While the new year makes me want to join a gym and get fit for summer (yes, I know it's March now), it may cause you to consider switching payroll providers.
I've been comparing gyms in order to find the right one that fits my schedule and offers what I want. I like to run and swim, so I need a place with treadmills and a pool. I also don't want to pay a million dollars a month. Or be surrounded by people who are way more advanced than me.
Finding the right payroll provider is no different. You may own a new business and just need to pay your employees. Or you may have a growing team and need to offer benefits to your full-time workers.
Regardless of size or industry, finding the right payroll provider will help you build a better back office. Streamlined processes and supportive customer service empower you to lead your team, get back to your passion, and gain peace of mind about taxes and compliance.
At Whirks, we serve several different business owners, but our largest clientele base lies in restaurants, home health care, and professional services. For the purpose of this article, we're going to dive in and explain how our software and service benefit each of these industries.
Restaurants
Restaurants can have a high amount of turnover. Typically they have issues with attracting and hiring talent, so they want to make sure they implement electronic onboarding usually in conjunction with an applicant tracking system (ATS), which empowers you to hire top talent in a repeatable and organized process quickly.
Even if you aren't hiring a large number of employees on a regular basis, having a system to reduce paperwork, track signed documents, and ensure compliance is a necessity in our book. Onboarding with an ATS costs $1,500-$3,000 annually depending on the size of your team.
Most restaurant owners track their servers' time working and tips via Point of Sale (POS) system, which eliminates the need for a time and attendance feature. Having a system that allows for ease of getting this data out of the POS and into your payroll system is key.
If you are a restaurant with more than 50 employees, we introduce and discuss the importance of benefits administration. At that point, you have an ACA reporting requirement or you're offering benefits that need to be managed properly.
Home Health Care
Home health care needs are similar to a restaurant's. For example, time and attendance are usually managed by their Enterprise Resource System (ERP).
Attracting and hiring the right candidates is imperative for this industry because you might also struggle with high turnover. Electronic onboarding helps you hire health aides and nurses more easily. You can request drug testing, verify certifications, and run background checks.
In addition to your hiring needs, you may have complicated shift differentials that are determined by:
- The type of shift worked
- Your employees' job department
- Or employee by employee
We work with agencies who have a fee-per-visit pay scale for the home health and hospice side of their business, but they may also offer mileage reimbursement, drive time, and shift differentials for their non-medical caregivers with increased pay for long-time employees.
Between all of these different pay scales, electronic visit verifications, and managing visits in your ERP, it’s difficult for your admin team to process payroll quickly and accurately. That’s why it’s beneficial that your payroll team knows your industry.
If you’re working with a company that isn’t familiar with your pay scales or the types of people you employ, it can be difficult for their support team to ensure you’re doing things efficiently.
Most home health agencies have at least 50 employees, which means you have to be in compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which means you have to:
- Confirming benefits eligibility
- Managing the 90-day waiting period
- Running data
- Creating reports
- Filing ACA annual forms to the IRS
At Whirks, we handle your ACA reporting, ensure ACA compliance, and provide an integrated platform for your team to use to enroll in the proper benefit programs at the right time. This increases accuracy and efficiency while saving time and giving you peace of mind.
White-Collar Services
Lastly, we work with a lot of white-collar services (aka, people who work in an office all day - like us).
In this industry, employee experience has to be as easy as possible. Your teams are usually tech-savvy and already do everything on their phones and computers.
For that reason, electronic onboarding is also critical. This includes filling out first-day paperwork, accessing tax documents, and signing agreements or non-competes electronically. This is a great resource if you hire remote teammates.
Typically, white-collar services have both hourly and salary employees. Our time and attendance solution can be accessed on your phone or computer, making it easy for employees to clock in and out, submit PTO requests, and view accruals.
For this industry, we'd eventually recommend integrating a Learning Management System (LMS) or building a learning path for each role in your organization.
However, an LMS is also a growing trend with restaurants. Several of our service industry clients may adopt this feature after they've experienced a lot of growth.
Different industries, same system.
Regardless of your industry or size, there's one piece of advice that applies to every business owner: keep it simple. The fewer systems you have, the better.
Think about it: with several different integrations and applications, you have to be prepared for one of them to break down or stop communicating with each other at some point. It's easier for me to find the gym with the pool, instead of choosing to pay memberships for different ones and drive back and forth.
You need payroll to pay your employees (shocking, right?) but over time, you'll discover the best practices for your industry and what you need as a business owner. Our packages at Whirks are tailored to accommodate you and your team and get you one step better every day. Curious what you need to build a better back office? Check out this article to understand the importance of integrating your payroll with an HCM system.
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