A hospital diagnoses and treats injuries and sickness. A law firm advises and protects clients on legal matters. A nonprofit aids their selected cause through fundraising and professional assistance. What do all of these entities have in common? They all employ people who are paid.

Paying employees is a central function, and most likely the No. 1 or No. 2 expense of every type of organization. Yet, employees tasked with implementing these functions are often not specifically experts or truly proficient in delivering payroll service to enhance employee satisfaction and mitigate potentially significant risk for the company.

Managed payroll service providers are trained to offer payroll compliance, software expertise, and finely tuned processes— all while allowing you complete control over your policies, payroll schedule, and chosen HR/payroll technology. Some, like Wise Consulting, literally become your payroll department.

With companies joining the “lean and mean” bandwagon to streamline their core business processes left and right, management must ask themselves— should nonessential tasks be outsourced or still performed in house?

Options for Handling Payroll

Administrative functions such as payroll were previously almost always handled in-house. However, the need for greater efficiency and the strategic use of human resources has led many companies to outsource payroll to managed service providers. Let’s take a look at the options that organizations have when it comes to handling payroll.

Using In-House Resources

Many organizations tend to default to this approach for managing payroll. Payroll is housed either in the human resources or finance departments (about 50/50 split). This approach also means that compliance requirements are managed internally— which in turn leads to increased overhead since staffing must be maintained. Mistakes can also lead to loss of employees or high employee turnover. The only upside to this approach is that organizations are unconstrained and can do things exactly the way they want.

Managed Payroll Services

With managed payroll services, organizations do not need to worry about the logistics of handling payroll. Client organizations have access to top industry experts who are up to date on the latest changes in regulations, ensuring that client businesses remain compliant by using industry best practices and software to integrate these rules.

PEO

Outsourcing payroll to professional employer organizations ensures your business remains compliant, but it also means that they essentially co-employ your employees for tax and payroll purposes. PEOs have nearly exclusive administrative control over your workforce and have strict policies that client businesses must follow, thus hindering organizational flexibility and autonomy.

Benefits of Managed Payroll

In previous times, payroll outsourcing was a term used to describe the maintenance of tax tables, tax filing, gross-to-net payroll software, and check printing. However, the major work of correctly and promptly paying employees as well as the proper accounting of associated transactions was done in house. When problems arose, organizations still had to hire a professional and experienced payroll team to correct mistakes.

Enter the Era of Managed Payroll

As an offshoot of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), managed payroll is specifically focused on the breadth of services and responsibilities normally provided by an in-house payroll department. Beyond compliance and software maintenance, day-to-day payroll responsibilities include data input/auditing, balancing, tax remittance, employee/manager questions, garnishment administration, and meeting unwavering deadlines. Wise Consulting provides organizations with truly comprehensive managed payroll services that covers payroll management and each of these other associated administrative tasks. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using Wise Consulting’s managed payroll services.

Benefits of Choosing Wise Consulting

Compliance Risk Management

The complexity and constant changes made to payroll and tax regulations can be difficult to understand and even more difficult to keep up with. Software providers maintain tax tables, but the proper input and calculation configuration to support labor and tax regulations falls squarely on the shoulders of individual organizations. Businesses who continue to handle payroll in house are liable to fall victim to one or more of these rules. These businesses are more at risk if they have limited payroll expertise or non-payroll-certified staff in house.

With the right partner, organizations have access to expertise in diverse areas such as security, privacy, government regulations, and legislation. Wise Consulting ensures that its managed payroll services are confidential, accurate, secure and efficient. Their certified payroll professionals also ensure compliance with industry best practices and regulations and help secure your data from payroll fraud and theft.

Higher Quality and Better Performance

Payroll management requires a high level of accuracy and near-zero tolerance for mistakes— or else employees may waste a lot of time questioning their pay and potentially causing widespread employee mistrust and dissatisfaction. However, it can be difficult to get it right due to numerous time sheets and pay scales, varying tax rates, different coverage, benefits and overtime, as well as voluntary withholdings. Wise Consulting focuses on accuracy at the highest level because payroll IS their core business.

Control Costs

Businesses are always trying to increase their profit margins and boost revenue by lowering their operating costs. Wise Consulting’s managed payroll provides enterprises with the flexibility to turn fixed overhead costs into variable costs. This means that companies do not have to hire a full-time payroll staff or pay for the training and equipment needed to manage this critical function. Instead of focusing time and attention on repetitive tasks, your key HR and finance employees can turn their attention to more complex projects.

Additionally, payroll department turnover is a huge risk that many organizations face when much of the institutional and process knowledge is centered on just one or two people. If someone gives notice, or the unforeseen occurs, the resulting disruption can be extremely costly. Wise Consulting’s per-employee-per-month (PEPM) pricing means your costs are predictable and flex as your company streamlines or grows.

Competitive Advantage

Whether payroll is housed in HR or in finance, these departments spend an enormous amount of time and management energy to ensure payroll activities occur on time and accurately. These activities do not contribute to revenue generation and take up valuable time. Since Wise Consulting’s managed payroll services bring real-time expertise on global compliance requirements, reporting, and analytics, as well as transparency and collaboration to the table, HR professionals in organizations that take advantage of our services can focus their time, energy, and resources on the operations that distinguish the organization in the marketplace. This enables your employees to better meet customers’ needs while achieving business goals at the lowest possible cost.

Partnering with Wise Consulting means that your organization gains the expertise of a dedicated team of certified payroll specialists, each of whom recognizes and understands your organization’s specific needs and offers effective solutions based on payroll best practices.

Wise Consulting offers a personalized and full-service experience to clients— meaning that your assigned team of payroll professionals are readily accessible. We help your organization fully utilize your chosen software, maximizing employee and manager self-service and streamlining processes through automation. The result is a seamless transition with seasoned payroll professionals in charge.

Ready to get help with your payroll processing? Reach out to a Wise Consultant today.

Wise Consulting’s managed services are unique in the flexibility of support we offer. We partner with you to take on the components of your payroll process that you want professionally managed while sharing expertise that keeps your organization in compliance. To learn more about the benefits of outsourcing your payroll function, click here or get in touch with a Wise consultant by contacting us today.