If you’ve got employees, you’ve gotta pay them! And if you’ve ever researched how one pays employees in the USA you’ll know its an insane paperwork nightmare. Usually companies hire a person (HR) or company (ADP/Paychex) just to do payroll! We wanted to hire people but keep the system simple and managable. After much research we decided to go with Paycycle (it was a close race between Paycycle and Sure Payroll, they’re both very good!)
Usually, companies go with a payroll provider such as ADP. They’re massive companies that handle everything for you, but it comes at a price. You’ll often end up paying for “extras” such as direct deposit, or printing and mailing a W2. For example, say you have 10 employees, you’ll pay about $100/mo for the service and then $50 at the end of the year for sending W2s. They’re also set up best for companies that are not tech savvy. For example, they actually call you on the phone (!) to get the payroll information every other week. For large companies it may make sense to go with a service, but for a small business its a bit of overhead.
It used to be that when you did payroll, you would have to pay the withheld taxes of your employees on a schedule and that schedule was very very strict. So you’d end up with people driving to the bank to file the tax payments every friday. Luckily, in the last decade or so, governments have modernized so that state and federal taxes can be paid electronically (EFT) and its very simple to do so.
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