Processing the payroll services are important to make sure that all the employees, as well as the independent contractors, are paid well on time. The online payroll software applications can improve a company’s payroll processing, automate the payroll tax preparation, as well as generate valuable reports that offer decision making support for the employees.

As a small business grows with time, its payroll processing needs evolve with time, eventually requiring a broader HR software suite to manage the overall business organization.  One of the largest expenses for the business is the payroll system. Managing these activities can be a highly daunting task for any business as all these activities are highly time-consuming, and errors in this process can lead to unhappy employees as well as heavy fines.

To make this process easy, many of the small businesses are turning into online payroll services. These services are able to handle all the services related to business payroll processing as well as the related tax filings and payments.

The market today has so many services that can be used by small and medium businesses and meet their tax services. To make the selection easy for you, here are some of the tools. Select the one that best matches your business needs from the ones mentioned below.

ADP

ADP is one of the scalable platforms that have all the tools and features that are necessary for a complex business. The tool is a good choice for all the businesses, such as that which operates in a highly regulated industry or across state or even national borders.

ADP is best suited for several industries fulfilling several complicated needs of the businesses. ADP has four pricing plans, namely, Essential, Enhanced, Complete, and HR Pro. All these offer a different set of features. You can choose the one that best suits your business and falls within your budget. ADP can work both on the desktop as well as on mobile devices and is able to automate payroll tasks such as paycheck calculation for an employee based on their salary band, time offs, and other things.

The smart technology of the application helps businesses to stay away from potential payroll errors. The platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to quickly identify mistakes in the payroll data, at the same time alerting the administrators so that they can resolve the issues even before the payroll is processed. Some of its key features include:

• Time tracking and scheduling.
• Clock in and clock out using facial id
• Interactive dashboard giving a quick look at all the insights about their labour.

Paychex

The service offers multiple payment methods such as direct deposit, paper checks, and prepaid debit cards. The application is a cloud-hosted system making it accessible online, all the time, and at all places. The tool is also available as a mobile application and helps to manage your payroll on any iOS and Android device.

The application makes it easy for you to enter your payroll information and submit all this information for further processing. The application also employees a self-service that allows your workers to log in to the system and have a look at their own paystubs as well as the yearend tax documents. One of the recent updates in the application is the new Labor Cost feature which gives the users a quick and instantaneous look at their total payroll cost.  Some of the key features include:

• Employees can set up their payroll preferences
• New employees can quickly set up for the direct deposit.
• Employees can quickly make tax and bank selections.

The application is available in pricing plans that range from Go, Flex Select, and Flex Enterprise. Each one of these has a different set of features and pricing.

Onpay

The online payroll service offered by Onpay allows small businesses to operate an unlimited number of payrolls every month. It also allows making payments to the employees by direct deposit or paper checks. The online application is highly user friendly and manages paid time offs efficiently.

If you have a small business, time is extremely precious for you. If you run your own payroll, it can consume your valuable time as you will be engaged in a complicated payroll system. To help you save precious time, the application is specially designed for small businesses.

Some of the key features offered by the platform include:

• A highly intuitive platform that breaks the payroll into easy steps.
• Simple to add employees, set status, and run payroll activities.
• Ability to run payroll an infinite number of times.
• Useful for businesses that pay employees on a weekly basis.

The tool is available on different pricing plans with a base fee of $36 per month and $4 per employee per month. The tool also charges for emailing the year-end tax forms.

Square

Square is one of the most popular payment processing platforms, also offering an online payroll service. This is an easy to use software application. Square has all the features that are expected in a payroll company.

As a small business owner, you can use the Square Payroll to process payroll for the W-2 employees and 1099 contractors. The payroll is streamlined for automating the process of tax form generation based on all the data that is already present within the system. Some of its key features include:

• Management tools that can help you keep your team on task.
• Integration with several time and attendance systems.
• Automatic tracking of employee timing.

The pricing plans for the application starts from $29 per month and $5 per employee.

Quickbooks

Quickbooks is a tool that is developed by Intuit, which provides small businesses with scalable payroll services. These services collect and reports all the payroll taxes and offer a range of helpful tools to their users. The tool is available in several plans with a wide range of services and prices.

The Quickbooks Payroll provides some of the most flexible payroll plan options. When some of the plans focus on payroll processing, others include a number of human resource services that are valuable for small businesses that do not have a dedicated HR team. Some of the key features of the tool cover:

• Manages health benefits, worker compensation and automatic payroll options.
• Features to make direct deposits and access to the HR support centre.
• Project tracking and tax penalty protection with a dedicated HR for support.

The pricing plans for the tool lies across Core, Premium, and Elite for the online payroll system. On the other hand, the desktop systems have pricing plans such as Basic, Enhanced, and Assisted Payroll.

Zenefits

Zenfits offers easy to use payroll system that makes it easy for you to run payroll in four easy steps. The tool makes manual adjustments such as adding bonuses and unlimited payroll processing. Some of the key features offered by the tool include:

• Wage garnishment
• Direct deposits
• Payroll Processing
• Multiple Pay Schedules
• Tips Reporting and Rate Table management

It integrates seamlessly with the other Zenfits HR solutions such as time and scheduling activities. The application works best in these environments as these integrations expand its functionality.

Deluxe

Deluxe offers online payroll software with a customer service team to offer support whenever it is needed. The tool offers full-service payroll backed by a dedicated customer service team. This team can facilitate you in your payroll management and optimize your process. Some of its key features include:

• All guided implementation and configuration.
• Dedicated approach for each client.

All the pricing plans for the application are highly customizable and can be carried out after consultation with a dedicated team of professionals.

Rippling

It is an online payroll system with a user-friendly interface. The application is so simple to use that it requires no training for the new users. The tool works with more than 400 applications to improve your payroll processing, tax management, and accounting systems.

The application is neatly organized with the help of the dashboard with shoes the key metrics such as time for which the employee was working, total labour expenses, and paid time offs. The application is able to manage direct deposits or paper checks, whichever method is preferred by your employees.

Paycor

This is a very easy to use online payroll software application with an employee self-service. For this, the tool offers a dedicated portal to review all the compensation on the data and things needed to update all the personal and financial information.

The portal can also be used by the employees to request paid time off, monitor the payments, review all the employee benefits, and access all their pay stubs. The application offers three pricing plans, each with a fixed monthly rate with an additional per employee fee. This structure can be expensive for a small business but can be handy for a mid-sized or a larger organization.

Gusto

The application handles all payroll and tax services for the W2 employees as well as 1099 freelancers and contractors. It is a cloud-based system that is easy to use and also offers a variety of valuable features. Some of the key features of the application include:

• Direct deposit
• Autopilot tool
• New hire reporting
• Detailed Payroll reports

A vast array of HR tools makes it one of the most powerful tools. The application is offered across plans such as core, complete, concierge, and contractor. The application makes it easy to make payments to the employees as well as to the contractors.

So now that you have all the information about the payroll tools and applications, go through the features of each of them to make the right decision. Choose the one that best suits your business and helps it to reach new heights.

Source – Business news daily