{"id":280,"date":"2016-09-30T19:45:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T19:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.accurants.com\/2016\/09\/30\/understanding-the-basics-of-payroll\/"},"modified":"2024-10-20T08:35:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T08:35:15","slug":"understanding-the-basics-of-payroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/30\/understanding-the-basics-of-payroll\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Basics of Payroll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019re the owner of a small business, the odds are good that the following statement is familiar: You couldn\u2019t do your job without your employees, but sometimes dealing with your employees can feel like a job.<\/p>\n<p>Rarely is this more accurate than in the world of payroll.\u00a0 Referring to the steps and processes involved in compensating workers for their services, payroll is about a lot more than cutting a check.\u00a0 A leader in small business accounting, accurants works with businesses of all sizes to meet their complete accounting needs. Here are some of the basics of payroll compiled from our many years of experience:<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Deciding When to Pay<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>As a business owner, you need to decide when to pay your staff members for their services. While twice monthly pay schedules are probably the most popular, some employers opt to pay once a week or every 30 days.\u00a0 Whatever option you choose, make sure to stick to it \u2013 after all, your employees need to know that they can count on you to pay your bills, so they can pay theirs.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Collecting Taxes<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Life would be easier if SMB owners only had to pay employees their wages.\u00a0 Unfortunately, businesses must also collect federal and state income taxes, as well as Social Security and Medicare.\u00a0 Your employees\u2019 W-4 forms tell you how much to deduct based on their salaries and other factors, so make sure these documents are completed and up to date.\u00a0 You can check with your state government to determine specific income tax requirements for your area.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Tracking Time<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Whether you pay your employees a set salary or compensate them based on hours worked, you likely want to track their time to measure productivity and performance, among other factors.\u00a0 As a business owner, you need to determine whether workers are exempt or non-exempt, as this classification likely affects overtime requirements.\u00a0 You can also visit the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor for details on your time tracking requirements as a small business operator.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Benefits<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Of course, salary isn\u2019t the only means by which businesses compensate their workers.\u00a0 Many companies also provide benefits in the form of medical and dental care, life insurance, 401ks, and even childcare.\u00a0 In some cases, you will need to deduct a portion of an employee\u2019s salary each pay period for his or her healthcare deductible.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, businesses may offer paid time off in the form of sick days, vacation, and personal leave.\u00a0 Based on the number of workers you employ, the U.S. government may require you to offer certain benefits to your employees.\u00a0 Do your research to avoid getting hit with fines and other penalties for failing to offer the necessary benefits.<\/p>\n<p>To summarize, if you have employees then payroll is a must have.\u00a0 Since the calculations behind all the taxes &amp; deductions are complicated and the laws and limits\/rates do change frequently, keeping up with them is a big challenge.\u00a0 Whether you as a business owner do the payroll calculations on your\u00a0own\u00a0or take help from expert payroll services or use a software, whatever choice you take, we strongly recommend using expert help &amp; take benefit of software packages.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Contact accurants Today<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>You don\u2019t necessarily need an accountant on staff to run your small business \u2013 but you might need one inside your computer.\u00a0 A complete small business accounting solution, accurants fulfills a wide range of needs, helping you with everything from time tracking to invoicing and even tax preparation.\u00a0 We are working on adding Payroll module by the end of this, which when released will complete the whole circle of our offering &#8211; a complete small business management solution.\u00a0 You will no longer need multiple best of the breed systems to manage your business, accurants will empower you to run your entire business.\u00a0 To learn more about our services, register to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.accurants.com\/Registration.aspx\">try accurants free for 30 days<\/a>. We look forward to revolutionizing your accounting experience in the coming months.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019re the owner of a small business, the odds are good that the following statement is familiar: You couldn\u2019t do your job without your employees, but sometimes dealing with your employees can feel like a job. Rarely is this more accurate than in the world of payroll.\u00a0 Referring to the steps and processes involved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3,5,9,10],"tags":[23,48,66,91,98,99,100,128,140,147,148],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accounting","category-accurants","category-general","category-tax","category-time-tracking","tag-benefits","tag-deductions","tag-hourly-wages","tag-medicare-tax","tag-payroll","tag-payslips","tag-paystub","tag-social-security-tax","tag-taxes","tag-w-2","tag-w-4","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/09\/payroll-Basics.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7630,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/7630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}