What Could Go Wrong with Payroll?

By Stefan Schumacher, editor of The Payroll Blog

We talked before about some of the difficulties of doing payroll yourself, without the help of a payroll service or an accountant. But what specifically could go wrong? What actually happens when you get tripped up by the pitfalls of payroll?

The worst and most obvious thing that can happen is that your employees either don’t get paid or don’t get paid on time. Want to make the people who work for you unhappy? Try not paying them. It’s the kind of thing that could result in you losing good people.

Underpayment or overpayment is the next problem that could occur. This could take a long time to figure out and then it will be a big hassle to make it right. Again, it could also give your employees reason to lose faith in the company.

When it comes to filing dates and tax deadlines, things can get much more messy. Missing a filing deadline could cost your company money. There’s also the risk you could misclassify an employee, improperly identifying them as an independent contractor, for instance.

Harder to quantify, is the time you lose and attention that’s taken away from your business. Any extra time you spend figuring out payroll is time you could’ve spent making another area of your business better.

Working with a payroll service or an accountant are the best ways to avoid these pitfalls.

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