Intuit offers a variety of QuickBooks payroll options to suit the needs of every business. When it comes to payroll, many business owners are set in their ways and can be reluctant to change how they process payroll. Depending on your version of QuickBooks, you have different options when it comes to payroll. This article will review payroll options and some of the things you should consider when evaluating your payroll needs and determining which QuickBooks payroll option is right for you:
- Do you create payroll checks yourself, or are you just reporting hours?
- How much time do you spend on your payroll process?
- How complex is your payroll? Do you have things like Paid-leave, Health Insurance, Fringe Benefits, Garnishments, and optional deductions or additions?
- What is your employee turnover rate?
- Are you comfortable performing payroll functions?
- If you process your own employee paychecks, do you also handle all tax payments and filings?
Payroll options offering you capabilities based upon how much ‘payroll’ you want to do:
- If Payroll is not your thing, you can outsource these tasks to Intuit; Intuit Full Service Payroll is the best option for you – you simply enter the hours for each employee and Intuit does the rest. This is completely compatible with QuickBooks and is very affordable. The pricing is a low monthly fee that will not change based on the number of pay periods you have in a given month.
- If you would like to process your own paychecks but outsource some of the payroll tasks, such as preparation and filing of taxes, then Intuit has a service for you; QuickBooks Assisted Payroll allows you to create checks, while Intuit files your payroll taxes for you and guarantees their accuracy by paying any penalties that should occur due to inaccurate reporting.
- Perhaps you want to process your own paychecks, but you have a CPA who will prepare your payroll tax returns, then QuickBooks has a payroll offering for you; QuickBooks Basic Payroll lets you create checks, but you must manually file your tax forms and deposits. This option is great for those that have an independent bookkeeper or accountant that does the filing.
- You like the idea of being in total charge of your payroll, from writing checks to preparing and filing your payroll taxes and tax deposits, the QuickBooks offers; QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll which lets you perform all of your payroll tasks, Paychecks, payroll tax return preparation, and e-filing are all simplified in this version. This version also offers capabilities for job costing and workers’ compensation tracking.
Intuit also offers two on-line versions of QuickBooks Payroll options.
These solutions integrate with your QuickBooks software to permit payroll details to be included in your accounting data. If you need the ability to process payroll anytime, from anywhere, an on-line solution may fit your style:
- Intuit Online Payroll Basic lets you create paychecks and is very similar to Basic Payroll but is not a good fit for those that need job costing.
- Intuit Online Payroll Enhanced is very similar to the Enhanced version but not a good fit for businesses that need to do job costing. Those that do not need job costing seem to enjoy the flexibility and access of this version.
- QuickBooks On-line Payroll solutions are typically about 1/3 less than equivalent services from ADP and Paychex.
Intuit has the right payroll solution for your business, and your local QuickBooks ProAdvisor can assist you in selecting and implementing any option.