Stress-Free Payroll Process Management Your Way

It’s the last week of the month. The time that all your employees look forward to and work hard for, isn’t it?

But wait!

Are some of them worried about the error in payment and salary calculation just like the previous month?

Well, as a small business, you can simply hope and pray that this never happens because the scope of error in handling the payroll processes manually is high. Result? Frustrated workforce!

So, to ensure that your organizational success remains unaffected, you need to pay attention to every minute detail leading to employee satisfaction, one of which is payroll management. However, investing in a payroll system like CheckMark Payroll can help companies achieve this to a great extent.

Introduction to CheckMark Payroll

As the name suggests, CheckMark Payroll is payroll software built to simplify your payroll processes. It helps transform this time-consuming, boring, and mundane task into an extraordinary experience. Besides, it assures automating and streamlining your payroll processes while ensuring 100% accuracy, saving time and money.

With CheckMark Payroll, you can simplify your payroll in 5 steps,

• Enter hours manually or import it from the relevant system
• Select your pay period, i.e., pay date
• Calculate your payroll, including incomes and deductions, review, and save
• Pay your employees either through printing physical checks or by direct deposit
• View, print, and save reports

CheckMark Payroll caters to small businesses across verticals in the US. Let’s delve deeper into exploring what it has in store for you!

Overview of CheckMark Payroll

As you run your CheckMark Payroll application on your device, here is what you will see,

As you can see, it gives you an overview of the complete feature-set of CheckMark Payroll. You can navigate across the entire application with just a simple click. Besides, the dashboard is customizable, i.e., you can change its view from View > Change Command View, and below is what you will see next,

All your modules appear as a list, while most of the screen displays the News Feed. You can choose to work in whichever view you want.

Without any further ado, let’s delve into its features and functionalities.

1. File

Here, you get access to a range of functions concerning your database, company details, employees, and employer payees. You can add new data, remove the ones you no longer deal with and take a backup. Besides, you can add a database to CheckMark Payroll, delete unnecessary items, and even create a new database within a few clicks.

You can also import and export employee and employer payees data. However, we will look into each of these aspects later.

2. Edit

It comprises general edit options, such as Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, and Find, similar to those available in the MS Office environment.

3. View

This is where you can personalize your dashboard view, increase or decrease font size, change display font, and command color. You can say it is a module that enables you to set your preferences as and when required.

Moving ahead, we have the core modules of CheckMark Payroll that will make your payroll processes easier.

4. Setup

It refers to setting up your data for the payroll process. Right from inputting company details to maintaining your ledger accounts, it has got every aspect for seamless payroll calculation covered.

• Company Information: Here, you can update the information of the companies and determine their payroll year.

Moreover, you can view the activity log of that particular company and drill down employee wise data by applying specific filters. Hence, it gives you an overview of their log at a glance.

• Departments: To make your payroll process a breeze, divide your company into different departments, and categorize your workforce into specific departments. CheckMark Payroll helps you do this in an instant. All you need to do is type the department name and click on Save.
• Federal Tax Values: As Federal Tax is applied to employee earnings, it is crucial to stay up-to-date with the changing values and regulations. CheckMark Payroll provides you with all the Federal Tax parameters and relevant forms for your convenience.

• State Tax Values: Depending on the state and the marital status of your employees or payees, the state tax values differ. You can simply select the appropriate state tax category, and CheckMark Payroll will automatically fill the relevant tax values. Thus, no more hassles for you!

• Local Tax Value: Based on the locality of your employees or payees, this tax value tends to change. Here, you can choose to have a calculation method as per your organization norms and save it for further processing.

• Hour Categories: As you know that most US-based jobs are rated hourly, this is a crucial factor contributing to payroll. It gives you access to different hour categories, including Regular, Overtime, Sick, Vacation, Holiday, DblTime, Comp, PayRate 2, and PayRate 3. You can set the hourly rates for different categories so that the calculations are done automatically based on the hours an employee worked.
• Additional Income: Organizations have their own terms of payments and other offerings for their employees. For example, the sales team is incentivized based on the deals they close, whereas the content team receives incentives depending on the words they write. So, CheckMark has got a list of Additional Income, which are as below,

If applicable, you can set the amount and calculation method for each of these categories and opt to exempt it from different taxes.

• Deductions: Right from 401(k) to ETT, Reimburse, Medical Insurance, and Loan, various deductions may apply to different employees. As shown below, you can set up preferences for each.

• Employees: Here, you get a list of employees in your company and all the corresponding details related to them, including their wages, taxes, income, deductions, accrued hours, and YTD (Year To Date). It gives a clear picture of the employee’s hire date, last raise date, and termination date. All the taxes mentioned above and settings can be handled for each individual under this tab.
• Employer Payees: CheckMark lets you add new payees, modify the existing payees, and delete payees if there are no payment checks. You can set up payees for employer payments, such as Federal, State, and Local Taxes, as well as other employee deductions.
• Ledger Accounts: This accounts to be an integral part of the Payroll process. It comprises a record of business transactions. CheckMark lets you categorize these transactions under different categories – General, Additional Income, Deductions, Taxes, Departments, and more.

5. Payroll

All your payroll calculation methods, rates, payments, checks, etc. are taken care of by this module. Let’s have a look!

• Distribute Hours: Here, you can set the working hours of an employee, department, and job category. Alternatively, you can also import employee work data if you use any attendance tracking software or other systems.
• Enter Hours: It gives you an overview of the total hours, along with hours distributed under different job categories.
• Calculate Pay: You can mention the period start and end date as well as the check date here. The frequency of paying can be changed, i.e., weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, and more. Once this is set, you can view employee-wise data as below,

• Review/Create Paychecks: Before processing the payment, you can review the calculations, pay summary, and other parameters. Once everything is up to the mark, you can create the paychecks of your employees.
• Print Paychecks: Here, you can preview the checks before printing. Your check may appear as below,

However, you can customize the check format with the available edit options, utilize different printing options, and even choose to email the paychecks to your employees and payees. It also gives you an alternative to making a Direct Deposit. You can also print MICR encoded paychecks. 

• Modify Paychecks: CheckMark Payroll empowers you to modify paychecks even after you have created them. If required, you can delete or mark all entries as void and re-fill fresh entries. Here too, you have the choice to make a Direct Deposit.
• Allocate to Depts/Jobs: You can allocate the amount to departments or jobs to analyze spending and earnings. This helps you make informed decisions.
• Create/Print/Modify Payments: CheckMark Payroll enables you to create payments for employer payees, print them, and modify them in the same way as you can do for your employees.

6. Reports

It is crucial to have deep insights into every business operation and its outcome to keep running effectively and efficiently. Payroll is one of them. CheckMark Payroll lets you generate a set of reports to help you make informed business decisions. Some of these reports include,

• Employee Information: Right from an employee’s personal information to his tax, wages, and deduction data, CheckMark allows you to view and print reports. You can also make a text or XLS file and save it for future records. Here’s the report of an employee’s Wage Information,

• Employee Earnings, Employee Paychecks, Income & Deductions: It encompasses the entire earning register of your employees. You can filter the data by department or the hours worked.

Similarly, you can generate a report for your employee’s income, deductions, and paychecks.

• Departments-Jobs: This allows you to avail reports as for specific departments and job roles as per your requirement. You can create two different reports here – one for Wages & Hours, whereas the other for Check Summary. Your Department-Job Wages & Hours report will be printed in the following format,

• Taxes: CheckMark Payroll enables you to create tax-wise reports. This includes Federal, State, Local, and 940 FUTA Taxes. You can generate quarter-wise reports or annual reports and also filter it form wise. However, each of the tax reports has its own options, filters, data, and more. You can have your reports customized as per the information you need.
• Employer Payments: Here, you can create month-wise reports of your employer payments for different details like Check Register, Posting Summary, ACH Direct Deposit, and ACH NPC Direct Deposit. Moreover, you post these reports directly to Multiledger.
• W-2 & W-3 Statements: With CheckMark Payroll, you can prepare W-2 and W-3 reports of each employee individually.

Summing Up

Payroll is quite a tedious process, but CheckMark Payroll simplifies it and makes it a walk on the moon with its intuitive and user-friendly interface. Besides, it ensures that you stay in compliance with IRS regulations, tax laws, and reporting needs. Touted among the top 10 payroll solutions in the USA, it is known for its functionality, cost-effectiveness, and scalability.

To explore more about Payroll CheckMark and its significance, you can always visit its website or its SoftwareSuggest Product Profile Page.