Payroll Accountant Duties

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  • #189138
    NYJATTCPA
    Participant

    Are there any accountants who work or have worked in a payroll department? What are your duties? Is it hard to get into without payroll experience?

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  • #657329
    Mary 2496
    Member

    I wouldn't say it's hard to get in but the more knowledge that you do have regarding payroll now is definitely a benefit. Duties include processing payroll, preparing and filing monthly, quarterly and annual payroll reports, scheduling online client deposits for 941 and state and local tax payments, and so forth.

    If you're a person that works well with deadlines, payroll would be for you. There's always a monthly, quarterly or annual deadline that you're facing in payroll.

    #657330
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I work at a small, local CPA firm and I handled all of our payroll processing for over a year while we looked for experienced help. As Mary said, payroll jobs are very deadline-driven so it's not uncommon to feel rushed trying to get everything done on time. I don't think the actual work is all that difficult, but you do have to pay close attention to detail because both clients and their employees will get very upset if there are errors in their payrolls and will let you know about it very quickly.

    As for the duties of a payroll accountant, I can give you a summary of what my responsibilities were at my firm:

    – Processed live and “after-the-fact” payrolls for 60+ clients

    – Was responsible for setting new clients up in the system and registering them with EFTPS and the state for taxes

    – Client pay schedules varied between weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, and monthly

    – Methods of pay included live paychecks, pay stubs for clients who wanted to use their own checks, and direct deposit

    – Handled garnishments of employee pay (tax liens, student loans, child support, etc.)

    – Handled setting up insurance and retirement plans, both pre- and post-tax (and including company matches)

    – Handled any additions or deductions requested by clients (expense reimbursements, advance repayments, etc.)

    – Advised clients on and helped set up commission-based payrolls (for my veterinary clients who requested it)

    – Paid all state and federal payroll taxes

    * Federal 941 taxes are due either semiweekly, monthly on the 15th, or quarterly with the 941 return

    * State taxes are also usually semiweekly, monthly, or quarterly depending on the total taxes

    * State unemployment taxes and returns are due quarterly- I had to keep an eye on state rates as they tend to change

    * Federal unemployment taxes are due either quarterly or annually and the 940 return is due annually

    – In addition to the deadlines for the payroll taxes and returns, I had to process direct deposit payrolls by a certain date

    We haven't hired anyone in the past with zero experience in payroll, but we have hired individuals who had only handled payroll for one company before. Unfortunately, those individuals didn't last very long and were either let go because too many errors were occurring or they resigned because they couldn't keep up with the deadlines. As I mentioned before, I don't think the actual work is difficult, but if you're dealing exclusively with payroll and it's for multiple clients, it can get overwhelming pretty quickly if you're not familiar with all of the deadlines and the rules that go along with them. For example, you'll need to know when a client should start paying their 941 taxes semiweekly instead of monthly, what the state unemployment tax rates are for new businesses in the state(s) you're handling or for the new year when many of your clients neglect to bring you the rate change notices in, etc.

    Now, if you're looking at a position in payroll where you're dealing exclusively with one client or only a few clients, the deadlines will still be there but the “rushed” feeling will likely be significantly less and I wouldn't think you'd have a problem finding an employer willing to hire an individual without much experience. I've noticed that in my area smaller firms just don't have the resources to dedicate too much time to training staff on payroll, which is why most now require a few years experience as a minimum. We don't often get too many applicants with the experience we're looking for when we are hiring, though, which does make it possible for the zero to little experience candidate to get hired. We also do a lot of cross-training in the different accounting areas at my firm, so anyone in payroll that understands income taxes or compilations is very valued!

    If you have any specific questions on getting into payroll accounting, just let me know and I'll be glad to answer what I can. 🙂

    #657331
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    #657332
    h0wdyus
    Member

    @amandilee

    So you think doing the FPC (Fundamental payroll certification) could get a person without any experience a job in payroll accounting.

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    #657333
    NYJATTCPA
    Participant

    Hi @amandilee I just had a few follow up questions:

    What do you mean when referring to after the fact payroll? What is EFTPS?

    I'm coming into payroll accounting from an accounts payable position in which there are deadlines and being detailed oriented is key. Are there any key things to keep in mind in order to not make too many rookie mistakes? Thanks!

    #657334
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    “After-the-fact payroll” means you're not doing a live check, but making record of the check after the fact. So, for example, Joe the Plumber writes all his employees a $400 check per week. After the fact, you go in and back in to it to determine what the taxes and such were, either on an established gross pay, or with the gross pay being determined based on the pay amount. So, it's like in school when you had “5 – 3/5(5) = x” – that's regular payroll. “5 – x = 2” is after-the-fact – you have the end answer, but you've got to figure out what numbers go in the middle to work out right for the end net pay. Sometimes the clients aren't quite this bad with it, but AFT payroll is still entered after the fact. So, maybe they give you their figures – they'd figured it based on x for gross, y for FICA, etc., and you just have to verify their figuring was done correctly and then take their hand-written notes and turn them into an accounting record.

    EFTPS is the federal government system used to make payroll tax deposits. https://www.eftps.gov/eftps/

    #657335
    san4596
    Member

    I think you are all over thinking payroll. Filing payroll reports and calculating payroll taxes is an easy day in my book. However, I would go insane if that was all I did all day long every day.

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    #657336
    KBinMN
    Member

    Over thinking? You are doing someone's paycheck. Pay them too much and the company loses, pay them too little and the employee is pissed. Pay the wrong EFTPS deposit and watch the penalties pile up and then watch the notices pile up. Trying to get the IRS to fix something is a bureaucratic nightmare. Sure for a place with no income taxes states are easy, until you get local and city taxes, multiple states, etc.

    If you have very easy clients, sure payroll is easy.

    #657337
    san4596
    Member

    Payroll i easy as long as you are making your calculations correctly and paying in your EFTPS correctly. Even if mistakes are made, they are easily fixed with a call to the IRS to get things squared away. I have had clients fail to pay enough, apply the EFTPS to the incorrect quarter, pay late, and many other issues. All the issues were easily fixed with a little patience talking to the IRS, or the client owed and got them back on track.

    Calculating payroll is simple math.

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    #657338
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Exactly what Lilla said, NYJATTCPA. And I have to agree with KBinMN- payroll isn't too strenuous until one little mistake is made and then you need to spend a few hours at a minimum to get everything fixed with the IRS, state, etc. Usually multiple calls and/or letters are involved and then the client feels the need to contact the IRS to check on the status of their issue which ends up causing even more of a mess. The paperwork can certainly be a nightmare if you aren't careful.

    Also, san4596, dealing with the IRS to fix 941 or 940 issues isn't the only potential problem you need to worry about. In addition to potentially having multiple states and/or localities to file with like KBinMN mentioned that any number of problems can arise from, you may very well have insurance, retirement, and other deductions that if aren't set up correctly can cause major issues for the employer and employees when they go to file their income taxes. For instance, last year we discovered that one of my firm's new clients set up their employee SIMPLE IRA contributions wrong so that they weren't being deducted from their gross wages in box 1 of their W-2's. Once we caught that error and alerted the client, they ended up having to file amended 941's, W-2's, etc. Which in turn caused issues for the employees who had already filed their income tax returns since they had to subsequently amend those.

    Is payroll overly complicated? No, not particularly. But you are dealing with the average person's livelihood and so need to be very careful that you're doing everything correctly or you may very well have angry clients or their equally as angry employees knocking down your door. Plus the penalties on late payroll taxes are outrageous, but that's another story.

    #657339
    KBinMN
    Member

    I could not agree more with amandilee.

    I had a client who filed form 944 instead of 941 for a year and there has been correspondence and calls to the IRS going back to October of '14. They'll be getting another notice since the IRS sent them a refund that they shouldn't have so they have to send the voided check back and then the IRS will take a month to process. I have waited on hold for about an hour each time I called.

    I had an agent tell me they would apply the payments and then they would get 2 notices saying they owed nothing. 5 notices later I'm still dealing with this crap.

    #657340
    san4596
    Member

    Again, I still stand by my statement that payroll is easy/not complicated. I have issued payroll checks, payroll tax reports and been on the tail end of fixing a clients mistakes. Dealing with the IRS will always take patience as it takes 1 hour just to get someone on the phone and pray that they have somewhat of a brain, which may sometimes take more than 1 call. I am not saying that payroll is not important or that you don't need to worry about the details. It's just not hard to make the calculations or meet the deadlines to file reports.

    I had 1 client who did not pay or file any payroll reports what so ever for 6 full years. The bookkeeper was a joke, books were a mess, and they gave some employees 1099's. Note that no W2's, W3's, 1099's, 1096's, or any other reports were ever filed with the IRS or the state. Overall, I was able to get the reports filed, taxes paid, and simply had to wait for the IRS to send a notice for each quarter for penalties and interest.

    CPA EXAM: DONE!!!!
    Ethics Course: Passed
    Application Mailed: 3/16/15
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    Certification Date: 4/2/15!!!

    #657341
    KBinMN
    Member

    Couldn't the same be said for ALL accounting? The hard part isn't the calculations…

    #657342
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I'd agree that payroll isn't complicated, but also that it can be difficult. I think it's a “some of both” situation. We had clients who would come in at the end of the year with a listing of checks they wrote and we tried to figure out what the gross pay was, if the tax reports they'd attempted to file were right, and what the 4th Q reports should be. When the check amounts are smudged on their paperwork and in no particular order, the guess-work gets a bit crazy. But, at the end of the day, the numbers aren't hard – it's just figuring out where they go and getting them in the right place that's hard. We also had issues that required going back and amending years of employment tax returns etc. – again, the numbers themselves weren't hard, but keeping up with them all and making sure the right changes were made to the right returns could get hectic. The responsibility of knowing that someone's ability to pay their electric bill depends on you writing their check correctly can be a bit weighty at times.

    I'd also agree with KBinMN's most recent post, though – the same can be said of all accounting. Making an entry to record $600k of depreciation expense isn't difficult; taking a single asset and determining what the current year's depreciation is isn't difficult; but trying to get all the assets, not miss any you have, not include any that have been retired, etc., to get that $600k figure, then trying to get it to affect all the right statements in the right way, and then breaking it back out when 2 months later someone wants to know what portion of the deprecation is applicable to their specific office…that gets more hectic. Same with any other accounting topic. The “forensics” aspect of accounting – whether payroll or anything else – is the challenging part, and/or the “How the heck do we do this new thing” stuff. When you break it down to the smallest pieces, all of accounting is simple, but when you combine 100 simple things into 1 process, then it gets complicated just to keep up with the 100 processes.

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