Could outsourcing payroll be a good choice for your business?

ARTICLE | April 09, 2024

Authored by RSM US LLP

If you’ve ever had to rerun payroll, navigate a year-end checklist, complete W-2 Cs or amended T4s, or fear an audit, you know that processing payroll can be complicated.

To reduce the risk of error, many lean payroll teams and rapidly growing businesses choose to outsource some or all of their payroll function to qualified, certified payroll providers.

Adept at keeping up with changing rules and regulations to help clients remain compliant, managed payroll teams can also streamline and document your payroll process, decrease your audit risk, maintain full data security and enable optimal performance from your payroll software. In addition, they provide two layers of backup support, protecting your payroll from staff departures. Ultimately, managed payroll providers can lift the burden of payroll administration from your shoulders and empower business transformation.

Tapping into a proven payroll outsourcing solution solves staff turnover disruptions

In the last few years, many companies have found it challenging to retain qualified payroll personnel. This turnover hamster wheel generally starts with businesses hiring a full-time payroll person, training them and then losing them only to begin the recruiting process all over again. In the meantime, another staff member who may not be qualified has had to cover this critical function, potentially leading to errors, loss of employee confidence and costly mistakes. This is one of the many reasons organizations begin to research managed payroll options.

Outsourcing to reliable, experienced, certified payroll providers means your in-house staff can focus their time, energy and resources on supporting organizational growth and business strategy. Engaging a reputable managed payroll solution dedicated to maintaining accurate, compliant, secure and efficient management of this essential process—including proper handling of remote worker tax issues, audits, reconciliations, garnishments, etc.—creates true payroll continuity. 

Managed payroll improves accuracy and compliance

Enhanced accuracy is a key benefit of having your payroll process professionally managed. With many companies having changed how and where they do business following the pandemic, payroll has become a much more complicated process.

Increasingly complex and changing post-COVID-19 tax rules and regulations that require employers to produce custom reports, analyze data, create effective dashboards and constantly add to the year-end task list have contributed to payroll confusion and exhaustion. Payroll services provided by certified payroll consultants should streamline, upgrade and document your payroll processes, provide two layers of backup support to avoid breaks in continuity, and scale up to grow with your business.

Whether payroll is housed in human resources or finance, these departments spend an enormous amount of time and management energy ensuring payroll activities are completed accurately and on time, every time. These activities do not contribute to revenue generation, yet payroll errors, botched taxation or outdated software can bring about costly penalties and damage employee satisfaction.

Certified, experienced payroll consultants are knowledgeable in payroll management, bringing real-time experience with global payroll compliance requirements, remote worker tax issues, and reporting and analytics, as well as transparency and collaboration to improve your payroll accuracy, compliance, security and continuity.

Getting started with managed payroll services

Making the choice to outsource payroll can deliver both value and peace of mind. Working with the right provider can make your payroll process efficient, accurate, compliant, secure and fully protected, creating a payroll foundation that can seamlessly adjust to your company’s future goals and growth.

---

This article was written by Lorry Twisdale and originally appeared on 2024-04-09.
2022 RSM US LLP. All rights reserved.
https://rsmus.com/insights/services/business-strategy-operations/could-outsourcing-payroll-be-a-good-choice-for-your-business.html

RSM US Alliance provides its members with access to resources of RSM US LLP. RSM US Alliance member firms are separate and independent businesses and legal entities that are responsible for their own acts and omissions, and each are separate and independent from RSM US LLP. RSM US LLP is the U.S. member firm of RSM International, a global network of independent audit, tax, and consulting firms. Members of RSM US Alliance have access to RSM International resources through RSM US LLP but are not member firms of RSM International. Visit rsmus.com/aboutus for more information regarding RSM US LLP and RSM International. The RSM(tm) brandmark is used under license by RSM US LLP. RSM US Alliance products and services are proprietary to RSM US LLP.