Blog

By Hitendra Patil, Head of Customer Success, AccountantsWorld

Once in a lifetime comes a challenge that changes everything. No, we're not talking about the pandemic. Instead, it’s about the challenges that accounting and payroll firms face. One such potentially business-threatening challenge is currently faced by firms offering payroll services - what software to use in the future.

When your firm’s payroll software provider decides to offer full-service payroll themselves, essentially, you have a critical choice to make: either surrender your payroll practice to them, or switch to another payroll solution to protect your payroll business.

But, how exactly do you decide which payroll software to switch to? On first view, most payroll solutions will look and feel similar. After all, it is payroll processing and related compliance work, so how much can be different? Maybe efficiency and pricing? But this decision to switch is not easy. Unless you know what firms similar to yours did before deciding upon which new payroll solution to use.

We're here to make it easier for you.

You may be aware that AccountantsWorld’s payroll software, Payroll Relief, is designed for and sold exclusively to accounting and payroll firms (never to their clients). It is perhaps the most automated and robust payroll solution specifically for professional firms like yours.

In recent weeks, we have been regularly making firms aware of the possibilities that Payroll Relief provides to them, thanks to our Payroll Success webinars. The webinars are attended by many firms looking for a better choice. Based on these webinars, we have identified the most common concerns and objectives of such firms – and their key decision criteria upon which they finally make a payroll software decision. Here are the critical insights that can help you make your decision quickly and with great confidence.

1. Survival of their payroll business and retaining their clients

Firm owners have told us that they want to continue to provide payroll services to their clients. They don’t want to let someone else just take their payroll business/clients away. In their search for alternatives, they found Payroll Relief is the only professional software that does NOT compete with their firms. In other words, there is no fear of losing clients to AccountantsWorld as we don’t sell to accountants’ clients, ever.

2. Easy migration and onboarding

Moving to another software creates anxiety and a one-time data migration/onboarding effort for firms. It is a cost as it involves time and effort. But when it comes to the survival of the payroll business itself, it is not a cost. It is an investment, provided (a) the new payroll software is easy to migrate to, and (b) it protects their payroll business. Both factors are critically important.

3. Profitability

The subscription price of software is not its true total cost. The tasks you have to perform manually using any software defines your firm’s profitability from that software. The biggest mistake firms made in the past was to compare the price, not the overall total cost. Thanks to intelligent automation around payroll processes, many firms using Payroll Relief have grown their payroll business by 200-300% or more, without adding payroll staff.

4. Payroll compliance challenges

Perhaps the #1 reason business owners outsource payroll to your firm is the complexity and tight deadlines in payroll compliance. That is the real “gap” between your competencies and that of your clients (who are not payroll compliance experts). But, does the payroll software take the challenges out of payroll compliance without your firm needing to outsource that work to someone else? Did you know that you can retain 70+% revenue from your payroll service fees by clicking just one button, which otherwise you could easily lose to someone else?

5. Client collaboration and service costs

One of the time-consuming and expensive aspects of payroll services is the need to service all the information needs of clients and their employees. This includes timely communications to clients to ensure their payroll-related information and payments are lined up timely and accurately. If your payroll software does not allow you to manage this from within the software, it is an added cost to your firm. Automation of client and employee services, including self-service technologies like the tools included in Payroll Relief, can significantly reduce such costs and also eliminate the stress associated with tight deadlines.

Never forget that you're the expert in payroll processing and compliance - not your clients, and certainly not a software company trying to service your clients themselves. Here's to a sustainable, profitable payroll service!

Learn more about Payroll Relief today.