How a payroll can benefit your SME & startup?
Setting up a payroll system is one of the most important steps you must take before hiring candidates for your startup. A business’s growth is not possible without human resources, and paying them correctly on time will help you retain employees.
See that you are using a cloud-based solution or manual process; keeping track of your employee working hours from understanding their deductions is essential to compensate them on time. Adopting a manual approach in small businesses and startups can drain your time and resources rather than focusing on necessary finance and accounting tasks.
What is payroll?
Payroll is the process of recording employee details, calculating their working hours, adding benefits, deducting taxes, and paying the correct salary on time. It is not just about distributing paychecks but involves bookkeeping, calculating taxes, maintaining compliance with regulatory laws, etc.
You can manage payroll with
- In-house payroll team,
- Outsourced payroll service provider, or
- Payroll software.
How does the payroll system work?
You need to follow the steps to process payroll every month:
- Record employee’s pay. It must include their wages and any statutory holiday pay or sick leave.
- Calculate all deductions like tax, national insurance, etc., and deduct them from the salary.
- Calculate the employer’s national insurance contribution for earnings above £184 per week.
- Provide payslips for employees.
- Report HMRC about employees’ payments and deductions.
Benefits of payroll services for SMEs and startups shared by Experlu an online platform for hiring payroll expert and professional auditors in UK
Time-saving
Automating your payroll process in the business saves extra time and resources that your company spends on doing payroll manually.
Cost-effective
If you use an online payroll platform or outsource your payroll task to accounting firms like 123Financials, you can save more than hiring in-house experts or manual payroll processing.
Error-free calculations and direct deposit
Human errors are inevitable, and therefore, online payroll software can decrease the chance of mistakes or costly blunders. An accountant can provide you with payroll services to calculate the right salary.
The payroll service provider calculates all the deductibles and add-ons and deposits the salary amount directly to your employee’s account.
Confidentiality
Payroll confidentiality is essential, especially for senior-level employees. If you outsource payroll services, even your accountant may not know staff members’ earnings if the service providers submit a summarized journal entry for accounting purposes. Hence, it ensures confidentiality.
Send automatic reminders
The payroll system can send notifications and reminders to HR so that you don’t miss out on any details of your employees. Additionally, it makes sure you meet all the responsibilities like finishing projects within deadlines, tax filing, making employee payments, etc.
No specialization required
Small business owners and new entrepreneurs have lots on their plate, from administrative tasks to managing business operations and others. It becomes difficult to spend time learning how to do payroll. Therefore, hiring employees or outsourcing payroll tasks is good to stay stress-free during employee payments and tax filing.
Provide e-payroll records
One of the essential tasks of the payroll department is paying employee salaries, but keeping track of its payroll is vital as well. Payroll services store all files electronically, including information like payment history, deductions, hours worked, benefits, etc., allowing employers and employees to access them anytime.
Ensure compliance
Processing payroll needs to maintain compliance with government rules and regulations. It requires expertise in the payroll department who ensures you stay compliant with the regulations and avoid penalties.
Conclusion
SMEs and startup owners feel difficulty in affording payroll employee costs. Therefore, they can avail payroll services that provide several benefits to the parent company.
It saves you money, and time, do accurate tax calculation and tax filing, pays your employees the right amount at the right time, maintains compliance with government rules and regulations, etc.
You cannot miss out on payroll since you start hiring employees in your business. When your employees are happy with a good salary, additional benefits, and payments at a fixed date, you can retain them to the company.
