Accounting computer programs and their applications

Accounting Computer Programs

Payroll Administration with Quicken

The intent of this paper is to analyze how Quicken, the computer software program, could be used by Payroll Administrators to make their task more automated, accurate and efficient. Intuit's CEO Scott Cook has often stated that he strongly believes product designers of all the applications sold by his company need to accurately reflect the unmet needs of customers, even those in business (Cook, 2002). He created follow-me-home teams of developers who study how consumers and businesses use their software, so he can engrain into his company's culture the insights and intelligence needed to make applications that are useful, meaningful and relevant (Singer, 2007). Part of these research studies indicated that both consumers and businesses were interested in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach to delivering applications over the Web (DeFelice, 2008). Since then SaaS as a delivery platform for applications has proven to be one of the most cost-effective there is, with CRM software Company Salesforce.com reaching over $1B in Sales (Katzan, Dowling, 2010). All of these market factors are changing the role of the payroll administrator significantly, freeing them up from drudgery of manual tasks to focus on how to create more value for the companies they work for. This paper evaluates how Quicken contributes to that productivity increase.

The Changing Role of the Payroll Administrator

The core functions that a Payroll Administrator performs include managing the basic payroll calculations and paycheck deductions for federal and state takes, defining how taxation will be reported and making sure the federal government gets their periodic reports of payroll taxes paid. In certain states including California, the payroll administrator must report how much unemployment insurance was paid, how much worker's compensation was paid or put into an escrow account, and even must corroborate the claims for worker's compensation. This is a critical issue for roofing companies in California, as roofers have the highest workers' compensation rates paid, often costing companies in this business tens of thousands of dollars a year in payments to the state. Payroll Administrators are critically important for helping their companies to be in compliance to federal, state and local laws and regulations, and the accuracy of their work can literally make or break a company's financial future.

In addition to these responsibilities, Payroll Administrators also are often required to manage tracking employee benefits, involuntary deductions, coordinate with finance, human resources, executive management and senior management across all functional areas of their companies to ensure accuracy of pay rates and also provide taxation guidance. They are also extremely important in the areas of outsourcing and offshoring jobs, where they are required to often manage how 1099 MISC Income is reported for subcontractors and contractors employed globally. In companies that have a high percentage of outsourced operations the Payroll Administrator often works with the Director of Payroll to calculate the relative tax advantages of taking work offshore or outsourcing it relative to keeping it in-house. Literally the work of a Payroll Administrator and the staff they are a member of can make the difference between people in the company having jobs or not, or if the decision is made to shift the jobs to outsourcers or offshore to lower priced countries. In small, rapidly growing companies the Payroll Administrator has an excellent chance for advancement as they are often requested to provide financial analysis of the payroll cost breakdowns by employee and department group. The advances in analytics applications is enabling Payroll Administrators to be more adept at presenting their analyses, and as a result they are getting asked to more and more in companies seeking to manage their greatest single cost, which is payroll.

How a Payroll Administrator Would Use Quicken