PAYROLL SERVICES

Payroll services are employed by a large number of companies because they are viewed as a simpler way to process payroll.

Companies such as A.D.P. & Ceridian perform payroll functions for companies that choose to divest themselves of the process. These payroll service companies process salaries and hourly wages as submitted by the subscriber and issue cheques or submit direct deposits on behalf of the company.

It is often viewed by many that this process reduces costs by outsourcing what some see as a complicated payroll function. The other common misconception is that these services save time as well as money.

What most people fail to realize is that almost as much time is spent preparing the input data and additional expertise is required to manually prepare journal entries to be input and posted to the General Ledger. These processes combine to negate any potential time savings a service may provide.

Most of these services typically charge about $2.00 per employee per pay. This compares with about $0.25 to $0.50 per person per pay for an internally generated payroll cheque or direct deposit. Annual maintenance fees of $200.00 for an internal payroll system add about $4.00 per pay. A company with 50 employees would pay about $100.00 per pay for a payroll service. The same company issuing cheques would pay about $30.00. If you have more employees or you use direct deposit the savings can be even greater.

It is true that there are a few more steps involved in running an internal payroll system and this requires training. This in turn is offset by automatic journal entries and in most cases substantial cost savings when compared to service company rates.

VISUAL CANADIAN PAYROLL

Visual Canadian Payroll provides for most Canadian Payroll Functions and can provide long term cost and time savings when compared to most payroll services.

Once initial purchase and training costs are completed, annual maintenance of $200.00 per year covers all updates and payroll related technical support. This usually results in cost savings within the first year of operation. Future years usually require no further purchases or training so the savings are even greater in subsequent years. The amount saved is proportionate to the number of employees that you have. The more employees you have, the greater the savings.

When Visual Canadian Payroll is combined with our Direct Deposit Feature, savings can be increased and time that is currently spent handling, signing and reconciling cheques can be eliminated. This feature currently supports the following banks:

C.I.B.C.

The Royal Bank

The TD Bank

The Bank of Nova Scotia

The Bank of Montreal

The Quebec National Bank.

Additional banks can usually be added at a nominal cost if we can obtain the technical interface data requirements. Direct Deposit Services are offered by most of the major banks and usually entail charges per month, per transmission and per employee. Each bank charges different rates.

TD Bank for example charges $50.00 per month, $10.00 per transmission and $0.10 per employee deposit. Monthly charges for 100 employees paid weekly would amount to:

$50.00 + 4 x $10.00 + 400 x $0.10 = $130.00

A payroll service could cost up to $800.00