Payroll is one of a series of accounting transactions dealing with the process of paying employees for services rendered, after processing of the various requirements for withholding of money from the employee for payment of payroll taxes, insurance premiums, employee benefits, garnishments and other deductions.

Payroll involves the calculation of amounts due the employee, such as hourly wages, a salary consiting of a certain amount per calendar period, or pay to salespersons on commission, as well as reimbursement for employee-paid expenses such as travel (calculated either based on actual amount paid by the employee or utilizing a per diem rate).

Definitions of Payroll on web:

- The number of non-farm employees on the payrolls of more than 500 private and public industries. Generally issued on the first Friday of the month for the previous month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and one of the most watched economic indicators in the financial markets.

- The financial record of employees’ salaries, wages, bonuses, net pay, and deductions.

- An employer’s list of those employees entitled to compensation for all or a portion of that period.

- in respect of an employer means the total earnings earned in a year by all workers employed by an employer engaged in an industry;

- All wages paid by an employer to employees

- Commonly called remuneration. Includes wages, commissions, bonuses, overtime pay, pay for holidays, vacations and sickness, payment for piece work, value of meals and lodging and other substitutes for money. (State exceptions may apply)

- The total amount paid to employees for a certain period.

- Payroll involves the disbursement of funds to company employees and the management of the myriad withholdings related to taxes and retirement plans. Managing payroll can become quite complicated due to the diverse types of employees a company may employ; full-time, part-time, salaried exempt, salaried non-exempt, contractor, etc. This leads many companies to outsource their payroll to external companies.

- A record of wages or salaries paid or payable. The actual wages and salaries paid during a given period.

- a list of employees and their salaries; “the company had a long payroll”

- the total amount of money paid in wages; “the company had a large payroll”

- the department that determines the amounts of wage or salary due to each employee

- Payroll is one of a series of accounting transactions dealing with the process of paying employees for services rendered, after processing of the various requirements for withholding of money from the employee for payment of payroll taxes, insurance premiums, employee benefits, garnishments and other deductions.

Payroll Software – Take Control of Your Employees

With payroll software one cannot not stop and think…’how did large organizations cope without them?’ When you think of what’s involved in paying your employee, one finds it hard to believe how this can be achieved without a full blown payroll software.

There are various applications on the market today, but how do you decide which one is right for the business you conduct? Let’s start by having a look at the main items a good payroll software application must possess.

1. create and manage detailed company details
2. create and manage detailed employee details
3. can be run during a specific date range (normally weekly, fortnightly and monthly)
4. processing of individual departments or all departments
5. accountability of all emoluments and tax paid for each employee and department
6. standard tax reports as required by the local authorities
7. flexibility in allowing bonuses, overtime and special end-of-period additions and deductions

Needless to say, a good payroll program holds many features which reduce paper work needed to control your employees’ remuneration. Having said that, some required paperwork like pay vouchers, checks, company reports and tax reports are a must for any payroll software.

But what is the main feature a payroll application must excel in? Without any doubt this has to be security. Payroll software databases hold one the most sensitive information a software application can hold. By many, the salary they get is considered as the most well kept secret in their lives. That information is probably held in a computer somewhere forming part of a payroll package. As such, confidentiality of that information must be stressed heavily and checked thoroughly when one is enquiring on payroll software.

But most payroll software applications are not stand alone modules. Many come integrated with other modules like the purchases ledger, general ledger and/or job costing module. If you have a production business, having your payroll software integrated with your job costing module is, to say the least, a must. This will ensure your costing is truly reflecting all the costs your business is incurring, and the payment of your employees, including taxes, is definitely one of them.

As like all tailor made software, a payroll software application would normally require user training before one can reap the benefits from it. Payroll software is quite a complex piece of software and the fact that people are employed in human resources departments just to be responsible for the payroll aspect of the company is proof of this. This is true, although, the payroll software used should also be straight forward for clerks who work in a payroll environment. It should be intuitive and present all tasks in a simple and clear format, with help available on the spot.

Since many payroll software exist today, it is very hard to determine which one is right for your business. The decision needs to rely on the structure of your business, number of employees, different work times and shifts, plus other factors. Based on this, a standard payroll software might do, or maybe not. What’s important is that before committing to one, and probably also, before being trained on one, all the features (and non-features) of the package you choose have been made clear and proved to function correctly and as desired.

Bookkeeping is the recording and balancing of financing transactions of an institution.

Definitions of Bookkeeping on web:

- The task of recording amounts, dates and sources of all business revenue,

gain, expense and loss transactions; the starting point of the accounting process.

- The systematic recording of financial and economic transactions and other events.

- Maintaining records of the financial transactions of a business including details and copies of invoices and receipts, bank statements and other paperwork required for accounting purposes.

- The recording and balancing of financing transactions of an institution.

- The act of systematically recording the financial transactions affecting a business.

- the activity of recording business transactions

- Accountancy (British English) or accounting (American English) is the process by which financial information about a business is recorded, classified, summarized, interpreted, and communicated. Auditing, a related but separate discipline, is the process of an independent review of financial statements in order to express an opinion as to the fairness and adherence to generally accepted accounting principles.

Computerized Bookkeeping Is Fast, Simple, and Flexible

Every business needs to keep good records to ensure bills are paid, obligations are met and checkbook balances match up. Whether it’s a home-based business, a Fortune 500 company or even the business of running a household, well-kept books can really help guide a “business” in the right direction when it comes to keeping finances in order. More and more people are turning to computerized programs for keeping money in check. The reasons for this are many.

Computerized financial programs are becoming the way most business gets done for a number of reasons. Not the least of which, of course, are ease of use, simplicity in seeing the bottom line and ability to track actions as they happen. Combining online banking services with online bookkeeping has made managing the books even easier.

For home use, computerized bookkeeping is fantastic, especially when combined with online banking and bill payment options. Programs abound that help regular people keep their books as neat and clean as any big corporation’s and they’re used for a number of reasons, including:

* Ability to instantly update and have the program track bottom line and types of purchases. Some programs will even help separate out all charity donations and other tax deductible items for future use on tax forms.

* Quick way to see the bottom line. Computerized checkbook registers, for example, can instantly show a user how much they have, what they need to meet regular obligations and more. This is great for those who combine their use with online banking and bill paying methods.

* Better ability to see where the money goes. Clean and clear registers help users track their purchases and bottom lines easier. This is great for those who are living within a budget to help guide decisions about future buys and where costs should be cut.

Computerized bookkeeping systems are especially loved by businesses for the way they can simplify even a complicated business’ books. Computerized programs offer the following (and more) advantages for businesses:

* Ability to track expenses and income for different divisions while melding it all together into an overall budgetary plan.

* Quick and easy to see how money is being spent and even why.

* Ability to track trends in spending and income.

* Fast reports for a variety of things including expense categories such as capital outlays, salaries, benefits and so on.

* Easier earnings reporting. These systems tend to do all the calculations for a business, so running reports, getting projections and so on is simple and easy. All that really needs to be done is to purchase the correct program to meet a business’ needs and input the proper data.

* Simplicity in cutting checks. Many financial programs come with check cutting tools that enable companies to run their payroll, pay bills and so on with ease while the program constantly updates the bottom line.

Making it quick and easy for individuals and businesses to track their bottom lines, computerized bookkeeping programs are becoming hard to replace. By offering ease of use and a lot of options, these programs can help virtually anyone institute a solid accounting system.

Accounting software is computer software that records and processes accounting transactions within functional modules such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll and trial balance. It functions as an accounting information system. It may be developed in-house by the company or organization using it, may be purchased from a third party, or may be a combination of a third-party application software package with local modifications. It varies greatly in its complexity and cost.

Definitions of Accounting on web:

- A system that provides quantitative information about finances

- Accountancy: the occupation of maintaining and auditing records and preparing financial reports for a business

- a bookkeeper’s chronological list of related debits and credits of a business; forms part of a ledger of accounts

- The overall process of identifying, measuring, recording, interpreting, and communicating the results of economic activity; tracking business income and expenses and using these numbers to answer specific questions about the financial and tax status of the business.

- A service activity designed to accumulate, measure, and communicate financial information about economic entities for decision-making purposes.

- The systematic recording, reporting, and analysis of financial transactions of a business.

- A comprehensive system for recording and summarizing business transactions.

- The act of collecting information on resource usage for the purpose of capacity and trend analysis, cost allocation, auditing and billing. Accounting management requires that resource consumption be measured, rated, assigned, and communicated between appropriate parties. Typical information that is gathered in accounting is the identity of the user, the nature of the service delivered, when the service began, and when it ended.

- The recording, classifying, summarizing, and interpreting in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions, and events of a financial character.

- Accounting arrangement between operators concerning the declaration of accounts in Traditional Switched Transit. In Direct accounting, the operator originating the traffic sends each of the intervening operators a separate declaration and the payments due to them.

- The process of systematically recording, classifying, verifying and summarizing business transactions, and presenting this information in periodic, interpretative financial statements and reports.

- The systematic recording, presentation and interpretation of the financial facts of an enterprise in such a manner as to permit effective management and provide the required information.

- Recording information about finances in an accountable way.

- In information technology, accounting is the process of keeping track of a user’s activity while accessing a network’s resources, including the amount of time spent in the network, the services accessed while there and the amount of data transferred during the session. Accounting data is used for trend analysis, capacity planning, billing, auditing and cost allocation.

- Accounting is the act of logging /summarizing what actions in the system were performed and by who, for purposes of reporting utilization.

- The process of gathering and preparing of financial information about a business or other organization in a form that provides accurate and useful records and enables decisions to be made.

- A discipline dealing with the provision of information for interested parties about an entity’s financial performance, its assets and its liabilities.

- The recording of revenues and expenditures according to generally accepted accounting principles to provide meaningful financial information.

- The systematic recordkeeping and reporting of an organization’s performance in monetary terms. Accounting provides a summary of the economic results of organizational decisions for internal use and transmits them to external stakeholders such as volunteers, donors, funders, creditors and regulatory agencies.

- The administrative task of recording actual costs and expenditures so that comparisons may be made to budgets (planned costs and expenditures) for the sake of financial control.

- The function of compiling and providing financial information primarily by reports referred to as financial statements. Accounting includes bookkeeping, systems design, analysis and interpretation of accounting information.

- The process of recording, summarising, and allocating all items of income and expense of the company and analysing, verifying, and reporting the results.

But which accounting software do i need?

There’s an abundance of Accounting Software packages in the marketplace, but even so, deciding which one would be best suited to your individual needs, doesn’t necessarily have to be a difficult decision. You just have to break the process down to a few matching a few simple criteria.

Firstly, you need to ascertain what you want the product to do. Secondly, forget the sales hype that merely showcases all the “must have features” in each product, and thirdly, analyze each according to its functionality and suitability for your requirements.

Features:

There really isn’t that much difference between the free software packages and the ‘pricey’ alternatives other than reporting capabilities, inventory management and the number of users allowed. Most of the other basic functions are quite similar from one product to another, and in some cases the free products out perform some of the more expensive options. One thing to always keep in mind though, are your future needs, but don’t pay for features that you’re never likely to need.

Ease of Use:

Always try the software before you buy it if you can. The product might have a steep learning curve that takes a lot of training before it becomes easy to use. A program that is relatively cheap might not be the best solution if it takes you 3 months to “get the hang of it!” You also need to consider how easy it is to integrate with any other specialty software you currently use?

Free v Purchased / Major Brands:

Are you prepared to risk using a free software product that may or may not be upgraded and supported, as opposed to a name brand product where these things are virtually assured? When you finally select the product that looks best suited to your business you may as well get the best value. Shopping around might just prove that the local computer shop can supply what you want for less than the big online merchants.

Scalability:

Whilst we think we know where our businesses will be in 2 years or 5 years times, things don’t always go as planned, so be sure to buy a product that has the ability to cope with your future business directions. It may well be better to opt for a product initially that has more flexibility to be adapted or added to at a later date.

Product Support:

Which support program would suit your needs best? Will you survive with just email support, or do you need to have access to phone support. Maybe you’d sooner be able to call the supplier and have them come to your office for onsite support when necessary. The level of support you are likely to need will largely depending on the level of skills you have “in house”. Down time is costly, so assess your likely support needs closely.

Make a list of everything you need in each of the above areas, and be sure you get all the features you need, or are likely to need, but don’t waste money on unnecessary “bells and whistles” that you are highly unlikely to ever need.

If you do decide to minimize your costs initially, make sure there is a smooth process to expand the program later if necessary.

Making your decision with these basic factors in mind will go a long way towards getting you the accounting software program that will meet your needs.

for more information: www.theaccountingsoftware.com

- Written instructions for a computer.

- The programs, procedures, algorithms (set of rules), and their associated documentation, for a computer system.

- means any software provided by AngliaCampus to enable the Customer to access or use the Service.

- Computer programmes, instructions or data that tell a computer what to do and can be stored electronically.

- Computer programs, the instructions by which the machine operates, which includes both systems oriented programs (ie DOS) and applications programs (ie, word processing, database management). See also program.

- The computer program, which sends a set of instructions to the computer.

- Coded instructions that direct the operation of a computer. A set of such instructions for accomplishing a particular task is referred to as a program.

- Commercially available applications sold by Vendors through public catalogue listings, COTS software is not intended to be customerised or enhanced. Contract-negotiated software developed for a specific application is not COTS software.

- instructions for the computer. A series of instructions that performs a particular task is called a programme. Two major categories of software are system operating software and application software. See hardware.

- The programs that tell the computer what to do.

- Programs that run on a computer. Word-processing software includes programs that enable writers to compose, edit, store, and print material. Professional quality software packages incorporate such amenities as databases that can feed the results of research electronically into the final manuscript, alphabetization and indexing functions, and capabilities for constructing tables and charts and adding graphics to the body of the manuscript.

- Generally, programs loaded into a computer from external mass storage but also extended to include operating systems and documentation.