Yes, setup is time-consuming and detail-heavy. But isn’t the same true of your manual payroll processing?

Ask 10 small business people which element of their accounting tasks they’d like to shed, and chances are that eight of them would say “QuickBooks payroll.” Paying employees is difficult not only because it requires so much precision, but also because you have to deal — accurately — with multiple taxing agencies, including the IRS. QuickBooks Payroll options solve multiple problems, as well as enhancing your understanding of the whole process. They can help you:

• Keep employee information organized. You’re probably well-acquainted with the mounds of paperwork that have to be filed for new employees. QuickBooks Payroll helps ensure that you obtain all of the information that’s required by your company, your financial institution, and taxing authorities. Once you’ve entered all of this, it’s always easily accessible and ready to be used as you prepare payroll runs.

Track and administer company benefits and Workers’ Compensation Insurance. You know that generous benefits can both attract potential hires and contribute to overall job satisfaction. Administering them, though, can be very complicated. QuickBooks’ Payroll Setup tool uses a simple wizard to walk you through the process of entering all of the details required to define them, withhold pay where necessary, and keep up with payments to outside agencies. Employees get thorough pay stubs that spell out contributions made toward:

• Prepare and submit payroll taxes. Fulfilling this ongoing obligation manually is an onerous chore, one that has the potential for incorrect calculations missed deadlines, and penalties from various taxing agencies for recurring responsibilities that include FUTA and SUTA, Medicare tax and FICA, as well as state and local taxes where applicable. Intuit offers three levels of payroll tax support that work with desktop QuickBooks. If you sign up for the Basic version, you’ll need to work with us to prepare your tax documents and payment. In the Enhanced version, federal and state forms are completed for you (and you can print year-end W2 forms). And if you subscribe to Full Service Payroll, your taxes will be calculated, filed, and paid automatically.
• Process payroll quickly and accurately. All of the hard work you did setting up your payroll foundation pays off every time the checks come out. QuickBooks reminds you when it’s time and provides you with a clear, simple series of screens for running payroll. Most of the time, you’ll only have to enter the number of hours worked (unless there are special cases).

Figure 2: It’s not always this simple, but sometimes it is. Because you laid a solid foundation during the setup process, all of the calculations are done for you by QuickBooks.

There really are no downsides to using one of the QuickBooks’ payroll options. Granted, entering all of your company’s payroll information is a detail-heavy process — and it’s imperative that you get it right, or you’ll have unhappy employees, taxing agencies and plan providers, and probably some penalties to pay. QuickBooks provides good tools, but we strongly encourage you to call us in when you’re getting set up with your new payroll tools. Get it right from the start, and you’ll be able to enjoy payday instead of dreading it.