Seven Mistakes That Make Payroll Processing Excessively Time Consuming

Posted on: 17 March 2020

Anything you can do to save time as a business owner improves the prospects of your company and potentially increases profits. 

Payroll processing is a necessary but time consuming task for businesses. However, you can make accomplishing this task easier and faster by avoiding some common mistakes. 

The following are seven mistakes you can avoid so that payroll processing isn't excessively time consuming at your company. 

Neglecting to verify employee information

Any errors in employee information will slow down your payroll processing. It's a good idea to verify employee information with staff members before you do payroll processing. This helps you to avoid errors that will lead to frustrations and delays. 

Not taking advantage of direct deposit

If you use direct deposit to pay your employees, you don't have to produce individual checks for each of your workers.

Not only does direct deposit make payroll processing faster, but it also eliminates a lot of costs. With direct deposit, you don't have to pay for checks, ink, or envelopes that you would need to hand out paper checks. 

Doing your calculations manually

It's best if you can develop a system where calculations are automated. You can do this by taking advantage of spreadsheets. If you're not sure how to avoid doing payroll processing manually, have a staff member with some accounting or bookkeeping training help you out. 

Failing to take advantage of electronic filing of taxes

As time goes on, more and more employers are dealing with payroll taxes through electronic filing. This is a great way to simplify tax filing and make your processes more efficient. 

Having no list in place

You should keep a list of all of your payroll processing tasks that you can conveniently refer to. This helps you to avoid overlooking tasks. Overlooking key tasks could cause payroll processing to take longer because it requires you to backtrack. 

Being disorganized

The more organized your payroll records are, the less time you'll have to spend looking for key information as you do payroll processing. Make sure that your payroll records are properly organized and readily available. 

Failing to keep up with record keeping tasks

Managing payroll records is an ongoing task. You need to be constantly aware of your record keeping needs. If you neglect to keep some important records, there could be inaccuracies and mistakes in your payroll processing that will create time consuming issues down the road. 

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