Understanding The Benefits of The Top 10 Payroll Technology Features

Payroll can be a highly profitable component to a successful public accounting practice, often driving other aspects of business. Whether adding payroll services or upgrading from a current payroll system, select software that will serve client needs today and flex to meet client needs into the future.

Sending clients away for payroll service opens the door for direct competition for clients. Sooner or later the payroll service provider may bundle an accounting package including price break incentives that clients will find difficult to resist. Payroll services should be brought in-house and kept in-house. Accountants can leverage weekly or bi-monthly payroll services contact with clients to remain strategically and consistently involved in the clients business.

When the decision has been made to upgrade a current system or to bring payroll services in-house, understanding the benefits of the top ten features makes good business sense. For example, when a feature like Payroll Reports is listed, the full scope of client service ramifications may not be immediately apparent. If the accountant can import or export data from multiple file types and produce paper, PDF, or CSV/Excel files for a client, as well as customize the report to include any assortment of data the client chooses to receive; there is a direct and distinct benefit to giving the client exactly what they need. If the reporting feature falls short of expectations or is limited to canned reports or canned output, there is a greater risk of client turnover. When a client requires a report in a specific format, or needs employee information exported to an outside agency in a very precise way, the accountant will need to satisfy the client?s request or risk losing the payroll client to another provider. The benefit of being able to deliver customized reports in a flexible way increases client loyalty. Clearly, knowing and understanding the full functionality of a vendors Payroll Report feature will directly impact business.

What is critical in payroll processing today will become increasingly critical in the future. Understanding the benefits of these top ten features will help to ensure your practice is best prepared to manage future tax law changes, client report requirements, or whatever the future brings. Ultimately, payroll technology should be flexible enough to meet the most unique custom report requests, powerful enough to manage high-level processing without any hesitation, and portable enough to allow the software to run on any computer operating system anywhere, anytime into the future.

Top 10 Payroll Technology Features

Scalability. Scalability addresses the issue of whether the system is designed to take the accountant from modest payroll service beginnings to larger-scale operations. Though the accountant and their clients may be starting small, growth and acquisition is possible. Don?t smack against an impenetrable payroll services ceiling limited by the number of payrolls the system can handle or be bound by a payroll service technology?s lack of sophistication. Starting today with a service that will be outgrown two to five years down the road is very costly and highly disruptive for all.

Efficiency. Can the software work on a single workstation, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), and Internet portal at the same time ,if the answer were yes, this would allow for multiple users to work simultaneously in-house, and for clients to complete self-service work online. While multiple users access and work concurrently, all changes or new data should instantly and automatically populate all reports, without requiring any down time while a mass update process occurs. This "real-time" efficiency is a critical feature when workflow and profitability matter. Users should also be able to create new clients by copying an existing client, which minimizes or eliminates any re-keying.

User Friendliness. After training, novices and experts should be able to use the software effectively. This is important for the accountant (the expert) and for their payroll clients (the novices) who access their payroll file via the Internet and Web portal where they are permitted to input data. The payroll technology also needs to support simultaneous graphical and text interfaces to allow different users to work in whatever way they find most comfortable.

Flexibility. Initially, accountants and clients may not realize how critical flexibility is, or the negative ramifications when a payroll technology is not flexible. For example, when offering payroll services, eventually a client will require separate employment divisions, separate accounting, and separate companywide summaries. Many clients will also eventually request or require special customized reports. Having the flexibility to immediately generate reports by employee number, location, last name, or literally in any order requested, saves time and keeps clients satisfied. Additionally, accountants could run individual reports for a client without dumping out every report for that client. The flexibility of running individual reports along with the ability to automatically run reports for an entire client base makes technology flexibility worth investigating.

Importing. The payroll technology must have the ability to import client information, such as employee set up and payroll histories, without manual re-keying. A vigorous payroll technology system will also receive electronic data from an Internet portal, spreadsheets, and from time clocks.

Exporting. Communication with your clients should include the ability to automatically send reports as PDF files, which speeds the process. Exporting reports as PDF files allows clients to easily open the file regardless of the software package or operating system being used by the recipient.

Integration with other payroll products. For some accountants this may seem like a no-brainer, but any accounting software accountants are contemplating must seamlessly integrate with clients general ledger systems. There are systems that don?t integrate or have exceptionally limited integration capabilities, which is why accountants have to closely examine this aspect. Integration also includes being able to handle workers compensation issues, interfacing with the EFTPS (electronic federal tax payment system), as well as whatever other miscellaneous reporting agency or outside company clients may require.

Invoicing. Another defining element of payroll technology is the inclusion of a billing module that can automatically create invoices. Whether billing for a routine number of checks, file maintenance, or the addition of new hires, or hundreds of other items, invoicing and a solid billing module in a payroll technology will save time and make the process highly efficient. This is a very desirable feature to meet clients? short-term and long-term needs.

Custom programming. The payroll technology developer's willingness to address custom programming requests and the developers speed in tweaking the product for individual client needs is often underrated, but remains a completely critical aspect of a great payroll processing system. Accountants who avoid addressing this issue with a vendor before they adopt that vendor?s technology may find themselves locked out of any possibility of customizing their payroll technology because the unique feature or whatever report a client may need does not currently exist. For example, when a client needs a report that is beyond the norm and requires behind the scenes manipulation of the payroll system?s code, if the payroll technology developer hesitates or refuses to immediately tweak the software, the client and the revenue generated from working with that client may be lost.

Portability. A payroll technology that can run on Windows, Linux, Unix, and a Mac system is truly portable. Accountants or the payroll clients they serve may opt to change operating systems, work from a remote location, or install a new workstation sometime in the future. If a technology is not portable, being limited to working in only one operating system can bring business to a screeching halt. If the payroll technology is truly portable, it will look and work the same on any operating system, and easily import and export information from any platform and any technology vendor without hesitation or major programming re-writes.

Ultimately, the core foundation a payroll technology is built on determines the portability of the software. Because this is a feature area that most payroll technology vendors don?t openly discuss, getting a straight answer to portability questions may be a feat in and of itself. Unless the accountant has a crystal ball and knows what operating system and technology will be running in his or her office and at every client's location in the future, portability is the feature that guarantees the payroll technology will be powerful today and deftly built to flex for whatever tomorrow brings.

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Understanding The Benefits of The Top 10 Payroll Technology Features