Advantages Of Payroll Services

If your company has employees other than you, payroll is one of the most critical areas of your financial record keeping. It's also the area most commonly botched by small business owners, so get professional advice on how to properly set up and maintain your payroll system.

You might consider using a payroll service to save yourself a lot of administrative time and hassle. A payroll service ensures your government reporting and payroll tax remittances are always accurate and up-to-date. This benefit alone can be well worth the cost of the service, as late-payment penalties for payroll remittances tend to be some of the biggest and most severe penalties that the government levies.

Other advantages of using a payroll service:

The payroll service is always up to date on the tax code, whether it be changes in Canada Pension Plan rules, revised Employment Insurance guidelines or new tax rates.
The payroll service automatically handles the creation of accurate T4 slips for your employees at year-end.
With a payroll service, you can offer your employees direct deposit of their paycheque. This is a perk that most employees appreciate.

While there are many good reasons to use a payroll service, you should also be aware that such a service takes all associated government remittances out of your company account each payday, even if those remittances are not actually due for another few weeks. This can create a cash flow problem unless you are prepared for it.

Fern Gordon is the owner of The Profit Line. Making sound business decisions means having a clear picture of your financial situation in front of you at all times - yet the daily demands of running a small enterprise can be overwhelming. As a result, financial record keeping and reporting often don't get the attention they truly deserve.

The Profit Line changes all that. We are your bookkeeping partner, helping you stay on top of your finances so you can make better, more informed business decisions.

In addition to taking paperwork off your plate, we also pinpoint the key numbers critical to the performance of your specific enterprise, and make sure you have them in hand whenever you need them.

Source : The Profit Line

Canada: Accounting industry grows

The country's accounting industry continued its strong growth in 2006, Statistics Canada said yesterday. The federal agency said accounting operating revenues grew 12.1 per cent to $11.1 billion in 2006. That followed 13.7- per-cent growth the previous year. Most of the revenues in 2006 came from traditional accounting services such as auditing and assurance (30 per cent), taxation (25 per cent), and bookkeeping and payroll (11 per cent).

Source : http://www.canada.com/

How Can Software Improve the Efficiency of My Retail Operation?

Retail point-of-sale (POS) systems facilitate many aspects of retail trade: tracking sales and pricing on all of your products; maintaining proper inventory levels and vendor and customer data; reducing billing and shipping times; and facilitating bookkeeping and payroll management. The solution you choose will depend on your needs, comfort level with computer programs, and, ultimately, your budget. Retail-specific software solutions can range from $2,000 to upward of $50,000.

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Payroll error gives 18 Atlanta workers $375K for gas

Eighteen Atlanta employees must have thought they won the lottery when the city installed its new payroll software.

On Jan. 4, the group mistakenly got paid $375,000 — about $371,000 more than was legitimate — because someone inadvertently coded the mileage reimbursement rate at $40 per mile instead of 40 cents.

still owe the city a total of nearly $40,000.

Officials said some employees have been reprimanded but no one has been fired.

"I was astonished," city auditor Leslie Ward said. "I don't know how else to describe it. This seems like it would have to be some violation of employee conduct, ethics or law."

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Payrolls in October Grew by 166,000

Employers added twice as many new jobs to their ranks than expected in October, an encouraging sign that the nation's employment climate is not cracking under the stress of a deepening housing slump.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the nation's payrolls grew by a net 166,000, the most in five months. The unemployment rate didn't budge at 4.7 percent, a figure considered low by historical standards.

Job gains were logged at schools, hospitals, bars and restaurants, hotels and motels, temporary-help firms, legal services, accounting and bookkeeping companies, the government and other places.

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