With the new PAYE Real Time Information this year, many small businesses are finding it difficult to keep up to date with all the changes and requirements.
Instead of worrying and struggling, a simple way of keeping on top of your payroll is simply to outsource it.
It is best to contract out your company’s payroll for a number of reasons.

Image Courtesy Of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1. Free Up Your Time: Outsourcing your payroll will relieve you of the burden of the responsibility of managing payroll so you have less paperwork and more time to focus on the more important profitable aspects of your business. Particularly in small businesses payroll processing takes up too much time of those whose main focus should be other key features of the business. Outsourcing your payroll frees up your time and resources to concentrate on strategic business areas such as recruitment, staff performance, marketing etc. that can affect your business  productivity and profitability more directly.
2. Lower Costs: You can greatly reduce costs by outsourcing your payroll to a service provider. You can spend the valuable saved revenue on achieving key objectives of your business. It also allows you to get a clear picture of the actual payroll cost, and to ease cost burdens such as updating technology and staff training.
3. Avoid Penalties: Errors in payroll can not only affect your employees but can also lead to issues with the tax office, which may lead to penalties. If you outsource your payroll to a service provider that specializes in keeping up to date with current regulations, there is less chance of making a mistake than if you used in-house staff.  If the service provider makes a serious mistake you could seek compensation for the error – something you cannot do with internal staff.
4. Speed: Payroll service providers are specialists that have advanced technical systems at their disposal. It means that they are able to process very complex payrolls very fast. Also, in case there is a temporary inflow of employees, they can handle it effectively unlike other employers.
5. Legislation: A good payroll service provider knows all payroll-related tax laws and other legislation inside out. It will take a lot of time and effort on the part of your employees to get on top of these laws. Once you contract your payroll out you needn’t worry about this anymore.
Once you have decided to outsource your payroll the next step is to look for a specialist payroll service provider like Moorepay. By outsourcing your payroll to Moorepay you can save yourself time, money and hassle and ensure that you and your business are real-time compliant.
If you want to read more on outsourcing check out my post Key Components Of How To Outsource Effectively.

Is social media really important to your business? Is it a strong channel from which you can engage with an audience or does it simply  make no difference at all? Get the results from a consumer survey conducted in the US showing how social media affects shopping decisions.

Two key stats shared here instantly grabbed my attention –

1. 37% of consumers visited a brand using their mobile phone.

2. 73% said that Facebook contributed to their buying decision

This re-enforces my current business advice for local business owners that mobile marketing and Facebook business pages are essential for brand awareness campaigns and for growing audiences.

I know it seems there is much hype surrounding social media right now, but with the rapid integration of technology and business apps, it makes no sense to sit there dragging your heels or pretending it won’t affect your business or doesn’t apply. With over 55% of people ‘liking a brand on Facebook’ and 27% checking in from their mobile phone, it makes sense to integrate social media into your marketing strategy right away.

While I’m not saying you need to be on there every hour of the day posting offers and status updates, I think it’s really important to present yourself as a well rounded company and claim applicable social media channels and vanity urls and ensure your customers can find and reach you if they want to.

If you’re finding it difficult to keep on top of posting and updating your channels, try making a social media marketing plan – start with one post per week and gradually increase your updates as you become more fluent with your approach and your audience grows.

This infographic by empathica shows US consumer use of social media to make purchasing decisions.

Source: INFOGRAPHIC: How Facebook Factors Into Decisions On Retail Purchases, Restaurants – AllFacebook.

How are you using social media for your business?

Does your business engage and encourage social media during the transaction with your customers or are you still holding back and waiting for the social media hype to die down?