PAYROLL Canada s Small Business Payroll Service Provider Signs It's Time to Outsource Payroll www.thepayrolledge.com
In-house Payroll and HR Management May Not Be the Best Use of Your Resources Small-to-midsize businesses ultimately discover managing the administration of Payroll and HR in-house takes time and resources away from the core business, harming productivity and profitability. Among the endless unavoidable resource-eating activities are: 1. Calculating vacation, stat holiday, termination, overtime etc 2. Understanding taxable vs. non-taxable employee benefits 3. Administering benefit and RSP deductions 4. Remitting employee tax within the assigned schedule 5. Remitting employer taxes to the various government agencies within their timelines 6. Using best practices when hiring, performing employee reviews, handling disciplinary misconduct, laying off and terminating employment 7. Understanding employment legislation requirements 8. Changing processes and handbooks to reflect legislative changes Wouldn t it be great if these tiresome and time-consuming tasks could be made to disappear? They can by outsourcing Payroll and HR Management to an outsourced payroll service provider. Read on to find out if outsourcing these functions is right for your organization. www.thepayrolledge.com 2
How many of the following Seven Signs does your business suffer from? SIGN #1 The time needed to calculate payroll increasingly takes too long before pay cheques can actually be cut In the beginning, paycheques could be printed within minutes of sitting down to calculate payroll. But somehow the time it takes gets longer and longer. Before you know it, payroll needs to start 2-3 days before payday. And then the day comes when, despite best efforts, your employees pay cheques are late, only because the payroll calculations have not been completed on time. As businesses grow, payroll processing becomes more time-intensive, requiring the progressive diversion of resources to the task. These diversions make businesses less efficient and are frequently among the invisible reasons costs exceed budget. Yet because these process problems are difficult to identify without integrated HR expertise to pinpoint, the causes often go undiscovered. www.thepayrolledge.com 3
SIGN #2 The number of personnel and man-hours devoted to payroll, HR administration, and paperwork is growing out of control What used to require one staff member just a few hours every payday to achieve, grows to occupy several days by numerous people due to an endlessly expanding record-keeping burden. Inefficient processes lead to significant lost time in routine HR practices. The human errors that occur under the resulting pressures cause more time and resources to be lost in a continually mounting negative feedback cycle with no end in sight. And this is happening even without a growing headcount. Small-to-midsize businesses have limited time and money to invest to regain control over payroll and HR management costs. The sources of hidden inefficient processes can stem from: BUDGETARY CONCERNS. STOPGAP MEASURES. LACK OF EXPERTISE. Limited budgets prevent the types of in-house reviews and reorganizations that larger businesses can afford. As the negative feedback loop continues, small adjustments are made to stem the losses; however, the results are usually temporary and not as far reaching as necessary to make a real impact on the bottom line. Small businesses are left to navigate HR challenges on their own, unaware that an integrated solution exists. www.thepayrolledge.com 4
SIGN #3 Staff increasingly complain about errors on their pay cheques, resulting in wasted time uncovering and fixing these errors The staff charged with payroll cringe on paydays whenever an employee approaches them with their paystub ( Oh no, don t tell men your paycheque is wrong ). For each instance of an alleged error, someone has to divert many hours investigating the source of the error and rectifying the payment. In many cases, there is in fact no error, but the investigation time is still lost. Even more daunting is uncovering an error that has unknowingly been repeated, payday after payday, for months or even years. Once the source has been identified, all applicable past payroll must be re-calculated, government remittances re-done, and the relevant government agencies notified not to mention the added payroll cost to correct any past staff under-payments. Regardless of a business size, staff expect to be paid on time and accurately for their work. The only way around having to resolve paycheque errors is to not have them in the first place. SIGN #4 You, the business owner, do not know what to do if you get caught in a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audit Would you be ready if a CRA auditor walked in unannounced and requested to review the business payroll records? Would you know what information they specifically might be looking for? The sheer amount of administration involved in the normal course of business can be so overwhelming; a small business could be unaware of where gaps in reconciliation and reporting may lie. But a business that is not maintaining inclusive audit trails to survive a CRA audit is doing so at its own risk. An outsourced payroll service provider can help walk with you through the process of ensuring the right accurate paperwork is provided to mitigate this risk. www.thepayrolledge.com 5
SIGN #5 Your business has been fined for ESA (Employment Standards Act), MOL (Ministry of Labour), WSIB (Workplace Safety Insurance Board, i.e..; Workers Compensation), or OHSA (Occupational Health and Safety Act) non-compliance Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and MOL officials are not permitted to explain the nature of the infractions they deliver. For too many businesses, fines and penalties for workplace standards non-compliance are just considered an unavoidable cost of doing business. Regulations vary across the country, but anywhere in Canada employers are held responsible for the health and well-being of its workers at its worksites. At last count, there were 190 different pieces of workplace-related legislated requirements. Staying on top of these constantly changing rules is more than a full-time job. An outsourced payroll service provider can help you know what it is you did not know you needed to know to avoid unnecessary financial penalties, while simultaneously improving the health and safety of your workplace. www.thepayrolledge.com 6
SIGN #6 You the business owner do not know where to turn for quick, comprehensive, accurate, and low-cost advice on payroll and HR legal matters To stay abreast of dynamically shifting regulatory environments, small-to-midsize businesses typically have two very expensive options. The first being to hire an expert in-house to keep up with, understand, and apply the ever evolving rules and policies (and hope they never leave your company). The second is to rely on the services of outside lawyers or consultants, the costs for which can quickly add up to become an uncontrollable financial burden. An outsourced payroll service can help you overcome shortcomings like: LIMITED PERSONNEL RESOURCES. FINITE BUDGETS. INCOMPLETE INFORMATION. Changes in legislation that mandate updated human resources policies are frequent, but most businesses simply are not equipped to keep up. The lawyers and HR consultants specializing in these areas routinely charge hourly fees beyond the scope of a small business facing a complex problem. Online resources can at best only describe general circumstances that may not match each company s unique situation, even if the information pamphlets are regularly updated. www.thepayrolledge.com 7
SIGN #7 Your business has become embroiled in a wrongful dismissal claim by a former employee A small business dismisses an employee for cause. It is after the employee files a claim of Wrongful Dismissal that the lack of an Employee Agreement surfaces and the employee is judged to be valid in their claim, bringing about a costly unplanned expense to the employer. Many Wrongful Dismissal cases simply result from a lack of, or incorrectly structured, Employee Agreements. In many instances, court action is avoided when proper documentation is implemented. Outsourced payroll services can assist with the preparation of such documents. www.thepayrolledge.com 8
There is No Need to Struggle with these 7 Signs 1. The time needed to calculate payroll increasingly takes too long before pay cheques can actually be cut 2. The number of personnel and man-hours devoted to payroll, HR administration, and paperwork is growing out of control 3. Staff increasingly complain about errors on their pay cheques, resulting in wasted time uncovering and fixing these errors 4. You, the business owner, do not know what to do if you get caught in a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audit 5. Your business has been fined for ESA (Employment Standards Act), MOL (Ministry of Labour), WSIB (Workplace Safety Insurance Board, i.e..; Workers Compensation), or OHSA (Occupational Health and Safety Act) non-compliance 6. You the business owner do not know where to turn for quick, comprehensive, accurate, and low-cost advice on payroll and HR legal matters 7. Your business has become embroiled in a wrongful dismissal claim by a former employee www.thepayrolledge.com 9
The Right Payroll Service Frees Up Internal Resources and Mitigates the Risks Employee administration can impact all areas of a business, swelling costs, reducing productivity, and hampering a business growth. An integrated Payroll and HR Management services provider can streamline your employee administration for much less cost than hiring an HR Manager, or retaining expensive lawyers or HR consultants. Outsourced Payroll Processing and HR Management can cost-effectively keep your business in compliance with all provincial and Federal reporting and remittance requirements. About The Payroll Edge The Payroll Edge has been providing integrated Payroll Processing and HR Management services to small-to-midsize Canadian businesses for over 25 years, and is dedicated to helping its clients make outsourcing a smooth process. By partnering with The Payroll Edge, small businesses gain access to the kind of HR resources typically only affordable by very large companies at a much lower cost. PAYROLL Canada s Small Business Payroll Service Provider www.thepayrolledge.com The Payroll Edge A Division of The Staffing Edge 181 Queen St. East Brampton, ON L6W 2B3 Info@thepayrolledge.com