Accounting Today - April 19, 2010

to motivate the client to use them as their payroll processor.

The benefit to your practice in partnering with myPay Solutions is that you get to decide whether any one particular client should be processed in-house in your practice or would be better served by using an outside service bureau. Payrolls processed by myPay Solutions can be directly imported in Write-up CS or QuickBooks, and as the client’s accountant, you can have access to all or selected payroll reports for that client.

The payroll system that myPay Solutions offers is similar to that provided by other online service bureaus. The former Creative Solutions has been offering an in-house application for processing client payroll for decades, so they’ve had plenty of time to get payroll down pat. The data entry screens are not overpopulated, and the system is easy to navigate — important factors for your clients, especially those with high turnover rates in the payroll department. It offers 10 standard reports, somewhat less than most other vendors, and your client can choose either five reports, or eight reports of the 10, depending on what level of service they sign up for. The level of service (Premium Package or Premium Plus) also determines how the payroll is entered —through a Web portal or through fax or e-mail submission. Direct deposit is standard with both packages.

MyPay Solutions is smaller than many of the established payroll service bureaus, which may be a consideration. But the fact that you can deal with Thomson Reuters for both in-practice payroll servicing or an outside vendor for some of your clients may also be a motivating factor.

Payroll
FROM PAGE 25
Peachtree Select Payroll
Sage North America
(877) 495-9904
www.peachtree.com

Peachtree and Intuit’s QuickBooks pretty much own the entry-level accounting market, with millions of small businesses using one or the other’s software.

Peachtree offers three payroll products,
Peachtree Simple Payroll, Peachtree Managed
Payroll, and the one we reviewed, Peachtree
Select Payroll. Two of these, Simple Payroll
and Select Payroll, are desktop solutions with
the core functionality contained in the ac-
counting software and unlocked through an
unlock code from Peachtree. The Peachtree
Managed Payroll puts Peachtree in charge of
calculating the payroll and maintaining the
software. Two of the three solutions require
an annual subscription. Simple Payroll is cur-
rently $259 a year, while Peachtree Select is
$349 per year. For the extra $90 a year, Select
provides W- 2 delivery and the e-filing of tax
forms. That’s a pretty good deal. Both Simple
and Select provide access to the payroll sys-
tem directly through Peachtree Accounting.
Direct deposit is an option for both Simple
and Select, and both can print signature-
ready required tax filing forms.

QuickBooks Payroll
Enhanced
Intuit Inc.
(888) 236-9501
http://proadvisor.intuit.com

Sharing the low-end accounting market with Peachtree, QuickBooks is used by many smaller businesses, many of which are doing their payroll manually, having once calculated the gross to net sometime in the past.

If you have clients in this situation, Intuit offers a number of QuickBooks Payroll solutions. On one hand, the Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals and Payroll Enhanced for Accountants offer your practice the opportunity to provide clients with payroll processing, either in real-time (Online Payroll) or after the fact (Payroll Enhanced for Accountants).

An Intuit Online Payroll is available for
clients that want to use an outside service
bureau. This is the PayCycle payroll service
that was acquired by Intuit a while back and
rebranded. Intuit also offers Payroll Basic,
Payroll Assisted Service, and Payroll En-
hanced, the version we reviewed.

Run Powered by ADP
for Accountants
ADP Small Business Services
(866) 527-5237
www.smallbusiness.adp.com/

In the past, ADP was not really a consideration for your smaller clients, those with only five to 10 employees. A few years ago, ADP realized that there are a lot of small businesses that have payrolls, and established its Small Business Services division.

Run Powered by ADP is designed to provide the smaller business with pretty much the same capabilities that ADP offers to its larger clients. It has the same processing engine, though it’s designed to have data entered by the client (or the accountant offering Run), not by an ADP data entry operator.

As such, the screens are laid out simply and are uncluttered. If your client is doing the data entry and processing, they won’t have to hunt to navigate the system — it’s very clear where a particular process is performed, and Run guides the user through each step.

Run Powered by ADP for Accountants is the same product, but offered to accountants to customize the product with their firm’s name and logo. ADP is actually providing the services, but client contact is through your practice and you pay ADP and invoice the client. In addition, your practice projects a much larger capability to the client. As the client’s accountant, you can have access to all of the payroll records.

As a huge payroll processor, ADP has the chops to offer pretty much all of the services of its high-end product. There are 80 or so defined deductions, export to popular accounting software packages, direct deposit and more. ADP prefers to quote prices on an individual basis, but like most service bureaus, the fee is dependent on the number of employees processed.

SurePayroll
SurePayroll
(877) 954-7873
www.surepayroll.com

While not as large or as well known as ADP or Paychex, SurePayroll is still a national payroll service bureau with many of the same capabilities and pricing models. Where the vendor distinguishes itself is in how aggressively it markets itself to the accounting community. Depending on how much you want to be involved in your clients’ payrolls, you can refer or resell the service.

If you are a CPA, compensation for referrals is somewhat of a dicey subject. SurePayroll doesn’t actually pay you for the referral, but offers you a choice of “rewards,” including gift cards or a donation to your favorite charity as a thank you. Of course, providing a client with a recommendation for a service provider that is going to take good care of them is compensation in itself.

The reseller program is much more clear-cut. SurePayroll will private-label its service with your practice’s name. When a client signs on to process payroll, they will see your name on all the screens. SurePayroll provides the processing, as well as the customer support if needed.

One nice feature is SureChoice. Whether you are referring a client to SurePay, having a client participate in the reseller program, or just have a client using SurePayroll, you can sign up for SureChoice, which lets you access and print client payroll reports. This eliminates the need for a client to forward these reports on to you for your records and audit/verification.