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Paying Employees

Posted: April 26th, 2018, 8:10 pm
by SteveK
For those of you who have employees, how do you pay them? Do you pay hourly or per job? Do you use a payroll service? What about taxes and workmans comp insurance?

I'm wanting to hire someone, but all of this is becoming overwhelming and costly. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Paying Employees

Posted: April 27th, 2018, 10:14 am
by Brent Deines
Doing your own payroll is not all that difficult if you are using QuickBooks or something similar, but if you are feeling overwhelmed I think using a payroll service can be beneficial and really isn't all that expensive and may allow you to focus on generating revenue. PayChex, ADP, and QuickBooks, all offer popular payroll services, but there are many others and sometimes a local company has better rates, so it pays to check around. Here is an article that will give you a general idea of what it might cost to have someone else do it for you. http://www.costowl.com/b2b/payroll-services-cost.html

My business model is a little unusual but most of our customers who have technicians on staff pay a base + commission. The more repairs they do, the more money they make so it provides an incentive to develop more business. On the other hand, if you are doing all of the business development yourself, offering an hourly rate and maybe a bonus for customer satisfaction makes more sense. Where your business is located and the business model you choose will help determine the best way to compensate employees.

I was overwhelmed when I started and now 30+ years later I am still overwhelmed at times, but it does get easier. Unless you have a bookkeeping background I recommend that you spend the majority of your time generating revenue for your business by building your clientele and hire someone else to do the things you are not good at or don't have time for, at least in the early days of developing your business. A lot of people fail in this and every other business because they are too concerned about saving pennies here and there than they are about bring in the dollars. That's not to say you should not be cost conscious, but don't trip over a dollar to pick up a dime, and always try to hire people that have the potential to be better than you are at whatever it is that you hire them for.