Choosing a Payroll Services Company – Part 2
Click here to read Part 1 of how to choose Payroll Services Company…
Choosing a Payroll Service: FAQs
Below we have mentioned a few of the popular questions that you should be asking your prospective payroll services company:
- Additional fee in filing taxes for multiple states?
- What is the response time like?
- Who is liable for mistakes committed by the payroll services company?
- Reporting structure and time frame?
- Services include retirement plans?
- Turnaround time in correcting a mistake?
- Additional admin charges in adding or updating employee payroll details?
- Rate of increase of annual fee – if any?
- The data that you get from them, can it be integrated with your accounting software?
- Customer service availability?
- Will be assigned dedicated personnel?
Choosing a Payroll Service: Take a Trial
It is often seen that the initial questionnaire may lead to some untruthful responses from the payroll services company and to doubly sure it would be wise if you could talk with their clients. It would be a good opportunity for you to know the prospective payroll services company’s turnaround time, data accuracy anything in particular that matters to the smooth operations of a business
Another way of knowing their services and their quality first hand is by giving their customer support a direct call. It would give a fair idea as to how seriously they take their business when it comes to dealing with clients – as sometimes for a really good payroll Service Company the person on the other side of the call would be polite and smart or else you may hear someone reading a predefined script.
Additionally, you should also get the quoted price for all the services that you intend to use this year and if possible try the get the price for the next year as well. This would assist you in deciding whether or not the payroll services fall within your budget or not.
If possible try to get hold of their reports – That’s another way of knowing whether their process is of worth and is simple to comprehend or they are complicated with useless details.
Similarly, try to get a feel of their web platform software. This would ensure that at run time you follow the instructions in the software fairly well and that it is user-friendly. This would be beneficial for not only you but your employees too.
Choosing a Payroll Service: Signed-Up…What’s next
At the time of signing up of contract make sure what the payroll services company expects out of you in terms of documentation and data.
You have to proactively arrange all the employee files with complete details viz- Names, Addresses, Wages and Deductions if any. Additionally, you may need to make arrangements for bank direct deposits in terms of checks, etc.
It would be good to plan out a reporting schedule with the signed-up payroll service company, also determine the time schedule week-wise and month-wise as to when you are supposed to login into their system to give in details. On your part in the initial time span keep an eye on your bank account movements. It is often seen that few companies keep running their old payroll systems along with the new payroll services for the initial period to check if the figures tally.
If in case you are not satisfied with the signed up payroll service company the best time to switch over is either at the beginning of the year or quarterly.