This time of year is a great time to start reviewing your clients’ status and seeing how a payroll service fits their company’s needs. And if your client is not satisfied with the payroll product they currently subscribe to, it may be a great time to switch.
My preferred product is QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite, because clients have extensive compliance needs, and are over the moon with the extra perk of payroll protection and coverage for any tax penalties.* If you want to know about QuickBooks Online Payroll and how it can help your firm, too, read on.
Payroll employee benefits
Employee benefits are a topic of conversation in many of the financial strategy meetings we have with our clients. Recently, several clients had some staff turnover, while others have even had employees poached by other law firms. Losing key employees can be devastating for workflow production and employee morale.
We often discover that the benefits offered are lacking or not competitive. With QuickBooks Online Payroll, setting up benefits for your clients is easy.* We also check compensation to the employees. For example, is the staff being appropriately compensated? Reviewing compensation is easy with services such as LinkedIn Salary, Glass Door, and Indeed, which all have salary estimators. This way, you can arm yourself with data to present to your clients.
Remote worker compliance
Compliance is always at the heart of our business, thanks to law firm accounting and our work with trust accounts.
Many of our law firm clients are hiring remote workers to fill the gap for jobs that don’t necessarily require someone to be sitting in the office. If you are an employer in California, do you know the taxes that would be due if you hire someone in Utah? Probably not. You can research that, but why not have the payroll service take care of staying on top of that compliance?
That’s another feature of QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite: There are no additional fees for filing state tax forms.* It’s all-inclusive. That is something to consider when comparing payroll services.
Human resource services
With QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite, you get a designated HR person assigned to your firm.* Imagine not going through the channels and levels to get to a specialist.
HR services are where you can shine as an advisor to your client. Recently, we had a new client that had turnover in their office. As we started to dig into his HR handbook, we discovered that the firm had not updated it in several years. We worked hand-in-hand with the HR advisor to review the entire document.
Let’s face it: Laws change and the firm may have gone through a metamorphosis in which the original policies no longer apply.
As an advisor, there are so many areas you need to review using an HR handbook. Policies and procedures need to be well-defined. For example, what are the rules around employees leaving the firm or being terminated? The HR-designated advisor will help guide you through the painful workflow of an existing employee and the process of hiring a new staff member.
Open enrollment
Now is the time for open enrollment. During open enrollment, your employees can change their existing health insurance and other insurance policies.* It’s important to know when this timeframe is. You may find that your employees are changing from a single plan to a family plan, or perhaps they’re changing the number of deductions or co-pays. It’s the employer’s responsibility to convey this to the employees. It can be a hectic time for us as accountants and bookkeepers, but it’s essential to know when open enrollment is and how long it lasts, so that you can inform the client’s employees of this timeframe.
One-stop shop
My last tip regarding QuickBooks Online Payroll is that it’s embedded in QuickBooks Online. This is very beneficial, because there’s no need to go to an outside website, no need for a journal entry to push the data, and it makes job costing a lot easier. The process makes it easier for the employee’s staff to sign up to view their paychecks and get their essential documents, without bothering the accounting and bookkeeper. Having payroll “live” inside your accounting software is a win-win for the client and for us.
Revenue share
And speaking of win-win, the other perk for us is revenue share. When selling your client on QuickBooks Online Payroll with revenue share, you get a little piece of the pie. With the revenue share program, you get 30% back per month for one year after your customer signs up and starts to pay for payroll with Intuit.*
I hope this article has you considering QuickBooks Online Payroll as a payroll option for your clients. The features are abundant. In addition to the ones highlighted above, other fun perks include same-day payroll, the ability to make edits to paychecks, dedicated expert support, and access to QuickBooks Time for tracking employee hours (and the QB Workforce mobile app)—all included with the service*. This payroll service is worth considering when helping your clients with their payroll needs.
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*Features
Tax penalty protection: Only QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite users are eligible to receive the tax penalty protection. If you receive a tax notice and send it to us within 15 days of the tax notice, we will cover the payroll tax penalty, up to $25,000. Intuit cannot help resolve notices for customers in Collections with the IRS because IRS Collections will only work with businesses directly. Additional conditions and restrictions apply. Learn more about tax penalty protection.
HR services: HR support is provided by experts at Mineral, Inc. Requires acceptance of Mineral’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. HR support center is available only to QuickBooks Online Payroll Premium and Elite subscriptions. HR advisor support is only available in QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite. HR support is not available to accountants who are calling on behalf of their clients.
Health benefits: Health Insurance benefits are provided by Intuit Services Inc., a licensed insurance broker, through a partnership with Allstate Health Solutions. Requires acceptance of Allstate's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Intuit Insurance Services is owned and operated by Intuit Inc. and is paid a percentage fee of insurance policy premiums by Allstate Health Solutions in connection with the services described on this page.
Automated tax payments and filings: Automated tax payments and filing available for state and federal taxes. Enrollment in e-services is required for tax payments and filings only. Automated tax payments and filings for local taxes available in QuickBooks Online Payroll Premium and Elite only.
QuickBooks Time: Time tracking included in the QuickBooks Online Payroll Premium and Elite subscription services. Features vary. The QuickBooks Time mobile app works with iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. Devices sold separately; data plan required. Not all features are available on the mobile apps and mobile browser. Data access is subject to cellular/internet provider network availability and occasional downtime due to system and server maintenance and events beyond your control. Product registration required.
24/7 expert product support: 24/7 customer support is included with your paid subscription to QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite. Chat support available 24/7. U.S. based phone support is available Monday through Friday 6 AM to 6 PM PT and Saturday 6 AM to 3 PM PT. Non-US based phone support is available Monday through Friday 6 PM to 6 AM PT, on Saturday 3 PM to 6 AM PT and on Sundays. Your subscription must be current. Intuit reserves the right to limit the length of the call. Terms, conditions, features, pricing, service, and support are subject to change without notice.
**QuickBooks Online Accountant Rev Share Program Offer Terms
Eligibility: QuickBooks Online Accountant (“QBOA”) firms are eligible to apply to enroll in the “Revenue Share Program” and add and manage only new subscribers through “Add Client” for certain subscriptions (“Revenue Share Subscriptions”) and add-ons (“Revenue Share Add-Ons”).
Rev Share Subscriptions means the following QuickBooks services: QuickBooks Online Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced, and QuickBooks Online Payroll Core, Premium, and Elite. The Rev Share Add-Ons means the per employee fee and multi-state charge for QuickBooks Online Payroll. The Rev Share Subscriptions and Add-Ons do not include other optional add-on services for which Intuit charges a fee and is not already included in the base fee for the subscription.
Only one (1) QBOA user may enroll the QBOA firm in the Revenue Share Program. Intuit reserves the right to accept or decline any QBOA firm.
Offer Terms: Each Revenue Share Program participant is eligible to receive a 30% revenue share on the Rev Share Subscriptions and 15% revenue share on the Rev Share Add-Ons for the first 12 months of the paid subscription (“Rev Share Payment(s)”), starting from the date the client starts paying for the subscription. The first month of the Revenue Share Subscriptions and Revenue Share Add-Ons, starting from the date of enrollment in the subscription, is free. After the first month of the Rev Share Subscription, a 50% discount is applied to the then-current monthly list price for three (3) months, followed by the then-current list price. After the first month of the subscription, if the client enters their payment details and pays for the subscription, the firm is eligible to receive Rev Share Payments for the subsequent 12 months only. Each Rev Share Subscription must be client-billed, and cannot be paid for by the QBOA firm. Cannot be combined with any other Intuit offer. Offer valid for a limited time only, only in the U.S., and is non-transferable.
Intuit may terminate these terms or the Revenue Share Program or modify the terms or the Revenue Share Program for any reason and at any time, at Intuit’s sole discretion, without notice. Terms, conditions, pricing, special features, and service and support options are subject to change without notice.
