The job itself
Who does payroll, whether to do it at all, what a bureau costs, and what you are actually buying.
A bureauif the person who does this is away
What the Job Actually Consists Of
Payroll in a small business is four hours of work attached to a date that cannot move. The arithmetic is the easy part.
Doing It Yourself
Keeping payroll in-house is cheap in money and expensive in concentration. What you are actually taking on, and what it costs when you are away.
Handing It to a Bureau
A payroll bureau takes the keying, the filing and the deadline anxiety. It does not take the chasing, which is most of the work.
The Accountant Who Also Does It
Payroll bolted onto an accountancy relationship is the commonest arrangement in small business, and the least examined. What it is good at and what it quietly is not.
What It Costs Either Way
The comparison is not fee against zero. It is fee against hours, attention, and the cost of one person's absence.
Choosing the Software
Payroll software is chosen once and lived with for years. The features that matter are not the ones on the comparison page.
Choosing Once and Living With It
Payroll arrangements are set up once and reviewed almost never. What a review would look like, and the three events that should trigger one.