Payroll Compliance Management

What Is Payroll Management?

The term “Payroll Management” commonly refers to the process of managing the financial records of employees' salaries, wages, bonuses, deductions, and net pay. This involves calculating employees' salaries accurately, ensuring compliance with tax laws and regulations, and distributing payments to employees on time.

Payroll management, however, is far more than must paying employees. There are a number of rules and regulations involving specific forms and deadlines at the both the state and local levels. For instance, there are state-specific rules for garnishments and multi-state taxation. There are rules for travel pay reimbursement, InPat and ExPat payroll, and more.

In all, payroll management requires proper compliance to meet the myriad or rules, all while reducing the risk of errors or compliance issues. The following info, designed to assist with these goals, highlights the various sections of payroll compliance, as well as makes recommendations for your payroll compliance training needs.

The following links take you to specific payroll compliance training areas. Each of these links includes an overview of the requirements, key issues, and common errors for each of these areas of payroll administration.

• Payroll Wage & Hour
• Paycheck Requirements
• Payroll Reporting
• Payroll Operations

Payroll Training Options

The key to ensuring proper payroll compliance is to have a great payroll training program. Whether titled a “Payroll Specialist Certification”, a “Certified Payroll Professional Certification”, or a “Certified Payroll Manager”, a payroll certification course should teach the specifics of good payroll management AND update you as the laws, COLAs, and other content changes.

For instance, your payroll certification training course should cover how to:

• Properly "classify" workers
• Apply the various exemptions
• Calculate gross pay and properly make deductions
• Properly identify, pay, and withhold taxes for employees
• Administer deferred compensation, cafeteria plan, sick pay, and other compensation
• Handle stock options, expense reimbursements, relocation, and other "expenses"
• Follow the proper policies, procedures, and documentation requirements for garnishments and levies
• Properly complete and file all required reporting requirements
• Correctly complete year end requirements and establish the year-beginning requirements
• Implement and maintain audit, disaster recovery, and record retention processes and procedures

Many payroll certification courses – especially the payroll classes for beginners or online payroll certification courses - teach the above info, but do not provide updates for new rules or limits such as for Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs), garnishment updates, how to correct errors, recordkeeping best practices, etc., so be sure to get a payroll specialist certification course that includes updates!

Payroll administration involves a multitude of tasks, and errors can occur at various stages. Below are some of the most common errors encountered in payroll administration - so be sure that your selected payroll certification course covers these areas:

• Misclassification of employee vs Independent Contractor
• Manual calculation errors
• Failure to update payroll tax rates
• Overtime calculation errors
• Failure to deduct pre-tax contributions
• Mishandling garnishments
• Not Accounting for leaves and absences
• Not knowing or follow the rules for multi-state taxation
• Missed deadlines or late filings for payroll processing, tax filings, and other regulatory requirements
• Not updating your systems for updates

Employers also must make sure that they know the requirements and have proper procedures for:

• Applicable software programs
• Direct deposit
• Auditing their payroll systems
• Meeting reporting requirement deadlines
• Record retention

How Is Payroll Management Different From Payroll Operations?

Payroll management encompasses the overall administration of payroll requirements, including compliance and benefits management, whereas payroll operations involve the day-to-day tasks of processing payroll transactions and ensuring accuracy and efficiency in payroll processing.

Specifically, while operations involves doing the work, managing payroll means being reponsible for the overall performance of the payroll department, including:

• Hiring and firing payroll team members
• Implementing and managing systems to protect against payroll fraud
• Ensuring that operations runs smoothly
• Selecting and utilizing effective payroll software
• Deciding on insourcing or outsourcing various payroll functions
• Employee information management
• Complying with all payroll recordkeeping and reporting requirements
• Handling internal or external payroll audits
• Working with management to ensure that the payroll department helps meet organizational goals

How To Become A Payroll Specialist, A Certified Payroll Professional, Or A “Certified Payroll Manager”

We suggest that you research the available payroll training and payroll certification courses, view the course agendas, and determine which of the payroll training courses provides the afore-mentioned updates. Again, the updates are important as you want to ensure proper payroll administration compliance.

The following online payroll training certification courses meet the criteria espoused herein:

• Paycheck Fundamentals Training & Certification Program
• Payroll Reporting Training & Certification Program
• Payroll Operations Training & Certification Program
• Certified Payroll Administrator