Studies suggest that over 30% of U.S. businesses that take care of payroll in-house end up being called for IRS audits and penalties for payroll miscalculations? Do you want to get rid of the hassles of payroll processing while simultaneously enhancing its efficiency? Are you aware that good service providers can drastically reduce the costs of payroll processing? Are you ready to learn what characteristics separate effective payroll service providers from the crowd? If yes, then please read on to find the seven habits of highly effective payroll providers.

Habit 1: Understand accountability

Reputed providers are accountable for any mistakes in payroll and are swift to discover and fix them. Effective service providers use an inbuilt error verification program to catch errors before writing checks or direct transfers.

Habit 2: Compliance

Effective providers comply with all local, state and federal employment and tax laws. By using stringent checks and balances, they greatly lower or eliminate the likelihood of IRS audits and penalties for transgressions that arise during payroll processing or payroll tax processing.

Habit 3: Online data transfer

To ensure seamless payroll processing, timely delivery and means to effortlessly deliver payroll data to your provider is critical. Effective service providers allow you to transfer data, essential for payroll processing, online. They also provide online systems that can be accessed through a web browser to evade any need for installation and maintenance of expensive computer software.

Habit 4: Allow flexible billing

All great payroll providers offer you a variety of fee structures. Most charge an initial setup fees and a flat fee for each employee per payroll cycle. Some firms offer multiple fee structures that charge you extra, over and above the annual flat fee per employee, for additional services.

Habit 5: Multiple online tools

Payroll services should supply a range of online tools for your staff such as tools to view and print payroll stubs and tax forms and to make modifications to deductions. They also offer various online tools for business owners. These include tools to enter time card information for hourly staff and tools for monitoring payroll expenses and deductions to help you to assess and control your finances.

Habit 6: Great customer service

An effective payroll processing company will provide you with awesome customer service with quick responsiveness to your queries. It is important that they are quick at fixing errors in paychecks, creating accounts for new employees and taking care of other payroll related issues.

Habit 7: Advanced services

Good payroll providers offer a range of advanced services to further cut your payroll issues while enhancing its efficiency. For retirement plans, they work with financial advisers to help your staff in making the appropriate investment decisions. Other services include running background checks, distribution of key communications to staff members when required, and enrollment and monitoring of health care, life insurance and other benefits programs.

Evaluate a number of payroll providers, services offered and fees charged before making a choice. Get references and find out about the performance and market reputation of your preferred providers to assure quality and reliable service. Lastly, talk to your accountant and attorney before signing on the dotted line.

Daljeet Sidhu is at TradeSeam. Read our Payroll outsourcing and Payroll providers blog. Sign up for sales leads.