In House Payroll vs Outside Vendor (CA users)

[PVCC]

Question in short: We are using v11, and using it to cut checks for employees now (1 FT senior pastor, 2 PT staff) , How easy is it for new bookkeeper to learn to comply with federal (form 941) and state PIT filing requirements? (We don't pay UI, SDI, or ETT) Does the risk of liability of fines for errors justify a move to an outside vendor, like ADP who assumes all liability?

We are a small church of less than a 100 in a rural community where every penny counts. If possible I'd like to be able to discuss this question by phone with California users who use Powerchurch to process payroll requirements in house. Email me and I can return your phone call. I realise that some of this may be subjective, and that there is not necessarily a "pat" answer; however I would like some opinions.

Scenerio: I am having a hard time justifying a consideration by the board for the expenditure to pay an outside vendor to run payroll when we are already cutting all checks in Powerchurch v11 and the program prints form 941 and the W2's (as I understand it). I need to be able to explain and understand the pros and cons. (Note: The new bookkeeper has little bookkeeping knowledge and is a quick learner currently being trained by a CPA) The first part of the fiscal year we were using Quickbooks for bookkeeping, and Powerchurch for contributions. I have been here four years and the church has run payroll in house while a CPA filed the quarterly's and did W2's I made a recommendation that we consolidate all bookkeeping to Powerchurch and stop paying the previous outside CPA to hit the "print" button so to speak since we entered all the payroll and bookkeeping info and then sent her all information via flash drive. We have since converted all to v11 and have payroll setup to cut checks. I'd like the new bookkeeper to go the next step and file the 941, W2's, and DE9 with the state. Since my pay is straight forward being salaried and I pay SE tax, there is really only entries (hrs worked)for two employees. Does the responsibility and possibility of fines justify an outside vendor? It seems that with only 2 PT employees the risk is so minimal. Any thoughts???

[JohnDMeyers]

We have a part-time bookkeeper, in house, doing our payroll. We have 8 on staff.

Our safety net is the oversight that our deacons provide. For example, one deacon reconciles the bank account, another one oversees the counting of the offering, and a third one oversees the entering of the information into PowerChurch (that would be me).

[beas]

David,

IMHO doing this work in-house for a small staff is not complicated nor difficult at all. If your bookkeeper is quick to pick things up, I wouldn't think it would be a problem. However, not being in California, I can't speak to the payments, etc. there, but I am in Oregon and we have income tax that we have to deal with and everyone has the Feds to deal with.

Just to mention a couple of things, the Feds have EFTPS online that you can set up to pay your withholding and payroll taxes (whatever you may have) as well as a program for doing W-2's online and filing them electronically. I have been using both of these for years. In Oregon we also have online tax payment as well as a program for filing our quarterly tax reports. I wouldn't be surprised if California has something as well.

Unfortunately, for small "businesses", the Feds as yet don't allow you to file your quarterly 941's electronically that I know of. However, they do have the fill-in form that you can download and fill in on your computer. I keep a template copy with the church info on it and just fill it in each quarter and save it under a name for that quarter.

It is very easy to get the info you need for these reports from PC+.

I hope this is at least somewhat useful.

[NeilZ]

FWIW ... V11's payroll does everything as far as calculating and printing the 941, printing W-2s, and so on.

California setup is also easy (http://www.powerchurch.com/support/kb/k ... icle_id=96) per the article cited.

We do all payroll in-house. There are three employees, and the hardest part of doing the payroll is stuffing checks in the printer As far as the federal quarterly tax payments, there is an online way for small businesses to do this, we do it every quarter. For more info see this IRS webpage: http://tinyurl.com/2d9bvzw

[Jeff]

Once payroll is setup, it is largely routine just filing the necessary forms at the correct times. The consideration in PowerChurch is updating the tax tables in the program when they changes. The fed usually only changes once at the beginning of the year, although there have been some changes mid-year. She would also need to pay attention to any changes in California income tax. We are still getting calls from customers that didn't know employee social security changed last January and they didn't make the changes in PowerChurch to the new rates.