UptoDate Bookkeeping

Payroll Services Outsourcing

Posted on April 29, 2022 by udtadmin - Payroll Services

It’s difficult to know whether or not to outsource payroll services. While payroll functionality is critical, other considerations such as cost and compliance play a role in the decision-making process. It’s critical to comprehend the benefits of outsourcing payroll so that you can feel secure in your decision.

What’s the Difference Between Payroll in-House vs. Payroll Outsourcing?

When a company processes all aspects of employee pay in-house, it is known as in-house payroll processing. These responsibilities include:

Calculating timesheets and wages
Ensuring that the correct amount of payroll taxes is deducted from each payment
Check printing and direct deposit setup
Deductions and payroll taxes calculations

An individual administrator or a team is in charge of in-house payroll. Controlling sensitive company data and when paychecks are issued are two advantages of in-house payroll processing. However, there are still a few drawbacks to conducting payroll in-house. Payroll problems, erroneous deductions, and noncompliance are all potential hazards.

Payroll outsourcing is when a corporation outsources the administrative and compliance activities related with employee pay to a third-party service provider. This may include paying payroll taxes and payments on your behalf, depending on the payroll outsourcing business.
Due to the manual and time-consuming nature of these tasks, many businesses opt for outsourced HR and payroll services. This payroll processing automation frees up HR and payroll managers to focus on more strategic duties in their organizations.

What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Payroll Service Provider?

When opting on payroll outsourcing services, numerous considerations must be considered, including implementation time and return on investment. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of potential benefits and drawbacks of outsourcing payroll services that you should think about before making a final decision.

TIME SAVINGS

26 percent of small firms manually manage payroll three to five hours per month. A consolidated database for payroll and attendance data is available in several solutions. From time capture to paycheck, this unified approach automates the process into a closed-loop workflow. Payroll software accomplishes this by using the following methods:

Employees use the payroll system to clock in, which causes the hours worked to be automatically recorded.
Employees request time off through the same system, which combines attendance and time data.
Eliminates onerous Excel spreadsheet formulas by transferring data from hours worked, multiplied by predetermined pay rates.
The results of these computations are compared to W-4 withholding information to simplify tax compliance, and each pay period, an employee receives an accurate payment.

You may reclaim significant time in your workday by outsourcing payroll to a supplier. You’ll be more productive and have more time to focus on your company’s strategic initiatives. That enormous to-do list will no longer seem so daunting.

COMPLIANCE

In the first year of operation, business owners spend over $83,000 on regulatory fees. When a firm manages payroll tax compliance in-house, it increases the risk of overpaying or underpaying employer taxes.

When you’re already manually handling payroll and HR, staying on top of ever-changing federal and state rules is difficult. Reduced tax fines and risk of noncompliance provide a huge return on investment.

PTO

Manually processing time-off requests can lead to mistakes. Businesses that conduct payroll in-house, for example, have an average of three unreported PTO days per employee each year. If a company employs 100 people with an average salary of $45,000, that’s $36,900 in unpaid vacation time! PTO requests are streamlined using a payroll and HR solution, so days don’t go unreported, saving your company thousands of dollars.

Adherence

Compliance-related operations in HR and payroll departments take up about 36 hours per week, ranging from tracking regulatory proposals to developing and conveying new policies. That is a full-time position!

Reduced time spent on compliance and risk mitigation are two of the most significant advantages of outsourcing payroll. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) imposes millions of dollars in employment tax penalties each year. It’s critical to have a payroll tax compliance partner and expert on hand to mitigate that risk.

Tax filing and payments can be handled by a professional payroll and HR company. A corporation that follows this type of compliance will also be aware of any changes in tax regulations.

Benefits of Outsourcing Your Bookkeeping That Are Often Overlooked

Posted on March 31, 2022 by udtadmin - Bookkeeping Services

It’s never been easier or more appealing to outsource your small business bookkeeping than it is now. The rise of online technology in general, and cloud computing in particular, has transformed the way we all do business. Finding, contacting, and eventually partnering with services that can help your company function more smoothly—and yield a better bottom line—is as simple as clicking a button.

In our opinion, the most typical reasons given by small business owners for neglecting their financial accounting are time and money. They generally admit to not having the time or skills to perform the necessary bookkeeping procedures on their own. However, many are hesitant to incur the expense of hiring an in-house bookkeeper. Many often, these business owners are ignorant of the numerous cost advantages of using a certified outsourced bookkeeping firm.

The Importance Of Service-Oriented Bookkeeping

Using an outsourced bookkeeping service does not imply that you must purchase software and operate the system on your own. A dynamic working relationship between your business and your bookkeeper is created by the human component and customer service given. Bridging the gap between people and software is an excellent business model to consider when hiring an outsourced service.

The Benefits of Saving Time and Money Do Not End There

If you’re new to outsourcing, you should know that handing over your financial records to a professional bookkeeping firm can save you both time and money. Clearing as many distracting administrative activities from your own overloaded plate as possible frees up time that you can invest in your company’s growth and success. At the same time, outsourcing your bookkeeping will typically cost less than adding a full-time or even part-time employee to your payroll. You only pay for what you need, when you need it, when you outsource.

Expertise in the Field

When you outsource to a trustworthy bookkeeping firm, you can’t beat the knowledge and expertise at your disposal. So you don’t have to, these seasoned specialists stay up to speed on all the most important financial facts. Enlisting their assistance will go a long way toward alleviating the stress that comes with responsibilities like government payments, annual tax filings, and the looming threat of an audit. The Value of a Team When you outsource your bookkeeping, you gain access to an entire team of specialists’ diligence and experience. Some items that might go unnoticed or missed by an individual in your office are significantly more likely to be noticed and dealt with appropriately by outsourced financial teams’ regular group effort.

Systems at the highest level

Your company may not be able to buy the most up-to-date accounting software and tools, but your outsourced bookkeeper can. Smart businesses, regardless of industry, invest in the greatest technology available so that they can continue to provide the best service to their customers. You receive all the benefits of top-of-the-line accounting systems without having to invest in or maintain them yourself when you outsource your small business bookkeeping.

Growth of a Small Business

Companies that use virtual bookkeepers have had better results in terms of expanding their business, increasing sales, and enhancing profit margins. Outsourcing greatly expands your company’s scalability possibilities. You have the ability to quickly and effectively expand or cut back. Whether your company is expanding or cutting costs, the outsourced team can provide you a variety of solutions and the finest options for achieving your objectives.

Statements that are correct

Make a Statement

Outsourcing your bookkeeping to a reputable firm can have a big impact on your company’s growth and profitability. Virtual bookkeepers have the resources and capacities to better focus on the complexities of everyday financial reporting, from compliance to regulation revisions. They can explain and evaluate key facts in your financial accounts to assist you in making better decisions. Job costing techniques boost profits, but they rely on reliable bookkeeping records and financial statements to work. The control provided by high-quality financial statements and accurate reporting is an important part of every company’s central management. It enables effective financial planning and strategic growth strategies based on reliable real-time data from your company.

The Bottom Line

With outsourced bookkeeping services, you may take advantage of technology to boost your company’s mobility and scalability. This relationship provides you with more expertise and experience to help you plan and implement the next stages of your business’s growth. This service’s cost savings and intelligent accessibility can help your company develop and earn more quickly. Are you ready to enlist the help of your new bookkeeping partners to relieve you of the stress and obligation of bookkeeping, allowing you to focus on the growth and administration of your expanding company? Schedule a financial consultation for your company to get started.

Can accounts payable and accounts receivable be outsourced?

Posted on February 28, 2022 by udtadmin - accounts payable and accounts receivable

A lot of small business owners manage their own Accounts Receivable collection and Accounts Payable processing, or even delegate them to staff, rather than focusing on their main duties. An unfavorable situation for companies is utilizing valuable and limited human resources for tasks that do not directly relate to the company’s products and services.

Your accounting division performs better when receivables and payables are outsourced since turnaround times are shortened. Businesses may also prevent turnover threats by outsourcing accounting services instead of relying on in-house assets.

Outsourcing helps focus on the necessary

In rebuilding your focus on the basics of your business, you can find the reason to outsource accounts payable and accounts receivable processing. In order to achieve maximum profitability, you need to focus whenever possible on useful, high-margin, growth-oriented activities instead of boring, admin-related routines.

Having staff is crucial to SMBs – their wages, tax obligations, workers’ compensation coverage, and unemployment benefits, not to mention any perks they receive. Then, there’s the physical space that employees need to work in. Still, the last thing SMBs trying to remain lean and mean should do is tie themselves to labor and facility costs that can be avoided by switching over to a company that is better suited to do the work.

It goes without saying that a business can prosper without hiring new employees-but whenever you make an investment, you aim to hire professionals who will enhance the business’s value. Businesses should, however, keep in mind that many tasks that someone else is much better at performing can be outsourced-usually less expensively than hiring someone internally to do them.

Concentrate your efforts and those of your staff on the company’s goals and progress, and leave the day-to-day operations to companies that are experts in those areas.

Business Outsourcing Companies Offer Increased Efficiency

Processing payables and collecting receivables could be integrated with other business processes; however, accounting does not have to be in-house for the integration to take place. Outsourcing accounting services generally helps you strengthen other duties because it ensures continuous service and results in increased standardization and dependability.

This assists in assuring that there is just a nominal, if not annihilation, of any knowledge gap.

UptoDate Bookkeeping can handle your accounts payable and receivable if you are looking for an outsourcing firm.

What is the difference between bookkeeping and accounting?

Posted on February 1, 2022 by udtadmin - Bookkeeping Services

When people think about the differences between bookkeeping and accounting, they often have difficulty distinguishing the two. The objectives of bookkeepers and accountants are similar, but they provide assistance to your company at different points during the financial cycle.

Essentially, bookkeeping is the process of recording financial transactions in a transactional and administrative manner. Accounting data provides you with insight into the financial health of your company in a more subjective way.

Bookkeeping is important

A business’ bookkeeping is the process of collecting financial data and recording daily transactions.

Records financial transactions • Posts debits and credits • Produces invoices • Prepares financial statements (balance sheet, cash flow statement, and income statement) • Maintains and balances subsidiary accounts, general ledgers, and historical accounts

Maintaining a general ledger is an important part of bookkeeping. A general ledger is a basic document used by bookkeepers to record the income and expenses received from sales. This is called posting. Increasing sales require more frequent updates to the ledger. In addition to specialized software, you can also use a spreadsheet or just a piece of lined paper to create a ledger.

The complexity of an accounting system is usually determined by the size of the company and the volume of daily, weekly, and monthly transactions. Documentation of your company’s sales and purchases is required in the ledger, and some transactions require supporting documents. For more information, visit the IRS website.

The role of accounting in society

Accounting is the process of creating financial models by analyzing financial data obtained by bookkeepers and business owners.

Unlike the largely transactional bookkeeping process, the accounting procedure is more subjective.

preparing adjusting entries (recording expenses that have occurred but have not yet been entered in the accounting system) • reviewing company financial statements • analyzing costs of operations • preparing income tax returns • helping business owners understand the impact of financial decisions

Accountants analyze financial data to assist in making business decisions. As a result, you’ll understand the true profitability and cash flow of your company. Accounting uses data from the general ledger to reveal a company’s overall picture and trajectory. Business owners frequently seek the assistance of accountants for tax planning, financial analysis, and tax filing.

What is the difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper?

Occasionally, bookkeepers and accountants do similar work, but their skills are different. A bookkeeper’s main responsibility is to keep track of transactions and keep you organized financially, whereas accountants provide consulting, analysis, and tax advice.

Qualifications for bookkeeping

It’s not required that bookkeepers have formal education. In order to be successful, bookkeepers must be meticulous with their work and knowledgeable about important financial matters. Generally, either an accountant or the owner of the company whose books the bookkeeper is keeping supervises the bookkeeper’s work. Therefore, a bookkeeper cannot claim to be an accountant

Qualifications for accountants

Accounting bachelor’s degrees are typically required for accountants. Those without an accounting degree often consider finance degrees to be suitable substitutes.

Accounting professionals can obtain further professional certifications, unlike bookkeepers. Certified Public Accountants (CPAs), one of the most prestigious accounting credentials, can earn the title with enough experience and education. To become a CPA, an accountant must pass the Uniform Certified Public Accountant examination and have professional accounting experience. Part of the cost of hiring an accountant depends on his or her certifications.

How Can a Bookkeeper Help My Business?

Posted on December 30, 2021 by udtadmin - Bookkeeping Services

What Do Bookkeepers Do?

In addition to recording expenses, income, and transactions in a company’s books, bookkeepers reconcile the company’s financial accounts on a monthly basis. A bookkeeper might also help prepare financial statements and reports. Even though bookkeeping can be an in-house position, most businesses hire freelance bookkeepers.

A bookkeeper can wear a variety of hats depending on what a business needs. The majority of bookkeepers nowadays work with business accounting software. In addition, most bookkeepers can handle a few tasks for your business. Despite the fact that a bookkeeper’s job is multifaceted, there are some tenets that all bookkeepers follow.

You may also be wondering if you need a bookkeeper if you’re wondering what a bookkeeper does. The tasks that a bookkeeper can perform for you, how much a bookkeeper charges, and how to find a good bookkeeper will be discussed.

What Are the Duties of a Bookkeeper?

This question can’t be answered simply. Bookkeeping can vary from business to business, just like any other line of work. Bookkeepers tend to handle the following tasks most often, however:

Record financial transactions
Reconcile bank accounts
Manage bank feeds
Handle accounts receivable
Handle accounts payable
Work with your tax preparer and assist with tax compliance
Prepare financial statements
Take on some payroll and human resource functions
Make technology and process streamlining recommendations

Here’s a closer look at what a bookkeeper does:

Reconcile Your Bank Accounts

Reconciling your financial accounts is the most important task for any bookkeeper. It ensures that the information in your accounting software matches the information in your bank statements, credit card statements, and other financial statements.

You should reconcile your accounts regularly to avoid overdraft fees, fraudulent charges, or incorrectly recorded transactions. Software makes reconciliation relatively simple, but there is still a need for a human touch to ensure all transactions are accurately recorded.

Manage Bank Feeds

In a nutshell, your bookkeeping service or bookkeeper should be managing the transactions coming in through your accounting system’s bank feed. With a bank feed, you can see each transaction in real-time from your accounting software.

Accounting software should be able to automatically categorize certain transactions, depending on how effective it is. Credit card transactions from an airline, for example, can automatically be categorized as travel expenses. They make sure that these transactions are properly categorized by keeping an eye on them.

The bookkeeper may also have to manually enter transactions that aren’t included in the bank feed. A lot of the transactions that need to be added will be generated outside of the accounting system, such as cash payments or handwritten checks. It may also involve matching customer deposits with outgoing transactions as payments against vendor bills to help manage accounts receivable.

Handle Accounts Receivable

There are several ways to manage accounts receivable. Small businesses may enter their own estimates or invoices, and they may receive payments against the invoices.

There is another option, however. The client calculates the job using an industry-specific estimating program, then provides the bookkeeper with the total. As the project progresses, they create or update invoices in their QuickBooks Online account.

Invoice generation, sending invoices to customers, preparing statements, and assisting with collections are all part of the account receivable services we provide to our clients. The customer notifies the bookkeeper when they have been paid, we enter the payment in QuickBooks Online, and then we create a deposit matching what the client takes to the bank.

Handle Accounts Payable

In addition to accounts receivable, many bookkeepers handle accounts payable for their clients. The bookkeeper will deal with all vendor bills the company receives. The bookkeeper should note the payment deadlines from each vendor, early payment discounts if available, and submit payment to the vendor. When a company grows, bookkeepers can add additional approvers to approve payments. To maintain positive trade credit terms and relationships with suppliers, you need to manage your accounts payable properly.

Work with Your Tax Preparer

Many bookkeepers are unaware of the fact that, by default, they’re going to act as a translator between you and your certified public accountant or enrolled agent. A bookkeeper often has a better understanding of your books, so when it’s time to file your small business taxes, you can have your bookkeeper contact your tax preparer.

Prepare Financial Statements

For your business, most bookkeepers will prepare three financial statements: a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement. The financial statements should be updated every month, and again at the end of the year. Profit and loss statements show your company’s bottom line and operating expenses.

The balance sheet shows the assets and liabilities of your business. The cash flow statement shows how your company is spending and earning cash. Bookkeepers can prepare financial statements with accounting software and send them to their accountants and tax preparers.

Process Payroll

Payroll and human resource functions are sometimes also handled by bookkeepers. Payroll may be included in your bookkeeping service, or they may help you with tax payments and forms. Your accounting system might import payroll data directly from your payroll service provider, or it might import data from a file provided by your payroll service provider. You might also be able to use a bookkeeper to manage timesheets for hourly employees.

Recommend technologies and processes for streamlining

Additionally, bookkeepers are pretty good at keeping up with the latest technology. It’s not uncommon for your bookkeeper to discover a new app or solution tailored to your industry, such as self-employed accounting software, for instance, especially if many of their clients are in the same industry. Perhaps there is a way to reduce labor costs. The goal of a bookkeeper is to streamline your back office. Consequently, they can be an extremely valuable partner for your business.

Bookkeepers Help You Get Back to Business

You now know all of the main skills a bookkeeper can bring to your business. There’s much more to bookkeeping than simple data entry and consulting an accounting book.

Ultimately, the answer to this question will depend on what you and your small business need from your bookkeeper. You will have more time and energy to focus on growing your small business by having a bookkeeper keep track of your finances.

Learn How QuickBooks Can Help You

Posted on November 30, 2021 by udtadmin - QuickBooks Pro Advisor

Those in the bookkeeping industry know who QuickBooks ProAdvisors are. A ProAdvisor is more than a “QuickBooks Consultant.” They can help you with specific problems such as choosing the right QuickBooks version, creating industry-specific templates, or setting up a simple payroll that the business owner or accountant can handle. They can do these things for you, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what they can do to help grow and profit your business.

Accounting software company Quickbooks has over 80% market share, thanks to its wide range of products for small and large businesses alike. However, utilizing QuickBooks for your accounting and fully leveraging it for your business are two different things. By understanding what QuickBooks can do for you, what version is right for you, when a new version is needed, and how to leverage the software’s full potential, you will truly unlock the key to your financial success.

A QuickBooks ProAdvisor can help you take advantage of everything the accounting software has to offer. They can also help train your in-house resources, such as your bookkeepers and accountants, so that they can utilize the full power of QuickBooks, which can transform your business. As long as your internal resources are adequately trained, you’ll be able to handle complex accounting problems without outside assistance.

After receiving QuickBooks training, your bookkeeper(s) and accountant(s) can use it to its full potential. Below are some examples.

Understanding Industry-Specific QuickBooks Usage

QuickBooks is an accounting software that covers many fundamentals and can virtually accommodate the needs of any industry. For larger growing companies, QuickBooks Enterprise offers different industry-specific editions (contractor, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, etc. ), all of which come with special features specific to their industry. However, you (or your accountant) need to run a cost-benefit analysis and determine whether QuickBooks Enterprise is the right choice in the first place, something a ProAdvisor can also assist with.

The accounting needs of businesses in different industries vary. If your accountant has been properly trained, they will likely be able to meet your needs even without the industry-specific edition. Business growth and smart accounting decisions can be made more efficient if you understand the difference between inventory management for an e-commerce company and a bricks-and-mortar business transitioning to e-commerce. Developing expertise relevant to your specific industry can help your bookkeepers and accountants become your growth drivers. On the other hand, if they are limited to rudimentary QuickBooks accounting, they might hinder the growth of your business.

Learning The Best Practices

It’s not always beneficial to gain experience without proper training. Trial and error is still learning, but if an accountant only does things to “get things done,” they will not perform optimally. However, if your accountant(s) and bookkeeper(s) are trained by ProAdvisors in QuickBooks best practices and the accounting practices of your industry, they will waste less time, make fewer (if any) costly mistakes, and contribute to your business growth.

Accountants must utilize the primary accounting tool properly to ensure proper accounting for a business. If they fail to do so, it won’t result in “proper accounting.”

By adopting the best QuickBooks practices, your accounting can become significantly more efficient, including:

Spotting unusual financial patterns
Identifying where your business is losing money
Determining your most profitable avenues
Helping your accountants “paint” a detailed and more accurate picture of your business’s finances

In contrast, suboptimal use of the software can bury financial problems in a mess of data until they become too large.

Understanding How to Use Advanced Features and Which are Right For Your Business

If someone buys a Ferrari and does not drive it over 70 mph, what would you say?

A powerful tool is being underutilized by the person in question.

Accounting is similar to an accountant never going beyond the basics of QuickBooks. However, they can fully utilize QuickBooks with proper guidance and training. They would learn how they can automate certain processes with advanced features, which would lead to greater productivity (with less effort spent) and fewer errors.

Your team can also stay up to date with new QuickBooks advanced features when they’re released by QuickBooks ProAdvisors.

In addition, it is a good idea to learn how to integrate and use QuickBooks with other business software (like your CRM) or third-party applications. If your accountant wants to make the most of QuickBooks, they should know that some of the advanced features and customizations might not be effective for your business.

How UpToDate Bookkeeping Can Help

Team members at UpToDate Bookkeeping know what they’re doing, but they also know how to explain it. Our QuickBooks trainers must possess a deep understanding of the software, as well as strong teaching skills. We have achieved long-term success by leveraging our knowledge and expertise to help train our clients’ staff on how to unleash QuickBooks’ full potential.

Finding the Right Bookkeeper for Your Company: Everything You Need to Know

Posted on October 29, 2021 by udtadmin - Bookkeeping Services

bookkeeping services near forest lake mn

Outsourcing bookkeeping can be a good option if you’re ready to remove bookkeeping from your plate, but it can also raise a lot of questions. Which tasks will your bookkeeper be able to handle? Does a bookkeeping service cost a lot? Is it possible to use only bookkeeping software on your own?

This article discusses a few factors to consider when choosing a bookkeeping solution:

The benefits of outsourcing your bookkeeping — versus using bookkeeping software or hiring a bookkeeper in house
What tasks a bookkeeping service can cover
How the process of outsourcing your books actually works
How much you should realistically budget for quality outsourced bookkeeping.

We’ll go over everything you need to know in order to make key decisions about outsourcing your bookkeeping.

Is it a good idea to outsource your books?

You can see the benefits of putting bookkeeping off your plate and onto someone else’s. Here are some examples:

This means your time and patience go into growing the business rather than doing it yourself.
You won’t need to worry about inaccuracies or falling behind on your books when a professional is handling it.
Your books will be complete, professional, and ready for a CPA to review when you are ready to raise money or file your tax return.

You don’t have to outsource your bookkeeping to another company to get your books off your hands. In-house bookkeepers are another option. Why should you outsource your books instead of hiring an in-house team?

As your business grows, you can scale your bookkeeping service up or down as needed.
In many cases, outsourced bookkeeping services are less expensive (sometimes by a lot) than hiring a full-time bookkeeper and paying benefits.
Bookkeepers are vetted and hired by someone else.

What an outsourced bookkeeping service can do for you

It turns out that there’s a lot of overlap between bookkeeping, accounting, and taxes. Each bookkeeper performs a specific set of tasks. When you outsource your bookkeeping, what is actually included in that service?

Outsourced bookkeeping services can handle any and all of the following:

In other words, you can import financial information from bank statements, credit card statements, payroll records, invoices, etc.
Accounting for those transactions by categorizing and reconciling them
The tracking of bills and revenue yet to be recognized (which includes accounts payable and accounts receivable management)
Maintaining accurate and up-to-date books
On a monthly or quarterly basis, we provide you with accurate financial statements, such as Profit & Loss (Income) Statements, cash flow statements, and a balance sheet
Understanding your financial statements and other aspects of your bookkeeping
Providing investors, tax preparers, and anyone else who needs access to complete and accurate financial reporting.

It’s up to you to work out the details with the person or service you choose. Ensure your expectations are aligned with their offerings before signing up by asking questions up front.

Why You Should Outsource Your Bookkeeping

Every business needs accurate, complete financial records – but managing them doesn’t have to consume all of your time and patience. Taking the back office off your plate is worth the investment if you would rather spend time growing your business.

This way, you can be certain your books are accurate and get back to what you do best.

Payroll Outsourcing: How it Can Help Your Business

Posted on September 30, 2021 by udtadmin - Payroll Services

Even though payroll is time-consuming, it plays an essential role in every operation. Businesses of all sizes opt to outsource their payroll functions to professionals rather than managing payroll functions in-house with manual bookkeeping.

What Exactly is Payroll Outsourcing?

Outsourcing payroll functions allows businesses to save money, time, and effort by outsourcing all payroll functions to an external manager. Comparatively to in-house payroll management, outsourced payroll solutions provide a higher level of accuracy since they are prepared, analysed, and evaluated by qualified professionals.

Ideally, payroll outsourcing achieves three key goals –

It allows businesses to focus more on core tasks by freeing up both time and resources.
The costs and risks associated with it are reduced.
Ensures businesses have access to the latest payroll technology and expertise.

Let us discuss these benefits in more detail and understand what they mean for businesses.

Benefits of Outsourcing Payroll

The following advantages can be gained from outsourcing your payroll process to a qualified service provider.

Enhanced Productivity/Time Saving

The process of managing payroll processing in-house is extremely time-consuming and requires a great deal of resources, manpower, and attention to detail, resulting in lost productivity. Furthermore, the time spent on accurate payroll management, involving a great deal of data, diverts time from core business activities.

Businesses and HR departments can devote more time to other important tasks for business growth and expansion by outsource payroll.

Reduced Costs

Time is the most important commodity for any business owner. It is linked to the revenue that the business generates from tasks that it handles. Time is money, so the more time they save each day, the more money they earn.

There is a huge value when it comes to calculating employee hours, paid time off, deductions, leaves, printing and distributing paychecks, and completing tax returns.

The outsourcing of payroll processing allows you to ensure all aspects of the payroll process, including handling payroll inquiries, calculating payroll taxes, and filing statutory documents, are handled efficiently and effectively. By outsourcing payroll functions, you can save a lot of money when you compare how much time is spent in-house managing payroll, versus how much you would have paid for those services if you did it internally.

Advantage of the Latest Technology

The rapid advancement of technology has led to an increase in global payroll companies using cloud-based systems to manage their business data, give better visibility and transparency to payroll processing, and maintain robust data integrity.

With outsourcing payroll, you can also take advantage of emerging technologies, such as RPA, used by specialist payroll service providers to optimize payroll processing, improving the accuracy and timeliness of the process. Many of the latest payroll technologies are used by professional payroll providers such as UptoDate Bookkeeping to manage payroll outsourcing seamlessly.

Compliance

When it comes to handling complicated government tax regulations related to payroll, many small business owners struggle. It becomes difficult to process salaries and reimbursements of every employee in an organization due to a variety of complex rules, employee benefit mistakes, multiple bylaws, PF percentages, and taxes. It is important that businesses avoid mistakes that can lead to audit irregularities and penalties.

Professional payroll service providers, on the other hand, have the required expertise and are always abreast about the latest compliance regulations, and tax rate changes. They also have dedicated staff to help companies meet all the regulatory updates.

Enhanced Data Security

Managing payroll in-house entails a number of risks, including the safety of the server/network and embezzlement. There is also always a risk of data mishandling when increasing numbers of employees are working from home these days.

Providers of outsourced payroll services use highly secure cloud-based servers and encryption technology to keep your sensitive information safe.

Conclusion

Despite not directly affecting the business, payroll is one of those critical business functions. However, if it is not done in an efficient manner, it can negatively impact the overall business.

Providers of payroll services specializing in payroll management typically provide many services including compliance, complexities of regulations, tax calculations, and human resource management. UptoDate Bookkeeping, powered by a strong technology backbone, has achieved >99.8% accuracy in managing payroll for our clients. With such trained professionals handling payroll functions, business productivity can be enhanced, and you can focus on the growth of your company.

You’re losing money. Is it a poor management of accounts payable?

Posted on September 1, 2021 by udtadmin - Bookkeeping Services

We all know that accounts payable is more than just paying the bills. A poorly managed accounts payable can harm your profit margins, while a well-managed accounts payable can boost your bottom line.

It is not uncommon for companies to attach more importance to profits than to expenses. Expenses, like revenue, impact profitability as well. Thus, accounts payable management also has a direct effect on the bottom line of your company.

You can learn what you need to do to make sure your payables have a positive impact on profitability by reading on.

Top 3 Ways Accounts Payable Management Impacts Profitability

1. Vendor Relationships

Probably goes without saying, but it’s still important to mention: always pay your bills on time. Managing accounts payable is the first step to benefiting your bottom line.

Your ability to pay on time and in accordance with the agreement will not only prevent you from incurring unnecessary late fees on your bills, but it will also protect your credit history from bad marks while assisting you in building a good working relationship with your vendors and suppliers.

As a result, your business will have established a sterling reputation for repayment, which will enable you to take advantage of the best terms and conditions when it comes to cash flow-friendly payment of inventory and other supplies (including the best rates and payment due dates). Credit cards can be a great way for businesses to reduce overall expenses and increase profits.

You’ll also be more likely to work with a vendor if you run into a problem when you need to pay them, since they’re familiar with you and have a stellar history.

Besides paying on time, making payments early may also increase your profitability. You might assume that holding onto your cash for as long as possible and paying your vendors at the last minute is always the best strategy for payables. Even though this might be true – especially if you experience frequent cash flow shortages – paying early can sometimes be advantageous.

When you pay your invoice or statement ahead of the due date, many suppliers offer a discount for early payment. Pay early if your cash flow is strong and your cash flow is positive. Profit margins will grow as a result.

2. Better (or Worse) Cash Flow

In order to stay in business and be profitable, it is crucial to manage cash flow well. Accounts payable management can have a significant impact on your cash flow and, consequently, on your profitability.

Keeping cash in your business for as long as possible (by extending accounts payable days) can improve cash flow if your company is suffering from cash flow shortages. Therefore, if you’re short on funds, wait until the bill is due before paying it.

A longer repayment period or delaying payment will enable you to keep more cash available for your business. This ensures that your business’s cash is flowing out in a timely fashion. In a cash-flow pinch, prioritize your payables by focusing on those due now, ones past-due, and those with the highest interest rates.

Take advantage of your good relationships with your suppliers now if you think you might be facing cash flow problems. Let your vendors know what’s happening and ask them if they can accommodate your needs until your cash flow improves. If you risk tarnishing the relationship or not being paid, you will likely have more difficulty getting your suppliers to repay your debts.

You will be able to avoid cash flow shortages if you pay close attention to your payables and the effect they have on your cash flow.

3. Hours Spent on Manual Work

Paying bills is something everyone is familiar with. Paying bills takes more than a few seconds in a business.

We can’t emphasize enough how important automation is (As experts in “Zero Entry Accounting”, we are experts at automating the back office. When clients come to us, we see the problems caused without automation.)

During the course of your business, you will likely work with more suppliers and vendors, each with a different cycle of billing and a different schedule of payment due dates. Some payments should be made early and some on time. Others may offer electronic payment options, while others will require a check.

It takes some time to open envelopes, read physical invoices, approve expenses, cut checks and sign into secure payment servers (both yours and the employees’). Accounts payable management requires a tremendous amount of resources when handled manually – just to send money out!

It is therefore imperative that you automate your accounts payable function. Accounting automation will help you save time and also help you reduce overhead costs and cut labor costs associated with bill payment.

Further, automating processes will allow your employees to focus on higher-value projects that are intended to generate revenue instead of spending money. Increasing productivity and boosting the bottom line are guaranteed with automated accounts payable management.

Automate Accounts Payable Management With a Fully Integrated Back Office

It doesn’t matter how many vendors you work with or how many bills you have to pay, your business will benefit from automating a variety of processes, including accounts payable.

You will be able to save time double-checking invoices, paying bills, and signing checks, along with keeping a complete record of all your business expenses. With your receipts automatically categorized and up-to-date, audits will be simplified, tax filings will be simplified, and report generation will be simplified and streamlined.

Therefore, you won’t only have less headaches paying your company’s bills, you’ll also ensure that you’re making the most of every payment you make.

Tips for Small Business Bookkeeping

Posted on July 30, 2021 by udtadmin - Bookkeeping Services

You can use these small business bookkeeping tips to manage your day-to-day accounts and office tasks. You will learn how to do bookkeeping with these tips and be better able to operate your business.

Separate your personal and business banking

To keep business funds separate from personal funds, new business owners must open a new business bank account as soon as possible. Ideally, the new account should have online access. Processing business expenses in the business bookkeeping is a waste of time. Having personal expenses mixed into your accounts with a bookkeeper is even worse…

If they are mixed up with business transactions, they will need to be processed. To enter them, they must be coded to drawings in the bookkeeping system, taking up valuable time that could be spent entering business information.

To avoid the bookkeeper from having to deal with a million small personal transactions and making you pay for their time, if you need to use business money for personal expenses, you should do a bulk transfer to your personal account on a regular basis, such as once a week.

Organize Your Business Documentation

Documenting all business transactions is a top priority. Accounting source documents are called accounting source documents. Keeping them allows you to:

Easy tracking for any future queries that might pop up, and
Proof (to an auditor or tax man) of what occurred.

Tax departments typically require businesses to keep the documents that back up their tax claims for a minimum of five and often seven years. Documents such as invoices, receipts, wage records, etc. Find out how long your local tax department keeps records by doing an internet search for it. It is only possible to keep the records if they are filed and archived in a very logical manner. A box or basket full of papers arranged randomly makes it difficult to find what one needs, not to mention frustrating.

Learn to Understand Monthly Bookkeeping Reports

It is surprising how many business owners do not know if what they are doing is working until it is too late, i.e. when they suddenly find themselves in debt and with no money. By keeping your bookkeeping system updated and producing reports once a month, you can avoid this scenario. Learn how to read and understand those reports. If you want to own and run a business, you can’t ignore this factor. The income statement and balance sheet are the two most important reports to begin with.

Outsource Your Bookkeeping When it becomes too hard to handle

Business owners who double as office administrators and bookkeepers and struggle with bookkeeping or do not have enough time can outsource the whole thing.

Outsourcing is:

Cost Effective : Because you only need to pay for a couple of hours of work a month opposed to paying a regular wage, and
Accuracy : You are getting that necessary professional work done on your accounts so you can be confident they are correct.

Professional bookkeepers can prepare monthly reports quickly after processing bank transactions, reconciling accounts, and compiling reports. Whatever amount of work you need done can be outsourced.

The great thing about experienced professional bookkeepers is that they are usually in a position to give you great business advice over and above your day to day bookkeeping needs such as :-

Investigate new software and advise if any are a good fit for your business
Attend business meetings with you and your banker and help explain the accounts to the banker if you find it a little difficult
Help prepare your annual budget and cash flow reports
Train your office employees
And much more