If you're running your own self-employed business; the chances are you have little or no time to worry about payroll. You may employ only a couple of employees but you still need to be sure that your payments, tax contributions and so on are correct. If you don't, you are liable to have to pay out more than you wanted due to fines and so on. However, worrying about payroll shouldn't have to be an extra stress on top of running a business.

This is another vital necessity when dealing with your small business payroll needs as you need to know that your finances are in safe hands and that you has someone to contact regarding any queries. With self-employment businesses often differing quite dramatically, it's important that you are able to negotiate and have regular consultations with someone. As an employer you will no doubt want to ensure that your employees are receiving the correct payments and are within the correct tax code and contributing the necessary amount to their National Insurance Contributions. Payroll Company will make sure your employees are receiving and paying all the correct amounts of money.

Whilst it may seem like added expense to outsource your payroll to another company it is important to realize the value of such companies. In the time that you would normally be tearing your hair out trying to understand all the tax legislation, working out all of the hours, the overtime and so on, you could be out there earning yourself more money, or doing something much more productive.

For those who still don’t quite understand the whole “cloud computing” movement, don’t worry. You don’t really need to know
what it is to be a part of it. In fact, you already are a part of it.

Much of the things we do for our professional and personal lives are now done through web-based programs, and with the continued movement of small and mid-sized business accounting systems to online platforms, businesses and their accountants will continue to move increasingly toward the cloud model. As more and more of our business data is hosted through online programs, more and more of it is available to other programs you use for professional or personal purposes. This inter connectivity between web-based programs is part of the definition of this cloud. Imagine a world where your client’s accounting data would be seamlessly integrated with your write-up package, where reconciliation's would be virtually instant, where financial data could be streamed directly into your planning or preparation systems. Zero data-entry accounting. That is what the cloud will soon mean for professional practices.

The core of the client-accountant-cloud relationship will be the client’s web-based accounting system. Through the Workflow model, small businesses essentially rent their software under agreements that usually have per month and per user fees. This method makes it easier for small businesses to give users access to only the features and modules they need and, therefore, to only pay for those features the business needs. But Workflow, especially when it comes to small business accounting, has many more benefits than just the delivery platform. That is why, for this year’s review of small business accounting systems, we’ve separated the programs into two groups: web-based Workflow systems, and traditionally installed on-premise programs.

For starters, Workflow-based programs are, inherently, accessed via the web, even though they may have some small parts of the system installed on the user’s computer. This web-based nature means, of course, that the programs are pretty much accessible from anywhere. This also means that they easily support staff working in different locations, whether nearby or around the world. Other advantages of web-based accounting packages come through integration with other online systems, such as e-commerce functions and collaboration tools.

Eventually, almost all of the programs we use will be web-based, at this point; a business needs to decide on whether these mobility, collaboration, remote office and integration features are essential or potentially advantageous for them. If so, now’s the time to go web-based.

There are other potential significant advantages to having clients who are using web-based accounting systems. First off, the accountant can log in instantly to help the client troubleshoot a bookkeeping or transactional error, instead of waiting until the end of the month. Second, there’s no need for an “end of the month” for write-up since the professional can access live client data in real time to reconcile accounts, make correcting entries, run financial's or perform any other work.

The web-based Workflow accounting packages on the market vary widely in functionality and pricing, with some geared more toward the mid-sized enterprise level. For the purposes of our small business accounting reviews, we define small business accounting products as those that cost $5,500 or less for one to five users of the core package. The key is in finding the solutions that offer the feature sets that most benefit a particular small business. Then, the business will want to demo one or two of the programs. And since they are all web-based, each has online demos or trial versions. 

Core Accounting Capabilities

• GL/AP/AR functionality
• Sales Tax Functionality
• Audit Trail
• Multi-Location Support

Day-To-Day Operations

• Sales/Point-of-Sale/Shipping
• Customer/Vendor/Employee Mgt
• Inventory/Purchasing

Management Features

• Dashboard Overviews
• Reporting/Invoicing
• Security Features/User Roles

Integration/Import/Export

• Data Transfer
• External Integration
• Accountant Access/Data flow

E-Features

• E-Payment/E-Banking
• Mobile Device App's
• E-mail Invoicing

Help/Support

• Built-In Support Features
• System Updates
• Support Web site/Documentation
• U.S.– based support

Summary & Pricing

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