4 Common Payroll Problems the Symmetry Tax Engine Solves

Payroll is a significant part of any business. Ensuring employees are paid promptly and accurately is expected, and problems arise when those two criteria are not met. Employee morale begins to drop, and fines may start to roll in. 

Manual or older ways to perform payroll services have many challenges that businesses are looking to resolve. These challenges may include:  

Tax Compliance

Tax compliance is a significant issue businesses must face. Companies must be able to report and pay taxes accurately and have precise payroll records to do so. These records are the key to ensuring employees are being paid correctly and the company’s bookkeeping is on track. 

If the correct amount of taxes are not withheld from paychecks, companies will be fined and liable. Unfortunately, taxes experience frequent revisions, and most people have trouble understanding the ins and outs of regulations. This leaves businesses to rely on their Payroll team to produce accurate calculations. Failure to keep precise payroll records could also include lengthy and expensive accounting chores to catch up.

Consistency and Accuracy

Consistency and accuracy are crucial for payroll. Knowing employees are receiving accurate pay and taxes withheld every time can be a stress relief for both parties. This can also be a morale boost for employees as they will have confidence in their employer and work harder. Though left to a manual process, it can be time-consuming and lead to errors when transferring data. 

Lack of consistency and accuracy can lead to penalties, much like the situation experience by LinkedIn. In 2014, the IRS Newsroom reported on the failed recordings of overtime pay to LinkedIn employees. According to the news release, investigations found that LinkedIn “failed to record, account and pay for all hours worked in a workweek” and were required to pay $6 million in unpaid overtime wages and damages to 359 former and current employees.

Remote Work

Remote work can be challenging to manage. With more businesses embracing remote work as a more permanent avenue, companies are looking for solutions to ensure

• their employees are being paid the correct amount hours and
• time off is tracked correctly and
• taxes are applied for the right areas.

Remote work also makes HR more difficult since there are no face-to-face interactions. All information must be recorded online, which means it must be up to date at all times to avoid issues.

Building a Payroll System

Payroll is an evolving industry. Manual methods are quickly becoming outdated as taxes are revised, and work situations evolve. Businesses have turned to payroll SaaS to automate aspects of their payroll to keep up with the demand. An automated system such as APIs or forms can handle time management, tax withholdings, and timeliness can all be held by a computerized system such as APIs or forms. Companies are building build. These systems will serve as part of their product builds and will later market the product as a SaaS.

To avoid these issues and many more, payroll has evolved. For some, payroll may still be the manual calculations and hours of labor to ensure numbers are correct. For others, payroll is automated and becoming simplified with the help of startups integrating API systems and modules for businesses to incorporate into their existing systems.

Payroll SaaS is an evolving service that businesses are taking full advantage of to eliminate their payroll woes. The Symmetry Tax Engine reigns supreme as a legacy tax solution and an evolving one within the industry.

The Symmetry Tax Engine is a powerful payroll processing, and tax calculator to build or enhance a payroll platform, embed payroll into an existing application, and increase compliance and accuracy. Companies can effortlessly ensure employee and employer taxes are correctly calculated and managed by licensing Symmetry’s payroll tax software and APIs. 

The Symmetry Tax Engine is for large employers, payroll, or other software providers. Payroll taxes are an incredibly complicated, ever-changing burden to keep up with. It covers multi-state calculations and uses cutting-edge geocoding technology to determine accurate payroll taxes for work and home addresses to rooftop precision. 

The Symmetry Tax Engine accounts for federal, state, and local taxes — both withholding and latent employer taxes — for over 7,400 taxing jurisdictions, including all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Territories. Employer taxes and multi-state processing are accounted for as well.

When a company purchases the Symmetry Tax Engine, they receive the Symmetry Tax Notification Service, which includes real‑time updates when a payroll tax changes, supporting documentation from primary sources, tax‑effective dates, and the new Symmetry Tax Engine version or updated tax available.

The Symmetry Tax Engine not only helps to solve the issues of

• Tax Compliance, 
• Consistency and accuracy
• Remote work and,
• Outdated payroll solutions.

But it also provides customers with a knowledgeable team of taxation experts and software engineers to support timely and accurate updates to the tax engine.

For more information on the Symmetry Tax Engine or our other products, visit Symmetry Software.