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SignalFire's Back-Office Adulting Guide
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Payroll/HRIS

Paying your employees is non-negotiable.
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Paying your employees builds trust with your team and enables loyalty over time. Once a payment is late or inaccurate, 25% of workers start exploring other opportunities. If payments are late again, that number nearly doubles.
Payroll software is inexpensive, easy to use, and helps with a growing team. Here are a few mistakes we highly suggest you avoid:
Paying employees with personal finances
Misclassifying employees as independent contractors
Complicating HR Services with endless paperwork & processes

When to start with a payroll provider

Your payroll might begin with yourself. The most important time, however, is when you need to consistently pay employees.
If you're in build mode, you probably won't want to spend several hours each week to work on payroll; you'll need that creative energy to overcome whatever challenges your company is facing at the time.

What is payroll

In its simplest definition, payroll is paying your employees. A bit more specifically, payroll is distributing wages to your employees and withholding taxes and distributing to Uncle Sam. However, payroll actually encompasses all of the following tasks:
Accurately calculate salary
Calculating and paying payroll taxes
Staying compliant as you bring on contractors
Sending new hire reports to the government
Collecting new hire paperwork including I-9 processing
Payroll deductions for benefits
Withholding taxes and quarterly filings
Filing end-of-year taxes
Preparing W-2s and 1099s
General management of employee records

Pro-Tip: If you are going to offer benefits and deduct premiums or 401k from paychecks- it is going to save a lot of headache if you use the payroll provider as your benefits administrator.
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👉 Next up:
HR Compliance
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Payroll suggested vendors
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Gusto
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Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools.
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Rippling
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If you've outgrown Gusto or are looking to combine payroll and benfits with the IT components of onboarding, then Rippling might be right for you. They make it easy to manage your team's payroll, benefits, hardware (computers, phones, etc), and apps — all in one, modern platform.
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Papaya Global
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If you are hiring employees who live outside of the US, a company like Papaya Global can help with hiring, onboarding, paying, and managing global employees or contractors.
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When to start with a payroll provider
What is payroll
👉 Next up: HR Compliance
Payroll suggested vendors
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