Hello and welcome to another episode of always up to date. I’m Denise and this is [inaudible] and we are co owners of always Edmonton Bookkeeping. Today on our video we’re going to talk about how you can manage your payroll. Um, so the quote that we have today is from a talaga one day who’s the author of the checklist manifesto. And he says, Oh, we always hope for the easy fix, the one simple change that will erase a problem in a stroke. But few things in life work this way. Instead, success requires making a hundred small steps go right one after the other, no slip ups, no goose, everyone pitching in. Um, so the statistic that we have today is from the United States Bureau of labor statistics and it says that the average employee stays with an employer for 4.6 years and the average millennial stays with an employer for 2.3 years.
Um, so new business owner, um, they want to scale the business, but they don’t have a payroll process in place yet. Um, so we have a few questions to ask, um, about how to manage your payroll. Um, so y’all yummy. What do I need to get from my employees? Um, well from the very basic, you need their a social insurance number of their birthday, their address, their personal information basically. But, um, a lot of the thing, uh, this is one of the things that always get forgotten by, by employee, uh, employers, even the bigger employers is the, no, the CIDI one forms, which is, which has a federal version in a provincial version. Um, so those stuff basically need, um, if you’re trying to hire somebody, we recommend that you have a template on place when you’re hiring someone so that you don’t forget anything that you require with Edmonton Bookkeeping.
And again, going back to the statistics, if, yeah, average employees these four 44.6 years, um, and especially the millennials are entering the workforce today, such as I touch just me. There are more of them that will only stay for 2.3 years. There’s going to be a lot more hiring that that’s going to happen. So it’s very important that you have your templates done. Um, not only for personal information in the forms, but also your contracts. Yeah. So how do the templates help me with my pale payroll processing? So again, it simplifies everything that you have to do, uh, each and every time. You don’t have, um, uh, ask questions to your, to your new employees. Every time you go home, you onboard somebody into your, uh, your company, you can sit, you can simply give them the template, um, for them to fill up or it’s easier for you on the back end as well to just edit some of the items that are needed to be edited for your employees and not necessarily customized each and every little bits of Edmonton Bookkeeping.
Um, every time you hire somebody, um, we termination as well. It’s easier for you to just have, um, a termination letter that, um, is that would be very effective, um, that would cover you. Um, in terms of the labor standards and stuff like that. Um, it makes it a little bit more hassle free to terminate somebody or let go of somebody if you already have a process in place. Um, so yeah, I think that’s, um, some of the stuff that would, what really, um, helped you, uh, or how the templates help you in payroll processes? Uh, so Ken bookkeepers provide guidance on payroll processes. Yeah, absolutely. Um, for bookkeepers. Um, we are the one who enters the, the employees into your accounting process if you have one. So we normally know what, um, what you need in terms of information from your employees. And if you have a, an outside bookkeeper that’s not, um, uh, does not only doing your books and are able to, um, look at other industries, they can, they are able to provide you some guidance on the labor standards depending on your industries cause they probably see a lot more, um, information and they’ve dealt with the labor standards and the overtime standards and such, um, from their other ex, uh, from their experience with our clients.
So how do I choose my cutoff dates and paydays? Um, and that it depends on the frequency or, um, that you want to choose on how often you want to pay your employee. We normally, um, we normally suggest that you have a week in between from the cutoff dates to your actual pay date. So a full week for you to process be a roll on. This gives you a lot of time to um, do your payroll and sometimes you don’t necessarily need that full week, but it covers you for, um, items such as holidays or, um, if you need to close your office or if you have, if you’re having troubles with your software and stuff like that. So it’s, it’s a good amount of time for you to process the payroll, um, approve them or any other things that you have to do for payroll before you pay your employees and made sure that the paychecks are actually accurate, accurate with Edmonton Bookkeeping.
Um, so can my bookkeeper help me with ROS and other payroll filings? Um, I believe so. Most of the bookkeepers that, um, I’ve talked to such as Denise and I as well, we are able to do your, uh, your our ease and most of the time we have enough, um, information in the accounting software to be able to do those. Um, also, um, most of the bookkeepers will already have their, um, username with service Canada. So it’s a lot easier for them to go through that and take that off of your plate if you have a bookkeeper. Um, so definitely they will be able to do that. And again, the familiarity with the industries and we’ll be able to give you guidance on, um, what needs to get done once you, um, let go of somebody or after you issue on Roe. Yep. Um, so y’all mean what software can I use for my payroll?
Um, the most common ones are, well, first of all, if you have an accounting software that you can use for payroll, I would definitely suggest that that makes it a lot easier for you to integrate your, um, reporting with your payroll and see if, especially for doing costing. Um, but there are specific softwares as well that are very, um, uh, what’s the term? Um, they just do payroll, so like ATP or, um, time sheet or T sheets, um, ClockShark and stuff like that. Um, there is a lot out there. Um, but I suggest if you have an accounting software, I made sure that the integrate with it properly. If you’re, um, thinking of something else, um, that you want to use outside of the accounting server software. Yeah. Yep, yep. Um, and so are, is there any software that can help me track my employees time?
Yeah. So one of them I already um, mentioned T sheets. Um, Oh, I also mentioned clock, sorry. Um, these are impo important tools. Um, some of them, um, if you are doing a, for example, if you’re in a construction business and you want to see how much you’re spending on a client, they’re able to, um, allocate the portion of what your employee work on for that specific client. Uh, that makes it easier for you to look at your budgets and your reports. Um, also these programs are able to give you a little bit of Edmonton Bookkeeping, um, an admin status where you can approve their time and check, um, what they’re doing and, um, if they’re a little bit more advanced or if you need to bit more advanced, the also have the GPS tracking to make sure that your employee is at work when they’re supposed to be.
Yeah. I think, um, people get kinda nervous cause a lot of the programs are, um, they work with your cell phones. Um, and so people kind of automatically assume that, well then my employee can clock in and clock out wherever they are. But I think they have, um, did you [inaudible] tracking in there so they know where they’re, they’re um, tracking or they’re clocking in that, yeah, exactly. And also with that, I think too, it helps that, um, you know, a friend at work can clock in for them or clock out or whatever. They have to do it themselves. Yeah. And there’s a really cool, um, feature in I think T sheets as well, where you, uh, you clock in and tick it takes a photo of you. So that’s an issue. That’s an issue that that’s something that you might want to think about Edmonton Bookkeeping.
That’s great. Um, so you mentioned about um, being able to approve time sheets. Is it advisable to approve all time sheets? Absolutely. It’s, it’s 100%, um, recommended that you approve each time sheet. Um, at, um, sometimes we get comfortable with our employees and we have very close relationships with them, but it’s always, um, it’s always, um, recommended to approve the time sheet. Um, first of all, you are able to track any of these questions. Z. um, it doesn’t only affect you as a, an employer from times dealing, but also it, um, it also protects your employees because some, sometimes, um, there can be glitches or there could be times where they forgot to clock in and you’d be able to um, communicate that with them. They’ll be able to communicate that with you. Um, yeah. So stuff like that, especially over time, um, you are able to kind of limit who gets the overtime if you have a more hands, if you have more handle on the payroll and you are able to approve each overtime into time they work on Edmonton Bookkeeping.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that goes back to the, um, the templates as well, those contracts and making sure employees know this is what happened, this is how it’s done. Yeah. Um, so what’s the difference between a salaried and hourly employees? Um, salary employees are paid periodically at a set rate while I’m, how early employee you get speed by the hour. Um, uh, salaried employees are normally management employees, so any work that they do above the minimum hours that they’re required to, they get paid for. Um, as opposed to an hourly employee where they get paid for the hours that they work for. I think it’s very important, especially for management to be paid salary because, um, sometimes a management position and get the tendency to Slack off and uh, and if your, if you’re always trying to catch up on work, then there’s something that needs to get done.
Um, the are that you need to finish and that’s part of the management risk one’s ability that um, you don’t have to pay for extra if they’re working as, uh, compared to if they’re working hourly. So stuff like that. Yeah, that’s something I just want, I’ll say about that too. Yoga is, um, even if you have a salaried employee, they should still, um, submit a time sheet that has, um, when they worked in, when they took vacation. Um, I’ve had lots of clients who really fight this. Why should I have to put in a time sheet? I’m salary. I work from nine to five every day. But, but it’s not entirely true. There are days that you take off for vacation and some of the issues that we’ve come up with is when they leave the company. If we’ve been doing payroll for them, we’ve just been paying them with Edmonton Bookkeeping.
And so now their pay stub says they have all this vacation time that’s due to them in, in which in fact they don’t because they, they did take some vacation time off, but we had no idea that they checked the vacation because nobody told us. We didn’t have a time sheet that told us that. And so I think it’s really important. There’s that communication. They again, right. It’s really important to know, okay, you took this day off. Was it a day because you worked so many extra hours? Or was it because you took a vacation? Kind of need to take that out of your vacation P yeah. So yeah. So how do I decide the right payroll frequency? Um, that really depends on, in this tree I would say, look at your cashflow and see, um, what is, um, or when does your cash inflow happen?
More so are, um, are there are some certain industries where you only build once a month and sometimes having a biweekly, um, biweekly Purell will not necessarily be appropriate because, um, there are 26, right? 26 feet or pay period per year and chances are during gonna be, there’s going to be two months that you’re, you’re going to have to be three, um, payroll. So, uh, stuff like that. You wanna think about when you’re thinking of your frequency, um, again, when this year when you come in and, um, when is it gonna be available for you to be able to paint your employees with Edmonton Bookkeeping? Yep. That’s right. Um, and so finally, how do I make sure I have enough cashflow to hire an employee? Um, I think if I’m not mistaken, um, I believe it’s a very good buffer to have at least three P periods. Isn’t that right?
Yeah. Three pay periods in your bank account just in case something happens. Um, it’s very important just, just because sometimes the cash inflow isn’t necessarily consistent and we have somebody that we have to pay all the time. So, um, to just, to be able to have that cushion and not necessarily have, um, this, uh, this problem, have a strain in your personal finance. Um, or if I have personal finances, then it is, um, important to keep that buffer for, for you to protect your business and also, um, to predict your employee from being affected from what’s happening. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So I think that’s all the questions that, let me have a, so yeah, if you liked our video, just, um, [inaudible] if you, um, if you have any comments or questions, please come and down below. Um, and we’ll see you guys next time on our next video.