A few weeks from now Paycycle will be fully integrated with Xero.  For those of you already using both Paycycle and Xero the changes will be pretty minimal - rather than logging into Paycycle as a separate site you will now have a payroll tab on your Xero file.  For those of you using Paycycle only you will now log into Xero (but use the payroll section only).

Here is a sneak preview of the new Xero screens including Paycycle.

 

I was reminded again a few days ago of one of my favourite features of Paycycle - we processed super both for our own employees and for a number of clients.  All bar one of those clients was on Paycycle - the exception was one recently acquired client who had been reporting their super manually.  That one client took longer to process than all the others put together - run reports, log into super fund websites (lots of them), upload payment details by employee, create BPays.  Yuk!

By contrast the reporting out of Paycycle involved:

• One click to add the super batch
• Select all pays in the quarter
• Submit for approval
• Enter security code (received by SMS)

So quick, and so easy!  Payments direct debited, reports lodged electronically.

If you'd like to know more about how much time Paycycle can save you please contact Viridity.

The whole team here at Viridity is excitedly finalising preparations for CeBIT which starts in Sydney tomorrow (and runs till Thursday).

We will be co-hosting a stand with our good friends from Wendy Field Business Services, and showcasing a whole range of solutions aimed at small and medium business.  So if you are interested in:

• Xero (for bookkeeping / accounting)
• Unleashed (inventory)
• Dremus (e-commerce)
• Paycycle (payroll)
• Any combination of these
• Or a range of other related solutions (such as reporting and CRM)

Please call by and talk to us - we will be at stand K43. 

If you haven't got a ticket yet you can still get in for free, as long as you book by midnight tonight and use a promo code.  If you don't have a promo code click on this CeBIT Sydney link, type "CeBIT promo" in the other comments field and we will forward one to you.

Looking forward to seeing you over the next three days!

A few weeks ago the guys at Paycycle asked me if I would Beta test their new super payments solution.  Even though Viridity only has 4 employees paying super is still not a lot of fun as all 4 of us are with different super funds.  And yes I know I could use a clearing house, but that doesn't work all that well when we run payroll for our clients - every time we take on a new client we have to learn our way around another super fund website.

Cue Paycycle's automatic super payments solution.  For March quarter I logged into Paycycle, clicked on the "Super Payments" button to generate a list of the super that was due to be paid for myself and my team for the March quarter.  I reviewed this against the reports I had run earlier (all balanced), then clicked "submit".  That was it - it took less time to do than it has taken me to write this blog post!

If you want to see how easy this is to do sign up to Paycycle, or if you would like to outsource not only payroll processing but the whole of your payroll administration, contact Viridity.

Today sees the launch of Xero's integrated payroll solution.  It is a relatively basic solution, without some of the smarter features of Paycycle (which is the cloud payroll solution we use in-house & recommend to clients).

But if you do have a small & simple payroll this offers a great built in solution: and no more having to pay out up to $700 every year just to get new tax tables for one of the desktop solutions!

Whilst it is a simple payroll solution it does have some really smart features built in, such as copy previous payroll, auto save a payroll if you have to exit a run part way through, you can instantly generate a batch file to pay employees and much more besides.  It is an integral part of Xero and after watching the online videos is easy to get started.

On the downside it does not apply rules on PAYG or Super, you have to calculate these manually - not difficult if your payroll is the same every week, but a drag (and prone to error) if you have to re-do the calculations everytime you run a pay.

So who would want to use Xero payroll?  If you have a small & simple payroll this could be a cost effective solution for your business.  By small I mean up to about 5 employees, and by simple I mean mainly salaried or hourly paid staff who pretty much work the same hours every week. 

If your payroll is larger than this or has more complexity whilst you could still use Xero without any problems at all, you are likely to find that you could save enough time to more than justify the cost of Paycycle. 

To provide Viridity's perspective on this, we provide an outsourced payroll solution to a number of clients, and we run them all through Paycycle - we will continue to do so (even though it means we absorb an extra $20 a month in cost) because of the time we save.

So it's your choice: a really good entry level payroll built into Xero at no additional cost (and no annual upgrade fees) or a higher end solution from Paycycle.