Payroll Service for extended vacation or hit by bus

Fund Accounting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll

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christybeth
Posts: 72
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2016 12:35 pm
Location: Washington State
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Payroll Service for extended vacation or hit by bus

Post by christybeth »

Hello all,

We are trying to get a plan together on the off chance that I am hit by a bus, taken ill or would like to take an extended vacation and miss a payroll week. Preference to the latter!

We are currently planning to reach out to our local accountants office that has helped us in the past to see if they are able to run payroll, send paystubs, pay the payroll taxes and submit the elective deferrals. We have about 25 on staff and I upload the payroll to our bank. We were thinking of actually testing 2 payrolls with them while I am in town to make sure it all runs smoothly.

I am just wondering what you all tend to do? Do you use a local accountant or which payroll service provider would you recommend? We have one other employee that is the secondary to approve payroll at the bank but no else on staff has PowerChurch knowledge to facilitate in my absence. Seems like a lot of passwords to share to facilitate everything but someday there may be a cruise in my future and we should have a contingency plan in place regardless.

Appreciate your feedback!

Christy

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
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Re: Payroll Service for extended vacation or hit by bus

Post by NeilZ »

christybeth wrote:
Wed May 03, 2023 4:26 pm
Hello all,

We are trying to get a plan together on the off chance that I am hit by a bus, taken ill or would like to take an extended vacation and miss a payroll week. Preference to the latter!

We are currently planning to reach out to our local accountants office that has helped us in the past to see if they are able to run payroll, send paystubs, pay the payroll taxes and submit the elective deferrals. We have about 25 on staff and I upload the payroll to our bank. We were thinking of actually testing 2 payrolls with them while I am in town to make sure it all runs smoothly.

I am just wondering what you all tend to do? Do you use a local accountant or which payroll service provider would you recommend? We have one other employee that is the secondary to approve payroll at the bank but no else on staff has PowerChurch knowledge to facilitate in my absence. Seems like a lot of passwords to share to facilitate everything but someday there may be a cruise in my future and we should have a contingency plan in place regardless.

Appreciate your feedback!

Christy
What are you doing currently? Are you using Powerchurch for payroll? Some use a payroll provider, some use local accountants. In both cases, you'd have to manually add transactions in Powerchurch to account for employer taxes, pension/401k, etc.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

christybeth
Posts: 72
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2016 12:35 pm
Location: Washington State
Contact:

Re: Payroll Service for extended vacation or hit by bus

Post by christybeth »

I am the only employee trained to use PowerChurch. My boss, one of our pastors, approves the payroll. Otherwise, they have VERY little knowledge of PowerChurch. Payroll is processed through PowerChurch and then I upload it to our bank and handle everything else. Tough to take more than a week off as a bookkeeper with a church of our size.

In your experience, do payroll service providers take care of payroll, payroll taxes and making 403b elective deferral contributions? Manually adding transactions sounds like such a pain but a 2 week vacation sounds heavenly.

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
Contact:

Re: Payroll Service for extended vacation or hit by bus

Post by NeilZ »

christybeth wrote:
Wed May 03, 2023 5:47 pm
I am the only employee trained to use PowerChurch. My boss, one of our pastors, approves the payroll. Otherwise, they have VERY little knowledge of PowerChurch. Payroll is processed through PowerChurch and then I upload it to our bank and handle everything else. Tough to take more than a week off as a bookkeeper with a church of our size.

In your experience, do payroll service providers take care of payroll, payroll taxes and making 403b elective deferral contributions? Manually adding transactions sounds like such a pain but a 2 week vacation sounds heavenly.
Some do, some don't. Those that do, cost more, and you have to grant them access to your bank accounts, 403b provider page, and so on. If you really want to get rid of doing payroll, then you need to do a lot of research. Frankly, with 25 employees that's a good sized payroll.

My advice is, teach someone else how to use payroll. Its not that hard, and often the hardest part is loading the printer. I've found that often a church volunteer is willing to be trained in order to provide some backup for the bookkeeper or secretary.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

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