Payroll Services for Small Businesses

As a small business, handling payroll in-house can lead to issues with inefficiency, inaccuracy, and time detracted from high-priority projects and business goals. Fortunately, with the right support, your payroll process can strengthen employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention while simplifying taxes and easily integrating with your other HR tools. That’s why CAVU’s payroll services for small businesses offers a mobile, 24/7 self-service platform that minimizes administrative tasks, automates payroll tax calculations (payments and filings), and pays your employees accurately and on time.

Our payroll solution seamlessly integrates with timekeeping, scheduling, onboarding, benefits administration, and other HR processes, ensuring access to insight-rich reporting options and ongoing compliance with local, state, and federal tax requirements.

We assign each client a dedicated payroll representative, your Payroll Guide, who learns about your business and offers ongoing support and expertise regarding regulations and tax benefits applicable to your jurisdiction and industry.

We’re here to help you leverage payroll services as a long-term benefit to your business and employees, emphasizing accuracy, efficiency, ease of use, and time savings that allow you to focus on your central goals as a business. It’s time to enjoy payroll peace of mind.

Why Does Your Small Business Need Payroll?

A manual or disorganized payroll process can lead to financial, legal, and workforce management issues. Whether it’s employees overburdened with a high volume of redundant tasks, inaccurate employee data, or diminished employee retention resulting from missed paychecks, unpaid overtime, or otherwise, these issues tend to spiral without the right software and expertise to guide the process. In a worst-case scenario, issues with payroll can result in legal costs and penalties, including reputational damage that affects recruitment, hiring, and the internal morale of your organization.

Fundamentally, employees want to be paid on time, accurately, and with convenient, transparent access to each part of the timekeeping and payroll process. Likewise, small business owners want to process payroll with confidence in the accuracy of all employee, financial, and tax-related data. A manual approach may seem easiest for a small business, but it’s significantly less likely to be accurate and can become even more unsustainable if your business grows and your payroll process needs to scale in tandem with your organization. The American Payroll Association found that organizations with a payroll and timekeeping solution in place were 44% more likely to have a payroll error rate of 2% or less, and overachieved revenue targets by an average of 7%.

We needed a reputable company that knew what they were doing.

Robin Lewis, Office Prof, Ryan Eckhardt - Thrivent

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How to Choose a Payroll Solution for Your Small Business

Although a growing number of small business owners recognize the value of implementing a more streamlined payroll process, it’s common to have questions about how to run payroll and how to select a qualified provider and payroll solution.

The truth is that each business is different and has different payroll needs, whether it’s to integrate payroll with benefits administration, offer a mobile self-service app to employees, implement recurring direct deposit payments, or simply to streamline calculations, filing, and tax preparation.

The ideal payroll provider and payroll solution for your business will be invested in adapting to (and accommodating) the specific needs of your business based on its size, industry, jurisdiction, and the degree to which you wish to integrate payroll with timekeeping and other HR processes.

Needless to say, you’ll want to find a provider and solution that can scale effortlessly with your business, so if your needs evolve based on business growth, they can easily activate new tools and services to support your business. Likewise, the right payroll solution will help you address and meet the stated preferences of your employees, especially if they prioritize mobile access, a single consolidated HR platform that includes payroll, or a particular pay frequency or payment method.

It’s best to find a payroll solution that fuses the most leading-edge software and tools with personalized customer support and guidance. Choosing a provider that leans too heavily or exclusively in one of these areas could lead to inconsistent, impersonal communication or missed opportunities to streamline HR tasks to free up time for core business goals.

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Benefits of Small Business Payroll Services

Support from the right payroll provider can help you simplify your payroll taxes, minimize time spent on administrative tasks, provide employee-friendly self-service tools, integrate HR processes into a single platform, and feel confident about your business’ ongoing compliance.

Let’s explore some of the main benefits of using small business payroll services, including a few of the specialized features offered by CAVU HCM’s payroll solution:

Employee Self-Service

Simplified Business Taxes

Easy Integration with Other HR Processes and Tools

Reduced Costs and Time Spent

Long-Term Legal Compliance & Personalized Support

Employee Self-Service

One of the biggest advantages of implementing a payroll solution is improving employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention. This is achieved by offering a host of employee self-service options through a 24/7 mobile platform that allows employees to enter payroll or timekeeping data from anywhere with an internet connection. They can update personal information, set up direct deposit, complete tax forms, finish onboarding tasks, and more using a single digital platform.

This ensures that employees not only enjoy flexibility when it comes to receiving accurate and on-time payments through direct deposit, tip sharing, or on-demand access to earned wages, but also increases transparency and trust about the payroll process, generating a single “source of truth” that can be consulted to address any concerns regarding payments, tax information, overtime, or other payroll and timekeeping-related information.

Simplified Business Taxes

Small business taxes can be complex and difficult to navigate without the right tools and support. A payroll solution can help you calculate, deduct, and pay all payroll taxes, with all liabilities and jurisdictional considerations automatically incorporated into the process and software. From completing quarterly and annual reporting to creating and sending 1099s and W-2s to employees, small business payroll services simplify the process.

The right payroll solution can also adapt to employee-specific payroll considerations, handling garnishment payments, accurately paying non-exempt and exempt employees, and sending new-hire reports to any required government agencies. At CAVU, we also help you identify and claim eligible tax credits, whether it’s employee retention credit (ERC) or work opportunity tax credit (WOTC).

Easy Integration with Other HR Processes and Tools

A qualified payroll provider and payroll solution should allow you to effortlessly integrate your payroll process with timekeeping, as well as benefits administration, onboarding, workforce management, and other HR-related processes. This not only eliminates the need for redundant manual entry of employee and financial data across multiple disparate platforms, but also makes processes like electronic onboarding (including preboarding) a comparative breeze.

Payroll integration with other HR processes also makes reporting and analytics easier and more valuable, drawing on a range of data points to provide a clearer picture of your workforce and business regarding job performance, productivity, timekeeping/scheduling trends, PTO utilization, and more.

Reduced Costs and Time Spent

Some businesses adopt a manual payroll process to avoid the added cost of paying for professional payroll support. In the long-run, this approach is counterintuitive, namely because in-house payroll processing is time-consuming (detracting from core business tasks) and can lead to financial and legal consequences resulting from inaccuracies, missed payments, or compliance missteps.

CAVU HCM emphasizes providing the best possible service experience and ROI to help businesses avoid time spent on low-priority administrative tasks, repetitive processes, and confusing tax and regulatory considerations. Instead, we focus on helping your business run payroll seamlessly, consistently, and free of concerns about accuracy, compliance, and employee ease-of-use. We can even automate features in your payroll software to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations and tax laws, quickly flagging any issues or discrepancies to resolve them quickly and efficiently.

Long-Term Legal Compliance & Personalized Support

Payroll tax responsibilities are interwoven with a number of local, state, federal, and even industry-based, compliance considerations. Regulations change frequently, impacting payroll tax rates, required payment frequency, employee classification parameters, and many other factors that could impact your business’ compliance standing.

That’s why CAVU HCM can help you handle IRS inquiries, manage state unemployment insurance (SUI), tax filing with appropriate agencies, and local tax filing by jurisdiction. Our compliance experts stay up to date with the latest regulatory and legislative changes to keep your business informed and prepared for impending changes, ensuring that any necessary payroll or timekeeping adjustments are made before any regulatory updates begin.

Throughout the process, we are available to answer any questions you have, providing resources and personalized customer support that is paired with world-class security measures that keep your and your employees’ sensitive data secure.

FAQs: Small Business Payroll Services

What exactly are payroll services?

Fundamentally, a payroll service provider should help any small business administer payroll, remain compliant, and fulfill all employment tax obligations. Payroll services should alleviate the need for manual in-house payroll processing while improving accuracy, reporting, and employee satisfaction. The right solution should include a cloud-based payroll platform and comprehensive professional support to ensure your employees are paid accurately, on time, and granted transparent access to HR processes along the way.

What features should a payroll service for small businesses have?

The best payroll services are mobile (offering access at any time and from a range of devices) and should easily integrate with HR processes like timekeeping, onboarding, benefits administration, workforce management, and more. The right payroll solution should also feature compliance tools to flag errors while allowing you to offer flexible payment options to your employees and calculate, file, and pay taxes with peace of mind.

Since business taxes, compliance, and payroll are interconnected, it’s important to choose a provider with proven experience in all of these areas and capable of providing customer and technical support that meets the specific needs of your business based on size, jurisdiction, industry, and other factors.

What are the benefits of payroll software for small businesses?

The overriding benefit of payroll software is that it frees up time and energy for you and your employees to focus on primary business goals and high-priority projects. When your employees are paid precisely and enjoy an intuitive, easy-to-use platform to complete timekeeping and payroll tasks, they are more productive and satisfied.

Likewise, when you (as an employer) feel confident that your business is fully compliant with all applicable regulations and is submitting payroll taxes accurately and on time, it allows you to improve business operations, expand your customer base, and focus on organizational growth without payroll-related preoccupations or lingering financial or reputational concerns.

Do I need workers' compensation as a small business?

Workers’ compensation laws vary by jurisdiction, which is why it’s important to work with a qualified payroll provider that can help you navigate this issue based on all of the regulatory and jurisdictional factors that apply to your business. If it’s determined that your business does need to provide workers’ compensation, CAVU provides pay-as-you-go workers’ compensation services.

Through this approach, we can calculate your insurance premiums, debit the amount from your account, and file reports to the insurance provider on your behalf. This reduces the likelihood of a future audit and eliminates the need to pay down payments for workers’ compensation insurance.

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Optimize Payroll, Business Taxes, and Timekeeping with CAVU HCM

Eliminating manual tasks and addressing your employees’ pay preferences while ensuring compliance and streamlined payroll is challenging without the support of a qualified payroll provider. CAVU HCM offers a comprehensive payroll solution that includes leading-edge software, integrated HR tools, and access to HR and HCM experts with extensive experience.

We’re dedicated to helping your small business improve payroll processing, employee satisfaction, and workforce management through a payroll strategy that addresses the distinct needs of your business and employees.

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Payroll for Small Businesses

Why Does Your Small Business Need Payroll?

How to Choose a Payroll Solution for Your Small Business

Benefits of Small Business Payroll Services

Employee Self-Service

Simplified Business Taxes

Easy Integration with Other HR Processes and Tools

Reduced Costs and Time Spent

Long-Term Legal Compliance & Personalized Support

FAQs: Small Business Payroll Services

Optimize Payroll, Business Taxes, and Timekeeping with CAVU HCM