Government agencies and organizations have different payroll needs for their employees than private businesses. For this reason, they need to seek out payroll software that can meet those needs. Payroll software that is designed for use by government agencies should have the following features.
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By PaycorPaycor’s intuitive, cloud-based software enables the management of all aspects of human resources, timekeeping, and payroll processing. It consists of cloud-based modules that can read more.
Time and Attendance Integration
Some payroll software systems include time tracking and attendance features that are built into the software. Others rely on synchronization to other systems for tracking time and attendance. No matter how the software processes time tracking, it should be able to automatically take data from the time and attendance feature and apply it to payroll to ensure that anyone paid hourly is paid the correct amount. It may be more convenient to look for a payroll system that includes time and attendance tracking as a feature of the same software.
Compensation Management
Not all compensation is in the form of wages or salary. There are union dues, benefits, bonuses, accrued time off, raises, and more that employees may be owed. Your payroll software system should be able to handle any type of compensation that is owed to employees and not just regular paychecks.
Compliance Management
There are different regulations for government employees than there are for those employed in the private sector. These regulations may also vary depending on which section of the government the employees work for and whether it’s the state, local, or federal government. A payroll software system should be able to help government agencies remain compliant with regulations for government employees across all aspects of government regulations.
Tax Withholdings and Documentation
Government agencies may have a variety of different types of staff who need to be paid. There may be government contractors as well as regular government employees. Taxes may need to be withheld from regular employees, but not from contractors. The payroll software should be able to treat different categories of workers differently when it comes to calculating tax withholdings. The software should also be able to automatically generate tax documents for their employees, including W-2s and 1099 forms. Even if the government agency doesn’t have to pay federal taxes as a business would, employees do still need to file and pay taxes.
Direct Deposit
Most employees prefer their paychecks to be directly deposited into their accounts. This includes all types of employees, from contractors to regular staff members. However, not all employees prefer direct deposit. Payroll software for government employees should be able to directly deposit paychecks. It should also be able to process payroll in whatever format employees most prefer.
Employee Self-Service Portal
An employee self-service portal can help to save a lot of time. Through such a portal, government employees can log in and make any necessary changes to their own profiles. This may include information necessary for running payroll, such as bank account information. On top of that, employees can view past paychecks and track their own time and attendance. Government employees can monitor their own data for accuracy.
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