A Prescription for Success
Accountants and CPAs are like doctors: They monitor a client’s fiscal health, prescribe activities to maintain optimal condition, make necessary adjustments during checkups and perform a physical at the end of the year to evaluate if finances were paying attention.
Businesses depend on the guidance and fiscal oversight provided by their accountant. And because companies that engage accountants usually need payroll services, finding the right partner to support your efforts and add value to your clients’ business is critical.
Payroll Processing: Burden or Benefit?
Accurately processing payroll is an overwhelming and cumbersome task for small businesses. It’s time-consuming and complicated to ensure the correct pay for hourly and salaried workers, manage PTO and benefits, deduct accurately for taxes and insurance, file tax forms and keep up with compliance regulations. That’s why many CPA firms partner with HR and payroll providers – to introduce their clients to experts who can help simplify and streamline difficult-to-manage tasks.
Benefits of Helping Your Accounting Clients Find the Right Payroll Partner
Helping clients find the right partner has quite a few benefits for the CPA. If you introduce them to the right partner who can run payroll and support their business, you’ll be a hero in their eyes. They’ll no longer struggle with the administrative nightmare of processing and managing payroll. And if the payroll partner offers support to CPAs, you can work directly with them to greatly simplify interactions with your clients.
- Adds value to current clients
- Strengthen client relationships
- Increases likelihood of retaining clients
- Simplify tasks through integrations with payroll, tax software, and other accounting applications
- Reduce calls to your client for things you’ll be able to access directly
- Gain valuable insights into your client’s HR and payroll data
To clients, a consolidated approach is beneficial because they’ll:
- Save time (and headaches) by outsourcing their payroll
- Build upon their trusted and established accounting relationship
- Maintain control with easy and immediate access to payroll data
- Improve their ability to share timely and accurate data with their accountant
What to Consider When Choosing a Payroll Provider
While the benefits of offering payroll services may seem obvious, it’s less apparent how to go about choosing a payroll system that supports your clients’ needs. It’s always a good idea to read reviews and ask colleagues for referrals. In addition, consider your answers to the following questions as you begin your search.
Who is your client base and what services do they need?
Individuals and small businesses have different needs than large organizations. How many employees do your clients have? Do they hire a mix of full-time, part-time, hourly and salaried workers? Are they adding and removing employees regularly? What is their pay period? These are just a sample of the types of questions to ask to best serve your clients.
Can your firm benefit from HR and payroll expertise?
Your payroll provider should provide your firm with valuable insights into the world of HR and payroll. Resources like ongoing newsletters, thought leadership articles and webinar programs will help you add value to your clients. The right partner will also help walk you through challenging times like year-end, ensuring you have the resources you need to support your clients.
What features does the payroll system offer?
Each provider is different, so you need to weigh your options carefully. Take time to ask tough questions during the demo to ensure the provider isn’t just telling you what you want to hear. For example, ask them to take you through the entire payroll process, showing how changes are made to each employee record. And with the complexities of tax filing, ask the provider how their system handles employees who work in multiple tax jurisdictions.
Here’s just a snapshot of key things to consider:
- Usability
- Customizable real-time HR reporting and analytics
- Online and mobile access from anywhere, anytime
- Easy to navigate dashboards
- Single sign in with the ability to filter by client ID
- Federal and state tax compliance oversight
- Knowledgeable, accessible customer support
Finding a Partner You Trust Doesn’t Happen Overnight
For nearly 30 years, Paycor has made partnerships a pillar in our strategy. And it’s our focus on leveraging payroll and tax filing expertise along with our intuitive recruiting, HR, time & attendance, learning management and benefits solutions that has led more than 5,000 CPAs to choose Paycor to help support their clients’ business.
If you have clients in need of recruiting, HR, payroll and compliance support, contact our team to learn how we can help.
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