Payroll Software: What You Should Be Looking For

Recently updated on October 25th, 2022 at 12:08 pm

Payroll software is one of the most useful tools that a small business owner can invest in, so you should be careful before choose one. By dramatically reducing the amount of time that it takes to complete payroll processing, and doing so far more accurately than manual calculations, you can save time and money. However, the market for payroll software is filled with options. Choosing the right one for your business can be tricky.

If you have had a bad experience with poor quality payroll software in the past, or if you are new to payroll software altogether, then it is important to know precisely what your software needs before you invest in it. The last thing you want is to spend the money on a tool that will not help your business in the way that you had hoped.

To help you avoid buyer’s remorse, let’s look at some of the essential things that you need to look for in payroll software.

1. Customer Support

To make sure that you never run into a problem with your payroll software that you will not be able to solve quickly, make sure to choose a payroll software provider that offers excellent customer support. It can be tricky to determine how good a company’s customer support is without actually having used it before. However, checking to make sure that they provide around-the-clock technical support is a good first step. You can also read through the reviews of current users to gauge what others’ experiences have been like.

2. Streamlined Tax Compliance And Reporting

Business owners know that tax season can be a nightmare if your books are disorganised. It is important to be able to have payroll software that will help you stay on track throughout the year. Beyond this, be aware of the fact that payroll software needs to update tax tables for your business each year and needs to offer straightforward end-of-year reporting features. If the option that you are considering lacks these functions, then consider looking for an option that does.

3. Affordability

The cost of a particular payroll software package must inevitably enter into the decision-making equation at some point. In this regard, the market for payroll software is similar to other markets; namely, you will usually get what you pay for. If you are happy to have the basic benefits of increased accuracy and organisation in your payroll processes, then a cheaper software package will likely fit the bill for your business. However, if you want to capture all of the potential insights and produce advanced reports of your payroll data, then you will need to make the investment in a costlier variant.

4. Scalable

Small business owners may not expect to eventually become a massive business employing dozens or even hundreds of people. However, this is always a possibility. Certainly, you can expect that if you are moderately successful, you will need to double or even triple your staff within a relatively short time. In this regard, you need to choose payroll software that is easily scalable to accommodate a growing employee roster. Investing in and spending the time learning a particular payroll software in detail, only to have to switch to a different type down the road, will be a waste of your time and money.

6. Peruse Your Payroll Software Possibilities

With these criteria in mind, you can start to look at the different payroll software options on the market today. Make sure that the software you choose meets each of these criteria, at least in some measure, and you will be able to be confident in your decision.