A new software cuts through the complexity small businesses and entrepreneurs face when wrestling with their payrolls.

Zoho announced the launch of Zoho Payroll in the US Dec. 12 following similar launches in India in 2019 and the United Arab Emirates in 2023.

“One important reason as to why we are even trying to solve payroll,” explains Christopher Joseph, Head of Marketing, Zoho Payroll. “The fundamental problem remains the same. Simply put, there are too many compliance challenges that continue to evolve. Each operation within payroll has an excessive number of moving components, significantly complicating the process.”

Zoho Platform Makes Payroll Setup Easy Peasy

Say you own a small local chain of family restaurants. You need to manage a full wait staff for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That ignores the kitchen staff, bussing staff etc.

Besides this, you need to evolve your menu, develop new dishes, and experiment with specials to bring in diners. You also worry about marketing and how to keep developing new ideas to expand your customer base.

You seem to have a lot on your plate (pun intended!) Now add running payroll, dealing with state and federal withholding and managing 401Ks and other benefits.

Zoho Payroll makes the whole setup easy. Begin on the first page with some basic information about your organization. (see below)

You start with the name of your organization followed by location. If your business is located inside the continental United States, for example, you select this from the available options. So far, Zoho Payroll only offers services in three countries: India, UAE and the U.S.

Next, you must include the industry in which your business operates. Say you run a small construction company with less than 10 employees. Or perhaps you operate a marketing company with even fewer workers.

Select the appropriate industry from the pulldown menu to fit the industry in which your business operates.

You also need to provide the company’s legal structure. This includes whether your business is a sole proprietorship, partnership, Limited Liability Company, Corporation or S-Corporation.

If your company does business by a name other than the official name of your organization, you also need to provide this information too.

For example, say your business is incorporated under the name JR Consulting LLC but runs a website called The Consulting Team. You would want to add this second business name under which you do business here.

Finally, to complete the first page of setup, you need to provide a business address.

Even if you operate multiple locations, as in the family restaurant example above, here you need to provide the address, city, state and zip code where your business has its headquarters.

This becomes important when figuring out the local and state tax withholding responsibilities for your business. It translates to how much in local and state taxes you will need to withhold and pay on your employees’ behalf in addition to federal withholdings.

As you see, initial setup takes minutes. Then move on to the more in depth reporting necessary to set up payroll and get started.

Add Your Work Locations

You already entered your business address above. But say you have a chain of cafes, a chain or auto repair shops or a chain of hair salons throughout your state or region.

You will need to add the location of each under the section labeled work locations. (see below)

Fortunately, Zoho Payroll grows with your business. As you see above, the software makes it easy to add more locations or edit details about existing locations as your business expands.

Add Your State and Federal Tax Information

Allow Zoho to calculate withholdings and any other important costs or payments by adding your tax information.

Zoho Payroll makes this simple. You add your federal employer identification number. Then add any state unemployment insurance or worker’s compensation information relevant for your business.

Zoho Payroll allows you to authorize the tax reporting agent responsible for paying the taxes on your business’s behalf.

Here you also configure other details like the frequency of federal tax deposits and federal unemployment tax deposits.

Customize Salary Information on the Salary Components Page

One of the most intimidating aspects of running payroll must surely be keeping track of regular pay versus overtime, doubletime, bonuses and commissions.

You also must keep track of information relevant for severance pay and payments for unused paid vacation if these apply to your business.

Luckily, Zoho Payroll’s Salary Components page allows you to customize from pre-configured options to fit the needs of your business.

Setup Your Payroll Schedule

You may plan to pay your employees every week, every two weeks, twice a month, monthly or quarterly.

Each business needs to decide what payment schedule works best given cash flow and other considerations.

Once you decide on a schedule however, you simply automate most of the rest of the process. Zoho Payroll offers some help here.

Use Payroll to set up your pay schedule. Choose when payments will be sent out to employees.

For example, if you choose to pay employees monthly, you might default to the last day of the month as payday. Or choose the day of the month you would prefer payments be sent out.

Zoho Payroll Helps with Tax Payments, W-4 Forms and a Whole Lot More

Zoho Payroll also allows you to spend more time on your business. And it helps you spend less time on the compliance issues that sometimes make you want to tear your hair out.

You started your small business to build a financial future for you and your family. You wanted to create a product or service you believe in. And you thrive on providing that product or service to your customers.

But as your business grows, you spend less and less time doing those things.

More employees means the ability to scale your business for greater success.

But it also means spending more time managing federal and state tax forms, 401(k) deductions, taxes for Section 125 insurance plans, flexible spending accounts and health saving accounts.

Unfortunately, from time to time you also need to provide wage garnishments when required. Changing regulations make compliance a full time job for many small businesses.

For example, an estimated 4000 plus tax regulation changes impacting small business payroll occurred in the last decade alone.

“To put that into perspective, it means that we have more than one change happening for the entire decade every day,” said Joseph. “I mean, that’s just too much for anybody to keep track of.”

Fortunately, Zoho Payroll’s Compliance by Design integrates all these changes so a small business owner doesn’t need to remember them all.

So focus on creating that new software package your clients will love or stocking that new clothing line that will have customers beating down your door.

And allow Zoho Payroll to keep track of the latest payroll tax regulation Washington D.C. rolls out.

Zoho’s Payroll Software Makes Onboarding Easy

In the beginning, you focus on attracting customers and generating cash flow. But over time, you need to start hiring.

Whether they serve coffee in your cafe, load products at your warehouse or build websites for your web design clients, these employees need to be onboarded.

As a small business owner, you signed on to create great products and services for your customers not to work in the HR department.

Fortunately, Zoho Payroll (see below) makes it easy.

Just add the new employee’s name, first date of work, employee ID, work email, mobile number, designation (what’s their job at your business) and work address. (This address would usually be your business’s headquarters.)

Then add “employee type. This means whether the employee is classified as salaried or Paid by the hour, for example.

Then fill in the federal, state and any other tax information. And finally include the employee’s payment setup. (Will they be getting a check or direct deposit?)

With Zoho Payroll’s simple onboarding, you can add a new employee with a couple of keystrokes on a handful of web forms.

Sounds better than wading through pages of paperwork, right?

Zoho Allows You To Work ON Your Business not IN It

Entrepreneurs need to be visionaries. For this, they must escape the day to day grind of operations long enough to do big things.

A restaurateur needs time to rework the menu and maybe your restaurant’s decor and theme. Perhaps you need more plant-based dishes. Or maybe the dining area needs a more minimalist look.

The owner of a construction firm needs time to work on that one important bid that will take your company from residential renovations to that first big commercial project.

The owner of a logistics business needs time to discover how to make warehouse operations run more smoothly or cut down the number of miles put on trucks by streamlining deliveries. This proves difficult when you spend all your time sending out W-4 and other forms, writing checks or sending out direct deposits.

Zoho Payroll automates these functions and more. The software helps run payroll and send out forms. It also creates reports of all withholdings, tax payments and payroll payments – just in case federal or state agencies have questions. (See below)

But maybe most importantly, Zoho Payroll keeps track of all new taxes and regulations that might impact your payroll compliance.

So you can concentrate on your new menu, that all-important contracting project or how to make your organization run more smoothly. Stop worrying about state and federal regulations. Focus on making your business better.

Zoho Gives Your Employees a Great Experience Too

Evidence suggests happy employees are more productive. This Oxford University study proves the point.

It found happy employees are 13% more productive. That represents a great competitive advantage.

Zoho helps create happier employees by creating software to improve their experience as well. When it comes to payroll, this means providing a level of transparency.

The Zoho Payroll employee portal allows employees to take a look at detailed information with each payslip. (see below)

They see net pay, withheld taxes, benefit payments and deductions (if applicable.) But each payslip summary also allows them to keep track of the amount of sick days and vacation days they’ve taken. It also shows them how many they still have available.

We mentioned earlier how Zoho Payroll offers a reporting function keeping records of all payments to employees, withholding and other information.

You can make some of this information easily accessible to employees too. For example, Zoho Payroll makes it easy for employees to download an entire year of pay slips or request from the system administrator any other information they need.

Zoho Offers a Price Just Right for Small Business

Clearly, Zoho Payroll offers businesses many benefits. You get the ability to quickly and easily customize your payroll the way you want it.

You also gain the ability to onboard employees effortlessly as your business expands.

The software allows you to automate large parts of the payroll process. And perhaps most critically, Zoho Payroll keeps track of withholdings for taxes and benefits. It also keeps up with relevant federal and state regulations related to payroll. And it makes it simple for your business to comply.

So now small business owners need to ask the question. Can I afford a software that does all these things?

Zoho Payroll seems like a great fit for a multimillion dollar aerospace or software company. But for a chain of gas stations headquartered in Topeka, Kansas, this software sounds expensive. Get ready for a surprise. Zoho Payroll proves surprisingly affordable.

The software starts at $39 a month with $6 per month additional cost per employee. Compare this to what you might spend hiring a team to manage all this for you, and the value becomes clear.

Zoho Payroll in a Nutshell

In the end, small businesses need to pay their employees in a timely manner. And state and federal governments create lots of additional regulations that make this process even more complicated.

Fortunately, Zoho Payroll makes setting things up a breeze. With a few online forms, you supply basic business information, employee identification number, unemployment and worker’s compensation information.

Then customize salary information and pay schedule and you are good to go.

Zoho Payroll allows you to manage W-4 forms for each employee plus 401(k) and insurance payments, tax withholding and more. It also provides stellar reporting that allows you to visualize the process at a glance.

Zoho Payroll makes adding new employees to the process easy. It allows you to work on your business not in it (as an ad hoc member of the HR department.)

The software also gives employees a great experience allowing them to see their net pay, withholdings, available sick days and vacation days in an employee portal.

Finally, the software is affordable. So you need not be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to use it.

Get more information on Zoho Payroll in the U.S. and how to use it here.

Images from Zoho

This article, “Zoho Payroll Manages Major Headache for Small Businesses” was first published on Small Business Trends