Managing payroll for small business requirements means being able to operate at a small scale. After all, a small Irish enterprise might operate with just one or two employees nowadays. However, all business models are designed to grow. As such, most enterprises soon outgrow a paper-based payroll model quite early on in their development. At Snow, we have plenty of payroll advice for small business owners thanks to our extensive investment in cloud-based solutions that are designed for smaller enterprises. In this article, you will find out payroll and tax software for small business and discover more about what makes the best payroll for small businesses in Ireland nowadays. Read on but first, we should define what payroll really is in the sense of small businesses.
What is Payroll for Small Business?
To begin with, managing payroll for small business requirements is much like managing a payroll process at a much larger company. In other words, the payroll function of any organisation – large or small – is about ensuring that employees are paid correctly and on time. Of course, working out the holiday pay, overtime and bonus awards of a multinational organisation would be a huge undertaking and most small Irish businesses do not need to concern themselves with anything more complicated than paying their staff in Euros at the agreed rate.
However, the fundamentals are the same, regardless of the size of the enterprise concerned. Therefore, the best payroll and tax software for small business requirements in Ireland today will get all of the essentials covered. Each employee will, for instance, be identifiable according to their payroll number. Their income tax deductions will be worked out and – with the best small business payroll systems – the necessary funds will be allocated to the Revenue Online System (ROS) immediately. Equally, automated payroll systems mean that salaries – or weekly pay packets – can be transferred directly to staff members bank accounts rather than having to wait for the business owner or chief financial officer to write them out a cheque each month.
In short, payroll for small business requirements will fulfil all of the legal duties required by employers in an efficient and professional manner. As such, employees will get proper payslips and feel they are working for a well run organisation no matter how small the enterprise might actually be.
Why Does a Small Business Need a Payroll?
It is possible to run a monthly or weekly payroll schedule without a software system. Such an approach will usually rely on time-consuming keeping paper records, however. These are prone to human errors even if you got the expense of hiring an experienced payroll clerk to run your payroll function for you. It is much easier to make mistakes with tax deductions and employees contributions to their pension plan, too, with a paper-based system. Equally audit trails are not so easy to produce while, with an online payroll system – like Quantum Payroll, for example – these things are produced automatically.
Given that any business that employs people has to have a payroll system of some sort – or it will soon face stiff penalties from the tax authorities – a software-based approach beats old-fashioned methods hands down. With a cloud-based system, there is even more flexibility and functionality, the two key elements that smaller businesses should be looking for. To put it simply, secure online payroll solutions provide all of the accountability that employees and tax officials demand without tying down resources each month, something that most smaller businesses can ill afford.
What Are the Payroll Tips Small Businesses Should Know About?
Payroll advice for small business requirements comes in many forms. What you should remember is that some advice will only be relevant to medium-sized enterprises while genuinely small businesses – with only a handful of employees on their payroll – will have a particular set of requirements they need to prioritise. The first tip that any small business owner should take on board is the payment model for a payroll system. Almost all small enterprises are sensitive to overheads so commit to a payroll software system that is cheaper than employing a payroll clerk and that anybody in your finance or bookkeeping team can use. In other words, user-friendliness is a big plus point for all small businesses. Often, people without much experience in finance will be operating it, after all.
In addition, smaller enterprises will want flexibility with pay schedules. Some employees might be paid at the end of each month but others, depending on their role or contract, might be paid weekly or fortnightly. That’s not uncommon in Ireland so look for software that provides this sort of functionality. Equally, small business owners will want to know they can access support when it is needed. Most smaller enterprises just don’t have the human resources to overcome technical challenges themselves so customer support is vital, too. Finally, you should also consider whether a cloud-based payroll software system is for you. Many businesses find this approach means suits them as sensitive financial data is held off-site in servers. This is good for smaller enterprises especially because it means that private data is not accessible from their own premises and hard drives, thereby enabling simpler and more cost-effective data compliance.
How Do You Know Which Is the Best Payroll System for Small Businesses?
The best payroll for small business in Ireland will be flexible and scalable so that it can continue to cope as the firm grows. It should be said that although some systems will allow users to add a certain number of people to the payroll in a given time period, they are not always scalable beyond an upper limit. That’s why the best payroll for small business in Ireland will always allow a firm with a handful of employees to grow without penalising the company concerned for its success. Figuring out how to pay 50 or 100 employees with your payroll system might not be a major concern when you only have one or two members of staff but getting this decision wrong while you’re still small could cost you dearly down the line.
In fairness the best small business payroll systems in Ireland don’t just offer growth potential but simpler compliance, too. As mentioned, secure cloud-based storage can help to meet GDPR rules but payroll systems should also help small businesses to comply with their tax obligations, too. Quantum Payroll does this by making error-free calculations, for example, that cut out any human inputting errors with things like tax computation. Remember that sorting out errors with payroll doesn’t just take more time and resource away from the business but it can lead to problems with staff dissatisfaction, too, if they feel their pay has been ‘messed up’.
What Should You Consider Before Choosing a Payroll Software System for a Small Business?
If you think you are ready to choose a software system for managing your payroll needs, then it is important to make sure the option you select is actually used by other small enterprises like your own. That’s why checking out testimonials and client reviews is so important to get a flavour of how practical – or otherwise – a particular software solution might be. Ideally, you’ll also turn to a supplier who wants to showcase their payroll system with a demonstration. Not all software suppliers producing payroll systems for small businesses do this!
To Conclude
At Snow, we have been working with innovative business software solutions since 2001. This means we don’t just have a suitable payroll solution that will meet the needs of the vast majority of small businesses in Ireland but we have the expertise to help you adjust to a new, more professional way of paying your employees. Why not check out our Quantum Payroll solution right now?