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Paying employees seems easy enough. Their hours are logged, and you sign the checks; however, there’s more to payroll than that, and overlooking these critical aspects of paying your employees can have costly consequences. Here are five common payroll errors small business owners make and how to prevent them.

1. Not Paying Taxes Year-Round

Not paying taxes year-round is especially critical for new business owners because most of us are used to paying taxes by the April 15th deadline each year. But remember, that is for individual taxpayers, not business owners. Business taxes are usually paid year-round quarterly. The IRS has a business tax payment schedule, and so does each state. Your tax payment frequency depends on payroll frequency, so be sure to check with your accountant to determine when and how much tax you need to pay on a federal and state level.

2. Misclassifying Employees

If you have employees and freelance contractors working for your small business, be sure to classify them correctly. When it comes to payroll, it can be costly if you don’t. For example, if you misclassify an employee as an independent contractor, you may underpay payroll tax and have to pay retroactive payroll taxes on that employee down the road. Remember, to classify a worker as an independent contractor they must be in business for themselves. If they are not, chances are they must be classified as an employee if they work for you. According to the IRS, an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the work result, not what will be done or how it will be done. A person is not an independent contractor if they perform services controlled by an employer (i.e., what will be done and how it will be done). Even if the worker has freedom of action if the employer can legally control how the services are performed, that worker is an employee.

3. Not Considering Payroll Schedule

How often your employees are paid impacts your bottom line and your employees. Whether you pay employees weekly, every other week, or monthly, it is essential to know how your payroll schedule affects your cash flow. You should consider payroll processing fees, administrative costs associated with payroll, and employee needs. For example, weekly payroll is most costly for employers due to preparation frequency. Monthly payroll is less expensive for employers but the least preferred by workers. Each payroll schedule has its pros and cons, so it is a good idea to determine a payroll schedule that works for your business as well as your employees.

4. Keeping Up with Paperwork

For payroll, employers are legally required to maintain specific paperwork. For example, I-9 forms to verify that all employees are legally eligible to work in the United States, a W-4 form to determine each employee’s tax withholdings. Some states require new-hire reporting. Many documents such as new-hire paperwork can be filed directly by your payroll preparation company but be sure to ask and be up-to-date on your state’s laws regarding the paperwork that must be kept on file for employees.

5. Forgetting Bank Holidays

Remember, bank holidays – business days when banks are closed – are not considered business days when it comes to payroll processing, so you need to account for these. On bank holidays, direct deposits are not made. This isn’t always a concern; however, if your payroll schedule falls on a bank holiday, it could cause your employees some aggravation. To avoid these issues, check the bank holidays for the year and plan accordingly in advance.

Remember to consult your trusted accountant or CPA for more on these payroll errors and others. Laws and regulations are ever-changing, so it pays to stay abreast of those to avoid potentially costly payroll errors for your small business.

Our outsourced payroll services provide peace of mind for all types of small business owners in the Northbrook, IL area. Call us now at 847-982-1040 to get a free quote or request your free consultation online to learn more. online now to learn more about our payroll services.

Eligible small employers who provide health care coverage to their employees can receive a Small Business Health Care Tax Credit from the Federal government. Here’s what you need to know about who qualifies and how to take advantage of the credit.

What is the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit?

Small business owners make numerous decisions about employee benefits. For example, the type of benefits offered can entice the most desirable candidates to apply for their company’s positions. The right type of benefits can also boost employee retention. An excellent employee benefit to consider is health insurance. If that’s a perk being offered, the small business health care tax credit is a feature of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that may be of interest. The tax credit is limited to employers with less than 25 employees, and it operates as a sliding-scale credit based on the size of the employer. The larger the employer, the smaller the tax credit. The maximum credit is 50 percent of premiums paid (35 percent for tax-exempt employers).

Qualifying small employers can take advantage of the small business health care tax credit for two consecutive tax years providing the business owes no taxes during those years. The credit can also be carried forward or back to other tax years. Any excess amount paid for health insurance premiums over the allowable credit can be claimed as a business expense.

Who qualifies for the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit?

As mentioned above, the small business health care tax credit is for small employers with fewer than 25 full-time equivalent employees (FTE). Note that the FTE concept is based on hours worked rather than the actual number of employees.

Other qualifications include that:

The employer pays less than $50,000 a year per FTE in average wages. Determining FTEs and average annual wages should be done by your qualified tax preparer, CPA, or via guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The employer offers a qualified health plan to employees through a Small Business Health Options Program Marketplace (SHOP).

The employer pays at least 50 percent of the employee’s premium cost. (Not family or dependent premium cost.)

What about Tax-exempt Organizations?

Tax-exempt organizations are also eligible for the small business health care tax credit. In this case, the credit is refundable to the extent that it does not exceed income tax withholdings or Medicare tax liability. Refunds to tax-exempt organizations are reduced by the current fiscal year sequestration rate. For an explanation of sequestration and how it impacts the small business health care tax credit, consult your tax advisor or accountant.

How do small businesses take advantage of the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit?

To claim the small business health care tax credit, the IRS requires Form 8941 (Credit for Small Employer Health Insurance Premiums) to be filled out and submitted. For small businesses, the amount should be included as part of the general business credit on the company’s federal tax return. The amount should be included on Form 990-T (Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return) for tax-exempt organizations. Note: this form must be filed for a tax-exempt organization to claim the small business health care tax credit, even if the business does not typically file that form.

Small business owners may find that offering perks like health insurance aren’t beyond their economic reach with incentives like this.

Discover how the right tax advisor can make all the difference in how much money stays in your pocket! Call us now at 847-982-1040 to learn more about our tax services for small businesses and individuals in the Northbrook, IL area. You can also request your free consultation through our website

Ask any small-business owner what he sees as the major challenges to growing his business, and chances are he’ll say: winning more sales. Ask any medium- or large-business owner what her major challenges have been, however, and she’ll probably say: structural growing pains — putting into place the necessary processes and structure to accommodate a higher volume of business. In fact, one of the most common reasons businesses plateau at a certain level is their inability — or unwillingness — to develop the structure needed for growth.

But aligning structural changes with sales growth is not simple. It is often more of an art than a science. The systems, processes, staff, and organization changes needed to grow are ongoing and dictated by myriad factors such as the nature of the business, its capital requirements and, ultimately, customer demands. Nonetheless, certain structural growth concerns — excluding financing and office/production space issues — are shared among all growing companies and fall into three overall areas: organizational structure, policies and procedures, and systems/technology.

Staffing/Organizational Structure

Among the most common growing pains small companies experience are those related to organizational structure. Organizational structure and reporting hierarchy for a 25-person company is quite different than it is for a five-person organization. Typically, an entrepreneur can manage fine until there are about a dozen people in the organization. At this point, the initial structure — where everyone usually reports to the owner — breaks down. In effect, nothing can be done without involving the owner, creating a communications log jam and a barrier to growth. A telltale sign of such a situation is the line of staff outside the boss’s office — waiting patiently for a decision before work can recommence. The best way to overcome or prevent this from happening is simple: Trust your key employees and learn to delegate. A good place to start is to look at where you are spending your time. You can still have final say on any important decisions, but you need not be involved with the time-consuming, day-to-day issues that can prevent you from focusing on larger, more strategic matters. It’s also important to formalize delegated authority with an organizational chart and job descriptions. These will help you better define functional expertise for a given job and for various departments across the organization, and provide the foundation for the growth of future personnel and key management staff.

Lack of functional expertise is another common growing pain of small companies. Too often, businesses fail to recognize that specific expertise is needed as they grow. Typically, small businesses are organized around the manager’s area of expertise, such as marketing, accounting, or production. This specialized expertise often prevents the business owner from recognizing problems that may arise in other parts of the business. It’s a good idea to periodically get an outsider’s opinion of where expertise may be lacking. These need not be paid consultants, but are often trusted business acquaintances. Tapping into this same group, you can also form an advisory board to give you periodic feedback on strategic direction.

Policies and Procedures

For most smaller businesses, written policies and procedures are often nonexistent and sometimes cursed. Typically, they are associated with the bureaucracy and inefficiency of big companies and the enemy of customer responsiveness and quick time to market. Not surprisingly, most smaller businesses have few documented operational policies or procedural guidelines. But it is precisely this lack of documentation — and the thought that goes into it — that can put a stranglehold on rapid growth. If your business is growing fast enough to require frequent additions to staff, formalized policies are a must for training purposes. Even if you are expanding at a moderate pace, documented policies will likely be necessary once you reach 20 or more employees.

What warrants a formal policy and what should be documented? This will depend on the nature of your business and average skill level of your employees. In general, however, it’s a good idea to document all HR policies in detail, expense approval authorization levels, inventory control policies, billing and collection procedures, and any operational policies that could materially affect your business if they went amiss. An annual budget and sales projection, updated monthly, are also a necessity if you are ever to obtain outside funding or sell your company. Later on, consider putting together a comprehensive policy manual where employees can get answers to questions when decision makers are unavailable.

As you grow bigger, you will also need to put into place more formalized communications channels for employees and customers. An informed and involved staff is usually a more productive and enthusiastic one; whereas a staff that is left in the dark often feels alienated and unappreciated. Regularly scheduled employee meetings, periodic e-mail updates, and a cascade communications policy are several ways to make sure your internal communications channels facilitate, not constrict, growth.

Is your business suffering from growing pains?

Systems/Equipment

Perhaps more obvious than organizational or procedural growing pains are those associated with systems and equipment. Smaller businesses are often the last to upgrade to new technology, usually due to cost. Yet the costs of not upgrading are usually much higher. Low productivity, frequent downtime, and incompatibility with newer client systems can cripple a business that’s poised for growth. There’s also the matter of keeping up with your competitors both operationally and across product and service offerings.

The average computer is virtually obsolete in just three years, and most of the widely used software applications come out with new versions every two years, so keeping on top of technological advances must be an ongoing endeavor. Start out by working regular capital upgrade costs into your budget. Consider dedicating a full-time person to information technology (IT), if you don’t already have one, and make sure he or she is current on the latest technological developments in your field. Even though you may not be able to afford all the latest equipment, at least you’ll be on top of technology trends in the industry and know what your competitors are up to — or are capable of.

Our Northbrook, IL tax and accounting firm provides accounting services and bookkeeping for all types of small businesses. Call us at 847-982-1040 now and tell us about your business or request a free consultation online.

The reach of social media goes beyond sharing family photos. Shoppers are reading product reviews online before deciding what to purchase. And disgruntled customers are sharing their displeasure with anyone who will read their rants.

A New Risk

The benefit of social media to small businesses is considerable. It has leveled the playing field in many ways. But it has also introduced new risks. One of the most critical is that bad reviews or negative comments could ruin your business’s reputation — or worse.

A Proactive Approach

How can you protect your business from online attacks? Here are some suggestions:

Join the conversation. If you’ve been visible on social media, you’ll have more credibility if something erupts. But that’s not the only reason to have a social media presence. Even if your business is never involved in an online dustup, social media offers an opportunity to market and promote your business and engage with your customers. Smartphones and tablets have made it even easier for people to go online.

Pay attention. Monitor the Internet for news about your brand. Routinely check online review sites (if appropriate) and social networking sites for references to your company, and run your company’s name through a search engine.

Be prepared. You can’t draft specific responses ahead of time, but you can identify your vulnerabilities and draft a response strategy. You’ll be well ahead of the game if you do this before a crisis hits rather than during one. You’ll also be able to dial down your emotions and respond more objectively. There’s another upside to identifying your vulnerabilities ahead of time: You have an opportunity to eliminate them.

Respond. Make sure you have the facts straight before you do anything. However, things can escalate rapidly online. So if you’re going to respond, do so quickly and publicly. That said, not every attack warrants a public response. The complaint may not be legitimate or the person complaining may be a troublemaker, in which case responding may be a waste of time.

Half Full

Any time your business is under attack — online or off — try looking at it as an opportunity to change some minds and bolster your reputation.

Our Northbrook, IL tax and accounting firm provides accounting services and bookkeeping for all types of small businesses. Call us at 847-982-1040 now and tell us about your business or request a free consultation online.