Well I have grown enough where I have to hire someone to keep up with the work. I’ve been trying to read about the proper way to pay someone and how much tax to withhold. I see I need unemployment comp / worker’s compensation / business insurance ... anyone have any programs , websites or personal advice how to keep up with all of this stuff? Seems like a lot of extra, anyone not employee people for simplicity and just stop accepting new clients? I only offer fertilization / tick sprays. That’s why I’m posting here.
walkinonwater27
Thank you and yes I couldn’t keep up at all this year only got 3 rounds done on 50% and 4 on the other, I did finish 100% of tick sprays. I usually offer 5 to like 80% of my clients.. No complaints at all but I def need one guy, I bought another Permagreen to, to train them on. I met two more landscapers one mid season and one in the fall with a Ton of work, if I do not hire I’ll have to drop people. I know it’s going to be expensive, curious how you guys managed the transition. What’s a cpa?
A CPA is a Certified Public Accountant.
You could also use a payroll service to handle the witholdings. I use Quickbooks/Intuit payroll. They will keep track of how much you need to pay to the state and federal government. Some payments are quarterly, some monthly. Unemployment insurance payments also go to the state. The service I use also set me up with workers comp insurance, and managed the payments to the insurance co.
I get email notifications that payments are due, I log on to the payroll site, and ok the payments. The money is sent from my business account to the right place.
Not super easy to set up, but once you get going, it is simple.
You could also use a payroll service to handle the witholdings. I use Quickbooks/Intuit payroll. They will keep track of how much you need to pay to the state and federal government. Some payments are quarterly, some monthly. Unemployment insurance payments also go to the state. The service I use also set me up with workers comp insurance, and managed the payments to the insurance co.
I get email notifications that payments are due, I log on to the payroll site, and ok the payments. The money is sent from my business account to the right place.
Not super easy to set up, but once you get going, it is simple.
Last year we started using square for payroll. Best decision ever. They take care of all tax filings etc. Transfer the pay into employees accounts. All i do is enter hours and click send.
Obviously had to give them all my tax info- state and fed witholding numbers, liability ins info, i forget what all, but it's easy to set up.
Obviously had to give them all my tax info- state and fed witholding numbers, liability ins info, i forget what all, but it's easy to set up.
Payroll companies are definitely the way to go for simplicity. Once your setup you don't do much more than send in time cards and make sure they have access to the necessary funds. Handling payroll for one or a few employees manually isn't too hard though, you just need to take it seriously and hire the right guy to show you the ropes. It's not actually hard, it's just rigid and unforgiving if you make mistakes.
Try to find a referral to a CPA used by someone else who does it all manually and call them for a consultation. Just tell them I'm a growing business looking to hire my first guy and want someone to teach me everything I need to do and how to efficiently keep track of it.
I worked for a guy who did it all by hand. He had a fat book filled with tables that told you how much to withhold each week for Federal and State income tax. We don't have local taxes but if you do there should be resources available for it.
A chart told him how much to withhold each week. He took the information from the chart to fill out a carbon copy withholding statement that I received with a handwritten check and filled out a W-2 by hand each year from that information.
Some states have a workers comp insurance pool but private insurers offer it too, your liability carrier can probably offer one.
Try to find a referral to a CPA used by someone else who does it all manually and call them for a consultation. Just tell them I'm a growing business looking to hire my first guy and want someone to teach me everything I need to do and how to efficiently keep track of it.
I worked for a guy who did it all by hand. He had a fat book filled with tables that told you how much to withhold each week for Federal and State income tax. We don't have local taxes but if you do there should be resources available for it.
A chart told him how much to withhold each week. He took the information from the chart to fill out a carbon copy withholding statement that I received with a handwritten check and filled out a W-2 by hand each year from that information.
Some states have a workers comp insurance pool but private insurers offer it too, your liability carrier can probably offer one.
Intuit has several interconnected programs.
We use tsheets to log time, tsheets is linked to quickbooks, quickbooks is linked to intuit workforce payroll as well as billing clients.
All are intuit programs.
Once up and running it makes everything run flawlessly with minimal effort. Being prepared to learn the programs up front from an administrative perspective is key to success.
We use tsheets to log time, tsheets is linked to quickbooks, quickbooks is linked to intuit workforce payroll as well as billing clients.
All are intuit programs.
Once up and running it makes everything run flawlessly with minimal effort. Being prepared to learn the programs up front from an administrative perspective is key to success.
I've worked for the same company for 10years. When I started it was the owner and myself. Now its the owner myself and 5 other guys.
The owner was/is a pencil paper kind of guy.
That method is fine if you are by yourself but it becomes harder the bigger you get.
Over the years I've noticed inadequacies in the way we do things and tried to integrate improvements.
For example regarding employees keeping track of time, here's the progression we have gone through.
When I started I had to fill out a handwritten log of where I had been, what I had done and times worked. Then once a week I had to physically hand this to the boss and from that point he processed it. Some weeks I worked with him on Friday and handed it to him. Other weeks though I had to drop it off under his doormat after work on Friday. The same drill to receive my check as well...
This method worked, but it was a hassle on both ends. He would have to decipher a handwritten paragraph style log and process from there. I had to make out of the way trips to his house not to mention the time spent going to deposit checks at the bank.
I convinced the boss to allow me to come up with a better way.
I created an excel spreadsheet with slots for the date, the customer, the employee, the different tasks we do, and time in time out total time. A spreadsheet is so much easier both to fill out as well as to read and process. Then I would fill out my paper copy of my spreadsheet and get this, I'd fax it to him at the end of every week. That sounds so antiquated now but at the time it sure best driving to his house.
We carried on with that method for a bit, then I came up with the bright idea of copying my handwritten spreadsheet into the spreadsheet on my computer and attaching that weeks work to an email to the boss.
We utilized that method for a few years until someone introduced me to Googlesheets. By now everyone had smartphones so transitioning to technology was pretty easy.
Googlesheets is basically an spreadsheet format that anyone with the link can view and edit at any time from their phone in real time. Employees would fill out there info as they did it into their phones, we found this helped with not forgetting to write stuff down , also the boss was able to see in real time what had been done. Gone were the days of copying handwritten spreadsheets into computer spreadsheets and emailing. You typed it into gsheets as you did it and that was it.
About two years ago I came across a program called tsheets. Tsheets is a web based time tracking program. From an employee standpoint it works like this.
Get to work, pull out your phone, open tsheets app, pick customer, pick job detail punch in. At the end of the day press punch out. If you have multiple jobs in a day you can select switch, pick new customer and that's it. No one ever needs to remember where they were or what they did or how long they were there. It tracks total day time, time worked at each location as well as total week time total pay period time etc... it can be set up however you like.
From an administrative perspective it works like this.
Pull up tsheets, schedule everyone(when scheduled everyone recieved a notification)
To process payroll or accounts receivable one runs a report. Input criteria and it generates the results, it completely takes the math out of it on all sides.
For example I can type in an employee it will show when where how long for any timeframe I select. If I want to know how many cumulative hours have been worked at Customer blanks location I can select that customer, run a report and presto all hours by all employees while working there ,during selected time frame are compiled. Generates nice bar and pie graphs too if so desired.
Running payroll is a snap, run a report on all employees who worked during the pay period, review their hours and press approve.
Approved hours are linked into quickbooks which is linked into intuit payroll. Payroll goes out on payday and everyone wakes up to their money direct deposited into their account. No more trips to the bank.
Long story short, want my advice, take advantage of technology available, long term it is highly beneficial.
Thanks for reading , I apologize for the run on sentences at times
The owner was/is a pencil paper kind of guy.
That method is fine if you are by yourself but it becomes harder the bigger you get.
Over the years I've noticed inadequacies in the way we do things and tried to integrate improvements.
For example regarding employees keeping track of time, here's the progression we have gone through.
When I started I had to fill out a handwritten log of where I had been, what I had done and times worked. Then once a week I had to physically hand this to the boss and from that point he processed it. Some weeks I worked with him on Friday and handed it to him. Other weeks though I had to drop it off under his doormat after work on Friday. The same drill to receive my check as well...
This method worked, but it was a hassle on both ends. He would have to decipher a handwritten paragraph style log and process from there. I had to make out of the way trips to his house not to mention the time spent going to deposit checks at the bank.
I convinced the boss to allow me to come up with a better way.
I created an excel spreadsheet with slots for the date, the customer, the employee, the different tasks we do, and time in time out total time. A spreadsheet is so much easier both to fill out as well as to read and process. Then I would fill out my paper copy of my spreadsheet and get this, I'd fax it to him at the end of every week. That sounds so antiquated now but at the time it sure best driving to his house.
We carried on with that method for a bit, then I came up with the bright idea of copying my handwritten spreadsheet into the spreadsheet on my computer and attaching that weeks work to an email to the boss.
We utilized that method for a few years until someone introduced me to Googlesheets. By now everyone had smartphones so transitioning to technology was pretty easy.
Googlesheets is basically an spreadsheet format that anyone with the link can view and edit at any time from their phone in real time. Employees would fill out there info as they did it into their phones, we found this helped with not forgetting to write stuff down , also the boss was able to see in real time what had been done. Gone were the days of copying handwritten spreadsheets into computer spreadsheets and emailing. You typed it into gsheets as you did it and that was it.
About two years ago I came across a program called tsheets. Tsheets is a web based time tracking program. From an employee standpoint it works like this.
Get to work, pull out your phone, open tsheets app, pick customer, pick job detail punch in. At the end of the day press punch out. If you have multiple jobs in a day you can select switch, pick new customer and that's it. No one ever needs to remember where they were or what they did or how long they were there. It tracks total day time, time worked at each location as well as total week time total pay period time etc... it can be set up however you like.
From an administrative perspective it works like this.
Pull up tsheets, schedule everyone(when scheduled everyone recieved a notification)
To process payroll or accounts receivable one runs a report. Input criteria and it generates the results, it completely takes the math out of it on all sides.
For example I can type in an employee it will show when where how long for any timeframe I select. If I want to know how many cumulative hours have been worked at Customer blanks location I can select that customer, run a report and presto all hours by all employees while working there ,during selected time frame are compiled. Generates nice bar and pie graphs too if so desired.
Running payroll is a snap, run a report on all employees who worked during the pay period, review their hours and press approve.
Approved hours are linked into quickbooks which is linked into intuit payroll. Payroll goes out on payday and everyone wakes up to their money direct deposited into their account. No more trips to the bank.
Long story short, want my advice, take advantage of technology available, long term it is highly beneficial.
Thanks for reading , I apologize for the run on sentences at times
Lots of great info here. Check out paycor.com. I've been using them for years. It's a payroll service that allows you to enter hours daily or just before payroll date. They have lots of other cool features though. Like they do direct deposit for your employee. You just collect their account info and enter it in the web platform. Employee can log in to get paystubs and their w2s. In most years my guys have there w2s by Jan 15th. HERES THE IMPORTANT PART, unlike others, paycor pulls ALL the moneys due as far as withholdings each payday from your acct.so no surprises at the end of the quarter. They file all the reports with state and local so all you do is enter hours and cover the expenses and you covered and square as far as employment records and taxes. When taxes change they are on it. Records keep online so you never lose them too. I have all the employment records for 65 people going back to 2009 at my fingertips online. Its truly the best way to go. Alot of bigger companies use it. Costs me about 75 a month for 7 employees and worth every dime.
Crazy 4 grass, thank you for taking your time to write all that , I would assume you are an awesome employee. Best of luck to you in the future. With everyone’s advice I think I will go the route of using a service of some sort and will look into all the ones recommended. I don’t need any more work after work so I think just the saving of time around the whole process is worth 35/40 a month for 1 guy. Appreciate everyone’s feedback
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
