Payroll services are the simpler to calculate employee pay to deliver payments, as well as complete tax forms. Payroll is a complicated process and hard to manage on your own, particularly in the case of more than a handful of employees. According to the IRS, 40% of small-sized businesses have to pay an average of $845 a year as fines. 1
Payroll services take care of all the work for you and ensure that you are up-to-date with any laws applicable to your state, so you can concentrate on managing your business. The top payroll providers will provide an automated service that records employee time and calculates and processes payroll and also provides tax filings for the year’s end.
“Payroll services” is a broad term that covers payroll software to aid you in processing your own payroll as well as outsourcing services that can take care of all the payroll for you. All of them take away the stress about whether you’re handling payroll correctly or not and will help you manage your payroll with a minimum of effort and with no large staff to finish the job.
We looked into and reviewed over two dozen different payroll providers and picked the top seven on the basis of pricing and features, user-friendliness and user-friendliness, customer service, and much more. Here are our top choices.
The 7 Best Payroll Services for Small Business of 2022
- Best Overall: Gusto
- Runner-Up for Best Overall: Intuit QuickBooks Payroll
- Best for Pricing: Wave Payroll
- Best for Outsourcing Payroll: Justworks
- Best for Growing Businesses: ADP Run
- Best for Software Integrations: OnPay
- Best for Paying Household Workers: SurePayroll
What Are Payroll Services?
Payroll services encompass the software and/or external parties that handle payroll for companies. A payroll service typically can provide the ability to handle basic payroll, but you’ll also receive a variety of additional features. They include the ability to pay employees by direct deposits, integrations or built-in ways to track the time of employees, tax calculations and processing, as well as a method for you to send end of the year documents like W2s or 1099 forms to employees.
Small businesses are usually happy with an all-in-one program solution that’s affordable and does most of the work for you, particularly when you don’t have an internal staff of professionals who can handle your payroll. It makes payroll easier and doesn’t break the budget. There are also outsourcing services like an individual employer group ( PEO) which takes charge of all payroll tasks but, unless you employ many employees, they could be costly or difficult to manage.
There are a variety of factors to be looking for when looking for the best payroll solution for your business. “Among the top considerations when evaluating payroll service providers are user-friendly software that meets your technical requirements, a track record of dependable service, and fair and transparent pricing,” says Leigh-Ann Mosley, Director at Inova Payroll. “A user should also look at the long game when considering a payroll service provider. Will the service easily expand if I add 10 or 50 employees? Are there fee increases each year?”
How Do Payroll Services Work?
A payroll service, also known as software for payroll, is utilized by companies to automate the calculation of the amount of time required to handle payroll. Typically, you’ll set up an automatic connection to whatever software you’re using to track your employee’s work hours, or manually enter the time off work every month into the payroll system.
Based on the data you’ve entered for every employee, your program will determine how much tax you have to withhold and the amount to give your staff. If your employees are eligible for direct deposit, your payroll service will start an account transfer from your account to theirs.
When you are done with the year the payroll system will quickly run the W2 and 1099 forms of your employees and will help you print or offer an encrypted access point to these forms for employees. This will save you many hours of trying to design and deliver these forms to your employees before the date. Furthermore, using the software you’ve used to pay employees for the entire year will ensure that the figures are in line with the funds that have been deposited into their banking accounts.
How Much Do Payroll Services Cost?
Payroll services generally have a payment of a minimum of $20-$100 per month. This is in addition to an additional fee per worker (or independent contractor) that can range between $4 and $10. Some companies may charge an additional fee per check or per pay however if you’re planning on promoting direct deposit for employees, then you’ll need to consider the above costs and will typically include regular pay cycles as well as a bonus pay period if you want.
