The 10 most common payroll mistakes

摘要

Payroll has long been perceived as a chore. Employees need to be paid, necessary government forms have to be filed, and taxes have to be paid promptly. "Many mistakes happen due to the preparer simply not knowing the rules," said Michael Hoffman, CPA, of the New Jersey-based firm of WithumSmith+Brown. To make payroll just a little less daunting, these 10 tips will help you avoid the 10 most common mistakes. 1. Missed tax deposits and filing deadlines. Michael Alter, president of online payroll provider SurePayroll, said, "Once tax funds have been taken from employees and contributed tax funds from the business, you must know when and how those funds get deposited." A calendar with all deadlines for federal, state, county and municipal tax deposits and filing deadlines for the entire year should be visible at every payroll professionals' desk. "Missed deadlines for depositing payroll taxes and filing the required reports can result in large penalties for late payment or reporting, as well as time lost working on you business," stated Mindi Rickhoff, owner and manager of operations for O'Fallon, Ill.-based Payroll Central. 2. Inexperienced personnel. Have more than one employee trained to do payroll in case the employee who is primarily responsible is out. Training clients and staff can help discover problems as they appear. Many vendors, such as Accountants World, ADP and Paychex, provide training with CPE credits. In addition, you need to have a manual backup system for handling all payroll functions. 3. Errors in filling out W-2 forms. There are many guidelines to abide by when issuing W-2s. These forms need to issued no later than January 31 and all of the demographic information on the form needs to be correct and complete. "In addition, many companies do not understand or realize that certain deductions do and do not have to be listed on the W-2 and in which box they need to be listed," added Rickhoff.