Interim CFO NowWho runs payday while you hire

The company is registered before anyone applies for an employer identification number, and that number is free from the IRS. You pick the payroll company. You approve hours and rates. You put enough money in the bank for the draft. The books keep a summary that matches the draft. Wages, taxes the business owes on top of wages, and money held back from paychecks stay visible until the provider sends them on.

A weekly payday has a rhythm people can point at. They know which day the money moves, the same way they know which morning the shop opens. Coverage can help that rhythm get set up. Coverage does not stand at the register and run the pay.

A new hire or a rehire is reported to the state where that person works, on the clock that state prints. Form I-9 is completed by the employer and the employee. Employment tax records are kept at least four years. Those are the owner's duties, with the provider doing the mechanical part you hired the provider to do.

We do not approve hours, and we do not stay on the pay run after the accounts and the registrations exist. An empty payroll does not get a pretend wage just so a line on the page looks busy.

Deposit schedules, monthly or semi-weekly, are read from Publication 15 for the year in front of you. This page does not freeze the lookback dollars. Federal unemployment tax has its own deposit rule when the quarterly amount is over 500 dollars, due by the end of the following month, and only the employer pays it.

If a notice about unpaid trust-fund tax arrives, that notice is a different problem from setup. We will say so. Representation in an examination is not part of the span.

The summary in the books and the draft the provider pulled should be the same number. If they differ, the month is not closed. Week one of a span looks for that difference before anyone talks about a new hire's start date.

Owner pay is a separate question from employee payday, and it waits on the election. Reasonable pay for an owner who works in an S corporation is decided with you. It is not a figure we drop into a provider because a field was empty.

Setup is finished when the provider exists, the accounts can draft, the registrations you need are in, and you have approved one run yourself. The page on the last morning names the provider and names the person who approves hours. If that person is still you, the page says so.

A provider the company already used is usually the one to keep. Switching tools in the middle of a span adds another open month. We will say so when a switch is being proposed only because the old login is annoying.

New hire reporting for the state where the person works, the form I-9, and the four year employment tax records stay the owner's duties. Coverage can remind you of the dates. Coverage does not become the employer.

Employee payday and the owner's own pay are different lines. Owner compensation stays unwritten until we know which tax election the return already carries. An S corporation with an owner working in the business needs a reasonable pay judgment before distributions. A sole proprietorship does not get a wage form invented so a screen looks busy.

If nobody is on the payroll, the span does not create one. A quiet month stays quiet. The books should show that, and the handback should say it in a single line so the next person does not hunt for a draft that never existed.

Say in the note whether a provider is already chosen. The setup list is shorter when the tool exists and longer when the choice is still open.