What you need to know about using a payroll service...

For the small business owner with less than 50 employees it may be best to keep payroll in-house using a program like QuickBooks Pro to create your paychecks and keep track of your payroll liabilities.  I also recommend that you have your professional bookkeeper or accountant set this up for you and show you how to use the basic or do-it-yourself payroll that QuickBooks offers.

Quite frankly, once the setup is done and showing you  how to enter the hours and create the paychecks, that's all there is to it.  From that point forward everything you have to do for a payroll server provider is nothing more or less than you must do to create the payroll checks yourself. 

Paying your payroll taxes can be done online for both the Federal and State of Michigan now.  All of the forms necessary are available online and QuickBooks tracks all of your expenses and liabilities.  Your professional bookkeeper or accountant can show you how to make your monthly payroll tax payments, or you can contract with them for this service.

Typically we spend less than an hour per client reviewing and processing the Quarterly Payroll tax returns and payments.  Many of my clients are comfortable doing their own monthly deposits, so they only need us once every 3 months.  The more you can do yourself with the guidance of a professional the better you will understand the process and just exactly how much payroll really does cost you.  Not to mention this will save you fees a payroll service provider charges.

The quarterly visits also gives us opportunity to review the financial statements and go over any challenges that may have come up since the last visit. 

So before you are "frightened" into paying for a service that's not that scary, price this out and talk to your professional bookkeeper or accountant.