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A dozen times a year I get to look at my bank balance for about 30 seconds, beam with pride at that lovely number sitting there in my account, just sitting there, chillin’. Then reality sits in.

The excitement fades by the following day, after all my auto payments go out and then I’m left with The Figure – the amount I have to get by on for the next four or five weeks, depending on the month.

When I tell people I’m on monthly pays, many re-coil in horror.

“Oh,” they exclaim. “How horrible”, “That sucks for you”, “Oh no, I hate monthly pays” they say.

“Have you been on monthly pays?” I ask.

“Well no, but it would suck”.

It actually doesn’t. Here’s why:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/blogs/lady-in-the-red/4548171/Managing-monthly-pays

A summary of all the amendments can be read HERE!

#mce_temp_url#Timely payment of wages is necessary for employee satisfaction and to keep them motivated. The slightest lapse in this regard can prove very expensive. However, managing payroll is a difficult task for even the most proficient employee. Personnel changes, deadlines and changing tax regulations only worsen the situation leading to unnecessary delays and inefficiencies. A payroll service can take care of all your payroll requirements and free you and your employers of unnecessary stress and hassles.

Outsourced payroll services become even more important for start-up businesses. While you take care of everything from product development, to advertising and marketing and sales, payroll is one function that can be easily outsourced to a payroll service.

Over one-fourth of the companies are already enjoying the benefits of outsourcing payroll. Here are the main benefits you can expect from outsourcing.

Free payroll software

Outsourcing payroll eliminates the need to buy, install, support and maintain payroll software and reduces the IT labor needed, resulting in several immediate cost reductions. Several payroll companies also provide software integration into your office accounting systems along with customization. Further, payroll services regularly update their software giving you another indirect cost benefit.

Easy scalability at minimal cost

When you outsource to a professional service, you do not have to worry about adding new staff to deal with business growth. Similarly, they take care of reassigning tasks, lay-offs and unemployment insurance for contracting businesses, thus freeing the owners of this responsibility at affordable prices.

Focus on your core business

Payroll takes up a total of eight-ten hours of employee time, every pay period. Outsourcing payroll saves valuable employee time that can be devoted to core business issues for improving productivity.

Employees prepare and submit own payroll data

Payroll services use software as a service, which delegates to employees the responsibility of gathering and submitting work hours themselves. For this, each employee uses his login to enter information about work hours into electronic time cards on the providers website. After completion, these are electronically reviewed by the manager, who can either approve or send back any inaccurate time card. Defaults for submission, approval and correction ensure that employees get paid even when the manager is unavailable for reviewing the time cards. Variable pay such as bonuses, commissions and fines are also accommodated by most services.

Convenience of Paper Paychecks or Direct Deposit

You can ask for paper checks to be delivered to your office, or provide for direct deposit to employees. In either case, the payroll company takes care of statutory withholdings and contributions to health and retirement plans.

Onus of regulatory compliance shifted to payroll service

The biggest headache when processing payroll is keeping pace with changing tax regulations which lead to unnecessary fines and penalties for your company. Payroll services can better handle mandatory tax regulations and ensure compliance with them. Additionally, payroll services themselves pay for penalties, if any, saving you money and worries.

Outsourcing payroll can be one of the most profitable decisions you make. Go ahead and hire a payroll service to reap the benefits of increased business output and profits.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Payroll-Outsourcing-Services—Top-6-Benefits-of-Hiring-a-Professional-Firm-For-Your-Small-Business&id=3188953

Payroll is not simply handing out a pay slip once every week or on a monthly basis. Behind the scenes, there is an individual who must take into account all the numbers and do the calculations for additions and deductions to and from gross salary.

These additions and deductions are usually calculated taking into account some or all of the following items:

• Commission
• Bonus
• Loan Repayment
• Personal Tax Allowance
• National Insurance
• Pension Contributions
• Union Contributions
• Charitable Donations
• PAYE.

All or some of the above are taken into account so that an employee can receive an accurate pay slip based on what they have done for the company. They only receive their pay slip after all of the applicable allowances, additions and deductions have been applied. Hence, the reason why an employees pay slip shows the gross income figure and the net income amount which is their actual take home pay after deductions.

Traditionally, Payroll has been managed within the company, but as changes have taken in business process management, Outsourced Payroll as gained in popularity for number of reasons, and is coming under greater scrutiny as smaller to medium sized businesses and organisations look to establish greater efficiencies and reduce running costs.

Any company despite its size can benefit from Outsourced Payroll due to the range and size of providers offering this service.

What is Outsourced Payroll? It is a service that covers all of the aspects of payroll, but managed by an external provider.

It is often more cost efficient for a business to pay a payroll service to take care of their payroll needs. Why is this?

If you own a small to medium sized business, read on.

1. On average, a small company will end up paying IRD penalties for events that could have been avoided. Typically because they have made a mistake or filed late. Generally, Outsourced Payroll services will take full responsibility for any mistakes made which saves the company money.

2. It saves money to outsource. A bookkeeper in some instances can be more expensive, even if just part time.

3. Elimination of payday stress as your employees will get paid. Most company owners experience such a relief as they let the tensions of pay day fade away.

4. Outsourced Payroll allows you to offer direct deposit to your employees. Employees love this benefit because they are able to skip a trip to the bank each pay day.

5. On many occasions a small business can become overloaded with work and miss preparing payslips and cheques. This can be very frustrating to their employees. An Outsourced Payroll Service removes the additional administrative burden and provides peace of mind for the business owner and ensures employees are paid on time. This takes away the worry of pay day administration worry for both employer and employees.

6. Financial software is constantly changing and can be expensive to support with internal staff that are managing payday administration. Using an Outsourced Payroll Service will remove the requirement to maintain and support internal payroll software systems.

7. Payroll rules and regulations are liable to change and any internal software will require updating. By outsourcing the payroll, any applicable changes in IRD regulations are managed by your provider.

8. One of the greatest attractions of Outsourced Payroll Services is the removal of depending on a single employee to manage and process the payroll. Issues such holidays and sickness disappear as the responsibility now falls on the service provider to ensure a consistent and efficient service.

Outsourced Payroll is gaining in popularity as it can save money, time and eliminate many of the administrative worries associated with this all important business function.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Outsourced-Payroll?&id=4549727

1. Employment Court makes first Trial Period ruling
2. Holidays Amendment Bill changes

You can read the newsletter HERE!

Human resource management includes the physical and mental labor contributed by the work force for the production of goods and services in the business. Research reveals that finance and accounting and marketing functions take precedence over human resources in small businesses. A significantly lesser number of small businesses have full time personnel managers to oversee all the human resource functions of the business.

Read the full article at: http://www.businessblogshub.com/2010/09/human-resource-management-for-small-businesses/

Medium to large businesses have for many years understood the benefits of using specialist payroll companies to manage their payroll requirements. What is becoming evident, however, is the growing need for small business payroll services as well.

Those businesses, whether large companies or SMEs, that have taken the step to outsource payroll services, have based their decision on these realisations, and have not looked back:

1. Australian payroll differs from many other countries in that regulations and requirements can change between states. If you have a national workforce, in-house payroll management can be extremely time-consuming.

2. While there are some impressive payroll software solutions available, by outsourcing payroll functions, the need to rely on a dedicated staff member to perform payroll services is eliminated. There is no interruption to the payroll function when staff members are on leave.

3. They see outsourcing payroll functions as part of their risk management plan, because the provider ensures that the client meets all requirements for governance and compliance.

4. Professional payroll companies are able to clearly define the separation of duties, providing transparency and an audit trail if needed.

5. There is no need for them to update systems and software and retrain staff if and when laws and regulations change.

6. Payroll companies are able to quickly adjust to meet the evolving demands of a business. Whether these changes are integration, downsizing, physical and geographical expansion a quality payroll services will have the flexibility to match these needs.

7. Quality payroll services provide their clients’ with online access to leave application and expenses processing, further eliminating the need for ancillary staff to manage these functions.

Successful businesses recognise that ability to do away with internal payroll systems has a measurable cost/benefit ratio. However, the peace of mind that results from knowing that this important function is being managed professionally is immeasurable!

Source: http://www.payrollnews.com.au/AnnouncementRetrieve.aspx?ID=38171