Use a PEO to Free up Some Time, Its Your Weekend
It’s YOUR Weekend: Use a PEO to Free up Some Time
It’s Friday, a quarter ‘til five, and your attention is drifting. What are your plans for the weekend? Will you be spending it at the office catching up on paperwork, or will you head to the beach or a park with your family and friends? If your answer is the paperwork, you need to consider a PEO, or professional employment organization. PEOs can be great resources for outsourcing payroll, managing taxes (especially SUTA), and obtaining worker’s compensation insurance for your employees. Ultimately their job is to save you time. In fact, as listed in “5 Things an Employee Leasing Company Can Do to Help the Employer,” the very first helpful “thing” a PEO company can do for you, the small business owner, is to keep you from wasting time.
Consider taxes for a moment. Not only are they aggravating to have to pay because you are paying out hard-earned money that could have been reinvested in your small business, they can be downright confusing. Who do you pay and how much do you pay? Will that change next year? How will you know? Fortunately, PEO companies can help because they stay up-to-date on government tax regulations and changing rates. They are a great tool if your company spans several states because you may have to pay payroll taxes to only some of the states you do business in. You would not want to start your company in Florida, where your business would not be required to pay state income taxes, and then expand into Georgia with the assumption that you still would not have to pay any state income taxes. PEOs can make sure you recognize and pay the state income taxes required by Georgia. They can also let you know if different tax rates rise or fall so that you do not owe the government more money or pay too much in taxes.
PEO’s can be helpful for taxes because they are great consultants. They are also used by many companies because they take on the tiresome administrative tasks. Although you ultimately remain in control of your employees and their day-to-day management, you do not have to worry about processing payroll or determining employee benefits. These are time-consuming tasks that distract you from other important tasks that must be addressed by you. Would you rather spend your time researching workers’ comp coverage or preparing for your sales pitch to a possible client? The answer is simple. As a small business owner, you understand the importance of delegating* tasks, so why not delegate administrative tasks to a PEO?
The greatest value of a PEO company is probably its ability to save you time. Essentially, PEO’s force you to become more efficient because they prevent you from wasting time on “less important” tasks. If you hire a PEO, you can focus on running your business without worrying about filing payroll taxes or even screening resumes. So if you do stay late at the office or go in on the weekends it can be your choice. You no longer have to give up time with your friends and family but can create a balance between your work life and your personal life. Consider a PEO and reclaim YOUR weekend!
About the Author
Carolyn Stoll Sokol is a frequent contributor to PEOcompare and writes about issues that may affect small businesses such as workers comp. She is a founder of PEOcompare.com which helps match small businesses with PEOs for their particular needs. Her background is in marketing and communications, employee education and training, development of policies and procedures and the ongoing delivery of outstanding service to customers.
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