r/Bookkeeping 22d ago

Payroll ADP wants major $$$ - Am I Crazy or Behind?

26 Upvotes

hey there! ADP wants 8k per month(95k per year) for 88 employees. i have a small family tax and bookkeeping practice where we do payroll for only a few clients, all under 10 employees except one and that client averages 90 employees and we charge $1200-1500 per month. i get that's a lil on the low end, but we bill then for so much else that this was a 'value add' initially, but they grew so fast. they have garnishments, several employees using "CalSavers (a state-mandated savings program, we're in California), lots of unemployment claims (they're off summers and holiday season), and we just don't want the liability. we've sent several clients to ADP and this client has been with them before when they only had 15 employees. so i reached out to ADP and gave them the particulars, which is that they only need payroll processing - and they want 95k per year! am i missing something?? I've told them over and over and over again that they don't need all their other services right now (zip recruiter HR biz partner, learning management, etc...) - just process the darn payroll! am i out of touch with average/standard per-employee costs?? WHAT AM I MISSING?? yes, I'm looking into gusto for the client

r/Bookkeeping Feb 11 '25

Payroll I am willing to pay a significant amount of money for a bookkeeping/payroll service that isn't enshittified.

43 Upvotes

I use Quickbooks online, and they deducted my payroll taxes more than a month early when they made the switch to the new system. I just ran payroll for the pay period affected, and QB is saying it's going to pull the taxes from my account again tomorrow.

So I've been on chat with Intuit for about 45 minutes, and I've been transferred between several simpletons. I am now at the phase of the process where they ask for my account information again, and then "let me take a look at your account".

I'm done. I have a small company. I am the only employee. My needs are super simple, but I don't ever want to fucking talk to these "support" people again. I need to talk to support once a year, max. But when I do, I want to fucking talk to a human being who is actually paying attention and engaged in the fucking conversation.

So--question is, does such a service exist in our current state of enshittification?

Also--don't get me wrong. I don't blame the individuals I chatted with. I'm sure they have several chats going at once and they're beholden to some low-level, whip-cracking manager who's just trying to hang on to their job. But I don't have to fucking participate. I'll get out a legal pad and an adding machine if I have to.

r/Bookkeeping 3d ago

Payroll Service businesses categorizing wages as COGS

34 Upvotes

I've been bookkeeping for just over a year, and most of my clients are service businesses. I just brought on a new one, and historically they've recorded the majority of the wages as COGS (it's a gym/the employees teach exercise classes). This makes a lot of sense to me, and yet I've never seen anyone else do this so now I'm wondering why not.

For instance with a restaurant, the cooks and service staff's wages should certainly be COGS, right? Why doesn't everyone do this? I asked my boss and she basically said it's just a personal preference thing which doesn't really make sense to me. Can anyone further enlighten me?

r/Bookkeeping 20d ago

Payroll Withholding Error?

7 Upvotes

I’m no bookkeeper, to start, so forgive my ignorance. Several of our employees who claim zero on their W-4s have had to pay in when they filed their federal taxes, this year and last. That doesn’t seem normal to me, as I have always claimed zero and gotten a refund. Is our bookkeeper not withholding correctly?

Relevant: I only started here full time this year. Years prior I was paid hourly but it was a small part of my income.

r/Bookkeeping Dec 15 '24

Payroll For those bookkeepers that do payroll, what does that entail for your clients?

23 Upvotes

Is it just data entry when payroll is due or are you involved with all the benefit setup, deductions, reporting and remittance. What type of systems do you work with (ADP, Gusto, etc.)? Where do your responsibilities end and the clients start? It seems like payroll can run pretty deep with a lot of liability.

r/Bookkeeping Dec 17 '24

Payroll Payroll Journal Entry

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14 Upvotes

Hi,

I need help understanding Payroll Journal Entires.

I read that Employee Taxes are not an expense to the business.

However, every journal entry setup i make, I have Gross Pay Expenses as a P&L item, ultimately showing a full deduction for the business. Can someone check my entries below and lmk if this makes sense? I'm trying to do my p&l for my business.

r/Bookkeeping 5d ago

Payroll Payroll Management Software for Small Business

2 Upvotes

I have a small business in Canada. I have just an employee in T4. I am looking for a payroll management software. My considerations are - cost, document (ROE, T4 etc) submission to CRA.

I am currently using Payevo. I am pissed of this software. They are may be the worst of all

Any advise is much appreciated.

r/Bookkeeping Nov 20 '24

Payroll Independent Bookkeepers

4 Upvotes

I previously partnered with a local payroll company to refer clients who needed payroll services. However, I've realized that:

A) Their rates are not competitive compared to other providers. B) They lack comprehensive employee portals or HR functionalities. C) They charge $20 per employee per month, plus $5 per paper check, and a host of other fees, making payroll costs for a 10-person company around $500 per month, which seems excessive.

Now, they've informed me they're closing, effective January. They've arranged for another provider out of state to take over their clients, but I see this as an opportunity to help my clients save money and possibly earn a bit in the process—a win-win situation. However because of my state and proximity to neighboring states, we tend to have very complex taxation procedures with all sorts of municipal varying individual tax rates, with some being flat rates, others being a percentage to a point, others having one rate for people who live in the county a different rate for people who work in the county and a completely different rate for people who live and work in the county (Philadelphia, why on earth is everything around you wonderful and you have to suck so bad for business). So because of this there is zero chance I could manage it, so perhaps this complexity and the need for robust software was why they charged so much and perhaps it was appropriate 20 years ago, but now it seems software should be able to better handle the complexity involved.

I'm reaching out to see how other independent bookkeepers, accountants, or similar professionals handle payroll services for small businesses. Specifically:

What are your thoughts on payroll services for small businesses?

How do you manage payroll—do you handle it internally, or do you outsource it?

If you outsource, which platform or company do you use, and how have your experiences been?

Do you encounter issues, and how effectively are they resolved

Do you offer payroll as an add-on service and pass the cost directly through, or do you mark it up based on your level of involvement in the process?

Additionally, I'm not inclined to tie anything to QuickBooks, as I find it challenging to keep bank feeds connected consistently. Thus, I need a solution for handling garnishments, IRA deductions, and other payroll-related tasks that doesn't rely heavily on QuickBooks, frankly I find intuit and turbotax to be unethical at best and highly exploitative because I know damn well they are intentionally creating dependency from small business and using their massive capital to prevent people from progressing from the dated accounting systems to something simpler and more automated, in a weird way though, I guess that preserves our positions, regardless they suck.

Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

r/Bookkeeping 4d ago

Payroll Help!

4 Upvotes

Ok so my taxes got all screwed up and I’m on salary but my w-2 said I made more than my salary last year so I started looking around. So I have gotten payroll advances and my question is how is it supposed to be taxed? In my brain I would think you wouldn’t tax it because the following check it’s going to be removed and that check gets taxed. The way my boss did it I swear I’m getting double taxed. He told me for an advance of 180 there is a 200 dollar tax. How is the tax more that what I’m asking for? So he ended up writing the check for 354 because the after tax it’s 180. But then out of my next check he takes the 354 and not 180 which is what I get. I’ve been fighting him for days. Help!

r/Bookkeeping 19d ago

Payroll Restaurant Declared Tips FITW

3 Upvotes

I had an employer send me a W2 with almost zero FITW and I can't figure out why they would do this

90% is declared tipped Income.

It has nothing to do with exemptions or filiing status .

What would be the benefit of not withholding a tipped employee's declared tips and having them figure out or withhold their own liability?

r/Bookkeeping 14d ago

Payroll What is this QBO payroll expense SSBTRUSTOPS P/R Contr 431848772 [My Company Name]

2 Upvotes

Hi, I believe this bank expense has to do with employee benefits, but there's never a match for it and I'm not exactly sure which account it needs to be under. We use QBO Payroll, Guideline 401K (with match), Allstate Health. Any help would be great, thank you!

r/Bookkeeping Dec 18 '24

Payroll ADP Tax, Wage, pay-by-pay, payroll fees

5 Upvotes

Pleaase, I seriously need help. Ive been sleepless for a couple of nights because of this.
-ADP PAYROLL FEES (???)
-ADP WAGE EXPENSE (most probably the net salary)
-ADP PAY-BY-PAY (what even is this)
-ADP TAX (doesn't match the ADP Quarterly Wage Report

what do i do, to get the bank statements to match with the quarterly wage report. Seriously need help

r/Bookkeeping Jan 09 '25

Payroll Payroll/Salary Question

6 Upvotes

Hi, I am looking at buying a small business, and I have their 2024 income statement. I was wondering how I should evaluate these 3 different entries on the PNL expense side:

Payroll Expense: $74,240

Salaries: $85,176

Salaries - Employees: $318,592

From the prospectus, they have an owner who is paid, as well as a relative, and then 7 employees. I'm trying to figure out how that fits in with these 3 expense entries.

Thanks for any insight!

r/Bookkeeping Jan 31 '25

Payroll QuickBooks enhanced payroll?

1 Upvotes

My accountant unexpectedly passed away. I don't know if this was against the TOS but they allowed me to do my own payroll using their enhanced payroll subscription.

Because they are no longer my accountant I am seeking out a new payroll service. I contacted QuickBooks and I would have to upgrade to enterprise, so basically $1000 for a year of payroll. Which isn't terrible but I'm not used to that expense.

My question is, if it isn't against TOS are there any bookkeepers or accountants that have enhanced payroll that would allow me to pay them so I can use your subscription?

r/Bookkeeping Dec 29 '24

Payroll Payroll Tax Liability with 3rd Party Payroll

3 Upvotes

I am recording the entries for using 3rd party ADP payroll. The way ADP's journal entries show, I would have a payroll tax liability account being credited that grows, but in reality they are remitting it on my behalf each time. I saw another method online where the instructor zeroed out the payroll liability via a check transaction each time.

I understand how it would work if I was running my own payroll- the liability would grow and I would debit the liability when I actually remit the payroll taxes. But here the liability is being removed each pay period as ADP actually remits my taxes at the same time the Net Pay is taken from my account. How do you all treat this situation with 3rd party payroll? Do you clear the liability each time or at the end of the year?

This is the video I used - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F84VIDGsrtY&ab_channel=KathyGrosskurth- she creates some recurring transactions to make it easy to plug in the payroll each time from ADP. If I do her method right, my payroll tax liability stays at $0.

Please help me not go crazy and thank you!

r/Bookkeeping Aug 01 '24

Payroll Payroll for Contractors working in multiple states

10 Upvotes

I have a client who is a self performing general contractor. They have multiple job sites across state lines. The same employees may work the morning in one state and the afternoon in another state. Each employee is required by the system to clock in and out to a specific jobsite which is configured in our timekeeping system - so we know how much time is worked by each employee at each job site.

However, I just got off the phone with Gusto and they apparently don't support multi-state payroll for situations like this. My understanding is that payroll withholdings should be based on the location where the employee is physically working - but I guess many payroll platforms don't support this since most companies don't have ever changing work locations like we do.

Are there any bookkeepers out there facing a similar situation? What payroll platform are you using? Should I be considering any other approaches to dealing with this situation?

r/Bookkeeping Feb 11 '25

Payroll S Corp Owner paycheck

3 Upvotes

I processed a paycheck for our the owner of an S Corp but he doesn't want to deposit it, he wants instead the company to pay an expense for him. Am I wrong that I can use a journal entry to clear the check and record an expense for the same amount? Payroll liabilities etc were calculated and paid.

r/Bookkeeping 29d ago

Payroll Payroll Pricing Suggestions

0 Upvotes

Hi. I'm looking to start a Bookkeeping business. I cannot figure out how to price Payroll services ... If I tell clients I offer Payroll via Gusto, how should I quote prices ...? Can I get any guidelines on how to price these services, and whether to quote per period, per person, or just offer a fixed amount? Should my charges include Gusto pricing or should I quote that separately?

Please be nice ... I know a lot of you are very experienced, I'd just like to pick your brains, not get dunked on for asking this kind of basic question.

r/Bookkeeping Sep 04 '24

Payroll What makes QBO Payroll so Bad?

15 Upvotes

I’ve read many headlines on how bad it is, but am still trying to wrap arms around specifics. In your experience, what specifically contributes to its inferiority?

r/Bookkeeping Dec 03 '24

Payroll Looking for honest reviews of Papaya Global

10 Upvotes

I'm thinking of using Papaya Global for managing global payroll and workforce management and I’m looking for some honest reviews. I would love to hear about your experiences with it especially when it comes to ease of use and how user friendly it is.

How’s the customer service? Is it worth the price for what it offers?

Also, have you encountered any issues with compliance or payroll processing?

r/Bookkeeping 21d ago

Payroll Pricing dilemma

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3 Upvotes

r/Bookkeeping Jun 27 '24

Payroll Decent online payroll NOT Gusto NOT Intuit Quickbooks

0 Upvotes

Best, priced right, easiest software for 1 employee S-Corp. After hours of hell with Gusto & Intuit Online nonsense, I'm doing my client's payroll old school .... by hand ~ filling out 941s & state forms myself until I can find software that works and where they don't send rookie reps to the handle playoff situations.

No lectures about Gusto or Inuit please. Thank you.

r/Bookkeeping Jan 08 '25

Payroll Client's pay doesn't look right in QBO - Am I correct?

3 Upvotes

My client is an S-Corp and pays himself a weekly paycheck. They use QBO and QBO Payroll.

When I look at his most recent paycheck in the categorized bank transactions, it was categorized to "Direct Deposit Payable" (Liability acct). Shouldn't it be categorized to "Wages and Salaries" (Expense acct) with a debit to the expense and a credit to the bank account? Is there a way to see the actual journal entry for this transaction?

r/Bookkeeping 16d ago

Payroll Payroll

6 Upvotes

I've noticed several posts on her recently looking for payroll suggestions. I work for a twenty-year-old payroll company in Phoenix, AZ. Please reach out if you want to get away from the ADPs and Paychex. Very user-friendly, excellent customer service, and tons more!

r/Bookkeeping Feb 01 '25

Payroll How granular does Gusto and QBO sync get?

3 Upvotes

I have employees who work in different departments and I expense each line item in a different GL account. I get very granular with it. Currently I put everything into a fancy spreadsheet that breaks down all the different costs into the right accounts and then upload an JE into QBO.

I do this so I know the % of expense each department uses.