Most good sized companies can't function with a certain number of employees. And where there are employees, there is payroll. After all, employees do not work for free. Payroll is boring, yes, and unglamorous too. But it is also one of the most basic and essential tasks for any organization. Business payroll software is just a way to simplify the onerous tasks related to payroll activities in any organization.
You know that any screw-ups in payroll not only will bring grief to you from your employees, but could also get you in trouble with related government agencies as well. Business payroll software is an excellent option for organizing all those ordinary tasks.
Since payroll is no doubt the dullest endeavor of any business, it is no surprise that you may be hesitant to spend much time or dedication to the activity. Further, it may represent an expensive hurdle for a small, or developing, company to employ people merely to address payroll and its accompanying issues.
When you are a one desk company with a couple of employees, writing one or two checks at a time is not a big deal. Once you get bigger, a standardized and organized way of handling payroll is necessary. That's when a business payroll software package could be just the system you need.
In smaller companies, where all the employees are in a single location, and where they all get a fairly straight forward salary, it is not such a heavy job to deal with payroll. However, if your entire workforce is covering several locations, and you have some workers who earn an hourly rate or have overtime premiums, or you have varied pay structures due to different shifts, then your payroll is a lot more complicated.
Business payroll software was probably among the first business applications that anyone thought of to automate. When all is said and done, it basically is comprised of many routine calculations which must be correctly performed. In addition, an accurate and up to the minute database has to be maintained to keep track of records and results. The calculation of gross pay, various taxes, allowances and incentives may be a serious opportunity for a trained accountant, not to mention the business owner.
You can probably continue to get by without using any sort of business payroll software if you already have a small payroll, or want to keep costs down. However, if accuracy and speed are important, if your organization is growing, if you don't have the time or the inclination for pesky payroll calculations, consider some kind of computerized payroll calculation method.
There are a huge number of payroll software options available, and a simple search with your favorite search engine will bring up any number of resources where you can download such software, either paid versions or free.