5 important things a payroll service should do for your company
Payroll 3 minute read

5 important things a payroll service should do for your company

Rise | March 17, 2020

Your payroll service should make your life easier, allowing you to focus more on the employee experience. Here are 5 must haves for any payroll service.

Payroll service providers typically offer a laundry list of features, but how well aligned are they with the needs of your business and how much effort is required on your part to understand what they actually provide?

Here are 5 important things a good payroll service should do for you.

1. Make running payroll a breeze

The right service should do everything they can to help reduce the stress and hassle of running payroll by helping you to:

  • Centralize your record keeping so you’re not maintaining employee data in separate systems
  • Minimize the amount of data you need to enter to ensure greater accuracy
  • Ensure you never over-contribute and are confident employee cost-sharing programs are always on target
  • Eliminate all of your reconciliation headaches
  • Give you warnings on potential errors before you finalize payroll

2. Save time

Your time is valuable, and that means you should be able to save time and pay your employees faster. That means your payroll service should help you to:

  • Settle payroll discrepancies swiftly with your employees
  • Create time-saving formulas to handle commissions, benefits deductions, bonuses and RRSP matching
  • Automate your T4s, remittances, and ROEs
  • Integrate seamlessly with other mission-critical applications, including HR, benefits, and time and attendance, so any change you make to employee data is reflected instantly everywhere with no extra effort on your part

3. Reduce your risk

Another reason for choosing a payroll service is to reduce your overall risk. Your provider should make it easy to:

  • Accurately calculate, file, and pay payroll taxes
  • Ensure you are always remitting taxes accurately and on time according to federal and provincial laws
  • Align with employment standards with 100% compliance for vacation, overtime, and statutory holiday pay

4. Get a clear picture of your business

Your payroll solution should provide you with a high degree of visibility into your business. That means you should be able to:

  • Access unlimited payroll reporting whenever you need it to help you better understand your results, inform better practices, and forecast more effectively
  • Create your own detailed reports that help you dig deep into your data to uncover actionable insights (including both your financial and people data)
  • Easily export your payroll results into your workforce management system or other mission-critical systems

5. Gain more flexibility

Choosing a new payroll service should give you maximum flexibility with total control. Your new solution should enable you to:

  • Run payroll as many times as you need, at your convenience, without incurring additional fees
  • Pay your employees at any time, including off-cycle payments
  • Cancel a pay run
  • Give a bonus on the spot and manage tips and commissions without having to make tax calculations
  • Split payments to your employees, allowing them to allocate their pay to multiple bank accounts
  • Reconcile your T4, T4A, and RL1 slips at any point in the year so that year-end processing is much simpler and easier

Want more insights on finding a payroll provider that best suits your business? Download our latest ebook: How to Choose a Payroll Service for Your Business in Canada

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