How to Switch Payroll Providers

Last week I wrote about Why People Change Payroll Providers.

To save you the time, here are three common reasons folks switch:

• Your current provider keeps raising rates, or keeps charging for extras

• You are not happy with their support, and/or do not have a dedicated payroll rep who knows you or your company

• The software is outdated, or does not include features you need

So if you are looking for better service, better price, or both, it makes sense to shop around as Mom always told you.

When it comes down to it, there are hundreds of companies that can handle your payroll, it's really a matter of finding a company with great service who will not raise your price, and who provides modern software to keep you compliant.

Along with that, no matter what your accountant might tell you, you don't need to use a "big" payroll provider, thankfully those days are gone. Personally I find all those top 10 payroll provider lists to be hilarious... But I'll try to stay focused here :)

So how do you switch? Here are the three basic steps:

• Onboard your company with your EIN and state tax ID
• Onboard your employees with completed W-2s and bank deposit info
• Implement the switch by providing any historical payroll data since Jan 1st.

If you know anything about payroll, you can't just quit one payroll provider, and start a new provider the next day. Instead, the goal is to transition smoothly from your previous provider to make sure employees are paid correctly moving forward.

But it doesn't take long, even using a weekly pay period, you should have time to transition before your next payroll run.

Transition is not hard either, your new payroll provider should be doing the hard work of implementation, not you. Some may charge you for that, some may not.

Then after onboarding and implementation is done, you can start running payroll. Yay!