customers. Another place to look for customer reviews is www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com They do a yearly review of accounting and payroll systems, as well as many other systems. They provide extremely detailed and useful information about the features and usability of accounting software systems. One final place to find some of the best accounting software reviews is your potential accounting software vendor. Ask if there is a customer who has a business similar to yours, who is using the product and would be willing to speak with you. Yes this is more work, but you will be talking to an actual customer like you, and they can provide feedback on specific questions you have.