By Laura Melville

As a manager in the Outsourced Accounting group at Wiss, I assist clients with various tasks, from using accounting software to preparing and filing their tax returns. One major part of my job is helping clients with processing payroll—a task that I believe is best handled through your accounting firm. In this article, I’ll explain the benefits of this arrangement and why the services of a company like Wiss are so valuable to this aspect of your business.

A Cohesive Approach

When your accounting firm handles your payroll, you are equipped with a sort of one-stop shopping experience for many of your business’s needs. For example, if one of our clients wants to register a new employee in different states, we can take care of that here, but we can also walk across the hall to the partner who handles that client’s taxes and discuss the situation. This makes them aware of any tax implications in a timely fashion so there are no surprises on the reports at the end of the year.

Our full-service model allows us to fill in the gaps for our clients and ensure that they are supported. Each client at Wiss has access to a service rep who will speak to them live about any concerns they may have. For instance, a client may be unfamiliar with the Federal Unemployement Tax Act (FUTA tax) or need help sending new employees their W-4s or setting up direct deposit authorization. We can offer information and guidance in all of these scenarios.

Allowing for Turnover and Growth

When a new employee joins your company, or someone leaves, there are certain procedures that must be followed. We assist our clients in these cases by giving them the proper forms and getting them set up in the system. But we also empower our clients to make adjustments on their own through their own portal. Here they can access and modify employee records, rates of pay, addresses, and more.

This also goes for payroll. The client uses the portal to enter employee hours and submit them to us, at which point we review and process them. We then submit the automated clearing house (ACH) files to our third party, which pulls the funds from the client and distributes them to the tax authorities or to the employee’s direct deposit. This third party is an important security measure, ensuring that the client’s funds are protected.

As your company grows, outsourced accounting becomes an even more valuable arrangement, since an expanding staff may mean you have less time to devote to your regular bookkeeping. Because they offer so many services under one roof, companies like Wiss can help organizations grow without falling behind in their day-to-day operations.

The Human Resources Connection

Like taxes, HR is another area where we offer a cohesive approach to serving our clients. Once a new client has been onboarded and they are all set up in the system, they get a half-hour with our HR advisor, Lisa Calick, to discuss whatever they like. This conversation may range from questions about workers’ comp and health insurance to what posters should be on the wall and what should appear in the employee handbook.

Assistance with Software

At Wiss we get a lot of questions related to software, such as how clients can transfer the information they get from the reports into QuickBooks. We explain that there are journal entries you can export from our software into QuickBooks and then offer assistance with that process. We recommend using the cloud-based QuickBooks Online, which further facilitates automation and enables us to help our clients with whatever they need.

The Bottom Line

As a business owner, you have myriad duties and concerns that keep you busy all day long. A fragmented approach to things like taxes and payroll will only divide your focus and exhaust your resources. By handling all these areas “under one roof,” you reduce your own energy expenditure, ensure a dialogue between the various arms of your business, and minimize opportunities for mistakes and missed information. This full-service philosophy comprises the foundation of our work at Wiss, and makes us an invaluable part of our clients’ business operations.

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