Throughout the spring of 2020 and beyond, many companies found themselves working remotely or perhaps utilizing some sort of hybrid work schedule that had employees working from home at least part of the time.
In fact, according to Flex Jobs, many companies now feel that remote work is the future of all work environments—pandemic or not. Notable companies like Adobe, Amazon, and Ford Motor Company— just to name a few— are now offering at least some of their employees long-term permanent remote positions. This all means that you as a business owner might be navigating new territory in this pandemic time in which we are living. Therefore, the question that begs to be asked is, "How can you manage a company’s payroll from home in a remote working environment?"
How to Manage Your Company’s Payroll From Home
To put it short and sweet, the easiest way to oversee payroll for remote employees or to manage payroll for your company remotely is to outsource the task to a payroll management company like TPC. Doing so will offload the tasks associated with payroll, freeing you up to handle other matters pertaining to your business.
Why Outsourcing Payroll Can Be Beneficial
One of the most important aspects of running a business is payroll. After all, even if you are the best boss in the world, it’s highly unlikely anyone wants to work for you for free. Each employee expects to and deserves to be compensated. It is essential that this job is completed at the highest level of accuracy.
Unfortunately, payroll can also be one of the areas of business that is the easiest to mess up whether in terms of remote work or in-person. Therefore, whether your current staff is working remotely or you are looking to hire new remote help, outsourcing to a payroll management service is beneficial. In fact, now’s the time to ensure this is set up correctly before you begin hiring new help.
Remote Workers' Payroll is Challenging: Here are Some Tips
As mentioned above, many businesses try and fail when it comes to payroll. In fact, even in-house HR departments tend to struggle when it comes to remote workers’ payroll. The easiest way to eliminate the stress of managing complicated remote payroll is to outsource the work to a payroll management company. That being said, though, the following are some helpful tips to help you manage payroll for your business— regardless of whether your employees are working remotely or not— or recognize it's time to outsource the task:
- Determine Your Bandwidth: This means to determine how many tasks need to be handled within your company and what can be or should be outsourced. It is important, vitally so, that payroll be completed accurately and on time.
- Identify The Types of Remote Workers on Your Team: There are two main types of remote workers. Determine which category your employees fall under:
- Remote Employees: These individuals work for your company but do so outside your office setting. You are responsible for withholding payroll taxes from their paychecks, just the same as you would with in-house employees.
- Independent Contractors: These individuals are self-employed. They are not employees of your company and therefore handle their own taxes.
- Consider Where Are Your Employees Located: When you pay a remote employee, you pay the local taxes in the state in which the employee resides. Say your Missouri-based company hires a remote employee in Arkansas for example, you will need to comply with all the tax liability rules in that state.
- Make Sure All Employees Records Are up to Date and Well Organized: To get paid, your employees need to accurately complete Form W-4. Have your Employer Identification Number set up and ready. Finally, be sure to send in your employer federal tax return (usually quarterly) and any state and local returns. Don’t forget about preparing your annual filings and W-2’s at the end of the year.
- Set and Carefully Track Employee Hours: Remote working environments can make this challenging. Have set hours, but obviously, if employees are more comfortable working non-conventional hours, this is usually fine as long as they get all their work done. If not, try adopting a digital/mobile time tracking system for your team.
Bottom Line: We Are Here and You Can do This
Setting up payroll and taxes for remote workers can be extremely complicated, but is one of the most integral parts of hiring a remote team. Thankfully, when you have the right tools on hand, guidance in place or outsource the task, the entire setup becomes much more manageable.
