Every company must process payroll for its employees. As a company grows, a reliable system that processes payments quickly and easily becomes critical. In order to do this, companies have two options: outsourcing to a provider, or keeping payroll in-house. Cost and time savings are the main draw when outsourcing. A company avoids the fixed costs of a full-time salaried employee and staff can focus on their core competencies. However, by outsourcing, companies lose control over the process, and have less flexibility. Organizations should perform a cost-benefit analysis, as when evaluating any other type of business decision. However, if once you have performed this analysis and decided payroll manager software in-house is best for your company, there are many payroll solutions available to streamline the task. But determining which solution is best for you can be overwhelming. This includes everything related to wages pay type and frequency, bonuses, withholdings etc. In preparing a run, the payroll manager software will calculate federal, state and local taxes including Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and disability insurance ; print checks or execute and export data directly to accounting software or in a format that's compatible for import to an accounting system. It should also support reimbursements for mileage and other travel expenses, as well as any other expenditures fronted by employees. Benefits of Payroll Software If your company is tracking employee information and processing payments manually, payroll solutions could save you time, money and a lot of headaches by mitigating compliance risks. The biggest and most obvious benefit of a payroll management system is that it saves time, which, in turn, saves money. These solutions are designed to be highly intuitive, so the learning curve to set up and operate basic paycheck software is very low. These time savings add up. For instance, when the manufacturing firm Renaissance Veneer Specialty Products, Inc. Additionally, these systems help companies ensure they remit the correct amount of paycheck-related taxes and file applicable reports on time. When running payroll manually, even an honest mistake, such as a multiplication or rounding error, can have significant effects. And simply keeping up with the changes to the tax code is a daunting task. Finally, paycheck processing solutions allow you to track information over time and quickly produce useful reports for internal decision makers, accountants and auditors. Examples include summaries of quarterly costs, annual tax remittances and historical employee participation in 401k programs. For many companies, payroll is just one component of their software needs, but not always. There are several different levels of buyers, and these categories will help you determine the software that will best fit your needs: These types of buyers. Small businesses Smaller companies simply looking to streamline their process will want a solution dedicated 100 percent to payroll, but at a very affordable price point. Mid-sized businesses Human resources professionals payroll manager software medium-sized companies or larger 50+ employees will benefit from more than just basic payroll functions. At this level, recruitment, workforce management and other features like scheduling and attendance tracking become more valuable, and for that the buyer will want a more comprehensive human resources management system. Another consideration is the type of operating system you'll be running the software on. For example, if you're a Mac user, you may want to look at products designed specifically for the Mac interface. See our list of for more. Businesses such as professional employer organizations and administrative services organizations looking to track payroll for their employees should consider. Software-as-a-Service SaaS —a deployment model where the vendor hosts the software on its own servers and clients access the solution through their Web browser—is becoming more prevalent for payroll applications. Because tax laws change frequently, any software you buy will need to be updated at least annually. The availability of employee payroll manager software, on both SaaS and on-premise solutions, is growing. Take this so we can help you identify the products that best fit your needs. What Is the FrontRunners Quadrant. A Graphic of the Top-Rated Payroll Software Products FrontRunners uses real reviews from real software users to highlight the top software products for North American small businesses. Our goal is to help small businesses to make more informed decisions about what software is right for them. To create this report, we evaluated payroll manager software 151 Payroll Software products. Only those with the top scores for Usability and User Recommended made the cut as FrontRunners. Scores are based on reviews from real software users. The Different Graphics Show Different Sizes of Vendors Small and Enterprise refer to the size of the software vendor company—not necessarily the size of customers they serve. All products in FrontRunners, whether Enterprise or Small, are evaluated using the same process. Each graphic shows the top 10-15 performers for each the Enterprise and Small vendor categories. You can read more in the full. How Are FrontRunners Products Selected. Products Are Scored Based on User Reviews The gist is that products are scored in two areas—Usability and User Recommended—based on actual user ratings. To be considered at all, products must have at least 20 reviews published within the previous 18 months, and meet minimum user rating scores. They also have to offer a core set of functionality—for example, to be considered, Payroll Software products must offer payroll management, time tracking and the ability to perform payroll runs. Payroll functionality must also be a core part of the product, and not a tangential offering. From there, user reviews dictate the Usability and User Recommended scores. Usability is plotted on the x-axis and User Recommended on the y-axis. You can download the full. It contains individual scorecards for each product on the Frontrunners quadrant. But What if I Have More Questions. Check Out Our Additional Resources. Have payroll manager software about how to choose the right product for you. Every day, our team of advisors provides free customized shortlists of products to hundreds of small businesses.
