Small Business Support
In the past, small companies only had two paths for conducting employee business:
DO IT THEMSELVES
This generally means an assistant or office manager or owner using an accounting system (QuickBooks) or payroll vendor (ADP, Paychex, Paycom, etc.) to process payroll. For other items such as insurance they would call a broker. For employee relations they might call an employment attorney. For handbooks and policies they might use an HR Consultant. The organization must search for vendors as needed and file all the reports themselves such as New Hire Reporting, Garnishments, OSHA, ACA, Employer Taxes (940, 941, W2, W3, etc.).
Often these businesses just “wing it” and hope for the best and deal with problems when they occur. Often they are out of compliance with local, state, and federal regulations dealing with HR since they are unaware of what they must comply with since they are not per se experts in HR. Some owners try to educate themselves but the rules are constantly changing and they are more focused on running their business and might miss something that could heavily cost them down the road in legal fees and risk actual criminal charges. The business owner didn’t go into business to do HR, but we did!
HIRE A PEO
A professional employer organization (PEO) is a firm that provides a service under which an employer can outsource employee management tasks, such as employee benefits, payroll and workers’ compensation. The PEO does this by hiring a client company’s employees, thus becoming their employer of record for tax purposes and insurance purposes. This practice is known as co-employment.
There are pros and cons for PEOs based on what are the actual needs of a company. This used to be the primary vehicle for small companies to get everything from one place. This means that your employees become the PEOs employees. This means you must follow the PEOs rules on hiring, handbooks, terminations, etc. It also means that your employees are now employees of the PEO (called joint employer) and everything is filed under the PEO (wages, taxes, workers compensation, etc.).
The PEO makes sure to protect themselves against any wrong doing of your organization. Most PEO pricing is based on a percentage of gross payroll which means more often than not that when you give your employee’s a raise you give yourself a price increase in PEO administrative fees. Several PEOs keeps any upside such as caps on taxes or savings. Your organization is grouped with others meaning rates for things like workers compensation and health benefits are determined by who is in your pool at that time for the past several years.
Audax was created from PEO professionals with over 20 years in the business as an alternative solution! For no cost, let us help the organization determine if a PEO is still the best option for you. If it is we would be glad to educate you on PEOs, and assist your navigation of choices and negotiate on your behalf as there are still gaps in PEOs that you might need filled with us.
Audax HR Services in not a PEO, although we do provide many of the same services. There is not a co-ownership of client employees. Our pricing is simplified, so there are no hidden fees or “nickel-and-dime” charges. We are completely transparent and accessible whenever you need us.
