Companies You Should Choose When Outsourcing Your Payroll
At Knight Home Care Financial, we highly suggest outsourcing your payroll when possible? This post isn’t going to tell you WHY you should outsource your payroll but WHO you should choose to complete the task.
(Click here to see WHY we suggest outsourcing payroll)
Let’s discuss evaluating a payroll company to find one that matches your needs best. The first suggestion I have on this topic is to really do a FULL demo. Ask them to show you ALL of their platform’s capabilities, all the bells and whistles. This is important because oftentimes they may have features and add-ons that you don’t even know about, later you find a need for that kind of a solution and now you know they can offer it. The more you can find with one solution, the better.
Also, ask if their components are truly one platform, or various platforms pieced together. There is no right or wrong answer on this one, I just think it’s important for you to know so you can understand how the various pieces work together.
Here are just some of the features now available in various payroll platforms: timekeeping systems, electronic self on-boarding for employees, employee portals, talent management from hiring through off-boarding, electronic records and employee documents/handbooks, human resource functions, benefits management, expense reimbursements, ACA reporting, WOTC (Work Opportunity Tax Credit) tracking and management and probably more that I can’t even think of right now. And any platform you select should be 100% online, cloud based.
Ask about their customer service. How is this handled? Do they have chat, email, phone, phone queue? I’d be cautious of anyone that doesn’t have direct phone support. Sounds old school but think about it, when you have a payroll emergency – you need that handled ASAP sometimes. You don’t want to be stuck on some phone queue. I like companies that have good email support with a ticketing system and real people to answer the phone if you call.
So why does QuickBooks payroll not work? Mostly the limitation comes down to reporting. In our industry labor cost is your biggest expense. And there is a need for labor to be properly “costed out” or reported on your financial statements. You need to be able to report total wages for each direct care discipline: RN, LVN, Attendants, Aides, etc and also segregate out Admin, Marketing, Bereavement, etc from the administrative wages. This must be done for cost reporting at year-end, and it is best practice to have it reported this way in your day-to-day financial reports as well.
Again, QB can do it, but not easily and not very well. QB does not use departments in any fashion. It does have Classes and that works OK at best. It doesn’t work well when you have an employee that splits time between skills. Another way to accomplish it is to use specific pay items, Visit – RN, Visit – LVN, etc. with each of those pointed to the correct GL code to make it appear correctly on the financial reports. Sure, that will work but you will end up with a very long pay item list depending on what type of provider you are, and this just gets messy.
In addition to the lack of good departmental reporting QB doesn’t have any advanced features when you start getting into complicated pay arrangements, corrections and such. And support is hard to come by if you can find any at all.
I know there are many large provider service agencies out there that still do payroll in QuickBooks Desktop. It does work, but it takes a ton of man hours to get it done. QB doesn’t integrate with any of the EMR/Billing systems that you use and thus there is a lot of manual work to be done. Consider using a payroll company that can tie directly into your EMR like AlayaCare, Vesta, Clear Care and others. They can connect directly to that billing system and extract all of your attendant hours. Think about the man hours saved there, and the accuracy!
At the end of the day, payroll is one of those back office tasks that is just better handled by someone else – in all cases IMO.
Here are my preferred payroll partners and why I like each of them:
Whirks
Whirks is an independent Human Capital Management company that provides full service payroll processing, human resources and all of the fancy things that an ADP style software can provide but with REAL people behind the scenes to provide that personal service that we all love. This payroll company was born out of a CPA Firm so they know and understand why it is so important that your payroll is set up properly to facilitate proper reporting.
www.whirks.com, Shelby Betts, shelbyb@whirks.com
Viventium
Viventium is a payroll processing company that specializes in home care. This company has worked with many of the EMR/Billing systems to provide a seamless integration from the EMR to the payroll system so that there is very minimal data entry needed. This reduces man hours and increases accuracy tremendously!
www.viventium.com, Jon Bearn, jbearn@viventium.com
Payroll Vault San Antonio
Payroll Vault San Antonio is a family owned and operated payroll company with the best personal-touch services. This company is run by a husband & wife team that you have direct access to. This is like working with your friend down the hall – but with quality payroll as the outcome. They have a fully automated platform just like the bigger guys, but still offer hands-on assistance and less automated payroll processing as well for those that like that extra hand-held experience.
https://www.payrollvault.com/payroll-services-for-small-business-in-san-antonio-texas.html, Sean Pettit, sean.pettit@payrollvault.com
There you have it- Knight Home Care Financial’s suggestions on WHO to choose for outsourcing your payroll. With your payroll in the hands of a company you trust, your team is suddenly free to focus on far more important tasks- worry free!
About Knight Home Care Financial
Knight Home Care Financial is a Texas-based accounting firm that provides innovative accounting solutions for providers in assisted living, home health, hospice care, and nursing facilities. By focusing solely on post-acute and long-term health providers, the firm is able to offer tailored services that meet and simplify the business and regulatory demands of the industry. For more information, visit www.knighthcfinancial.com.
