The survey by Bloomergtax shows that small business owners found that processing payroll is one of the most considerable time consumers business leaders face. They reported spending at least five hours per pay period on this task. On the face of it, that may not sound like much time.
However, when the end of the year comes along, and you still have your targets to meet, can you afford to sacrifice up to 21 days of selling time to process your agency's payroll?
Paying your team (and yourself) on time and correctly every month is crucial. While outsourcing this area of your business may seem daunting at first, the benefits more than outweigh any fears.
Increased revenues:
We have already touched upon the amount of time used up each month by some small business owners. But you can gain that time back by outsourcing your payroll. In addition, this enables you to concentrate more of your efforts on those activities that could positively impact your agency.
Reduced risk and peace of mind:
The ever-increasing changes to HMRC's rules and regulations mean that you must keep up to date with the latest developments. In order to avoid costly mistakes or 'glitches', particularly for complex payrolls.
It can be a minefield, so it shouldn't surprise you to learn that over half (51%) of small businesses in the UK outsource this function, according to Bond International Software.
Payroll providers such as Simplicity make it their job to stay up-to-date on these changes. And ensure that you fully comply with all legal obligations and requirements with paying your people. In doing so, they protect you and your business and save you considerable time trying to get to grips with the legislation you need to know.
Savings on hiring:
Would you rather build a team primarily of fee-earning consultants or have some of that headcount comprised of a team of administrators? Hiring in-house expertise can be costly, especially if the person responsible for payroll is not trained or has the payroll function bolted onto their list of responsibilities.
Outsourcing your payroll frees up their time to concentrate on other essential tasks. And you may even be able to reduce the size of your back-office team. It is common to see recruitment businesses without in-house expertise prefer to outsource and take advantage of the cost and time savings.
Reliability:
Experienced payroll staff are hard to come by. It is a specialist role, but if you have just one or two people performing this task, do you have a contingency for when they are not there?
That's where outsourcing comes to the fore. By using an external payroll provider, you can be assured that your payroll service will continue to run uninterrupted throughout the year.
Costs are kept to a minimum:
As well as salary savings, small businesses can also reduce the costs associated with having an in-house payroll function. Indeed, when you factor in the payroll software costs, the costs incurred for printing and distributing pay slips, training staff, and drafting in external support to cover holiday and sickness periods, the amount you could save compared to what you would pay to use an outsourced payroll provider can be significant.
There are many more reasons why outsourcing your payroll makes good business sense. But, hopefully, the five points above will demonstrate how much of a difference it can make to your agency.
If you would like more information on how Simplicity's payroll solutions could help you, please do not hesitate to contact us today.
