here are a couple but I say..........DO it......DO what moorhouselondon suggested and be careful if not beware.
http://www.tracework.org/
http://www.timetrex.com/pa
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Browse All Topicsis there an opensource united states payroll program
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here are a couple but I say..........DO it......DO what moorhouselondon suggested and be careful if not beware.
http://www.tracework.org/
http://www.timetrex.com/pa
I concur with moorhouselondon. Because you really need to be up to par with the changes, and if something is free, you cannot make someone else liable if a change is not implemented. You are ultimately responsible.
That's why most smaller companies simply outsource their payroll, unless they use some form of business system that has payroll in it.
I think it will be money well spent, the fees are not outrageous. Where I work it costs under $4 per employee per pay period (about 60-70 people, probably cheaper the more employees and vice versa).
Keeps you covered with all the changes and you just have to hand out envelopes.
The only snag with outsourcing - and it's simply a case of being well-organised - is that the figures have to be submitted at the right time. The payroll bureau are not mind-readers, so if you've taken on new staff and lost others then you have to tell them *before* they start the processing. There's nothing worse than having to revert the payroll to a previous period for particular employees, then run it forward again, simply because one of the staff did an hour's overtime.
Using a program that is at least recognized by the tax authorities gives peace of mind beyond anything else. In the early days of my business I sold a payroll program to my biggest client at that time. After several years of operation I happened to be there the day the tax people descended on the place - they made notes of all the registration plates of cars in the car park, they looked through the cheque books, bank statements, you name it. They went through the Payroll records with a fine tooth comb and highlighted one of the directors wasn't paying enough NI contributions (this is in UK btw). I was duly summoned for an explanation. I rang up the Payroll helpline and explained the situation - within ten minutes I was able to refute their accusations with confidence. My earlier comment is thus based on the experience of being in a potential tight spot - if I'd sold them a duff program then both parties would have been able to tear me to pieces.
here is a free one from Intuir with a 6 month free trial.
http://www.stoppayrollstre
and another free open source.......
http://www.openden.com/ope
scroll down to Paymaster which is a Linux platform
moorhouselondon and Alces2 have explained the pitfalls and I concurred previously with a be careful if not beware.
However there are free ones out there to try.
ie7:
nickg5
tracework.org has many .java and .class files
..............you looking to install .exe files only?
CheckMark Payroll for Windows....not free though......
http://wareseeker.com/Busi
Intuit's solution is web-based, so no downloading of exe's or anything like that. In many ways this is a very sensible solution because Intuit will centrally manage updates in legislation, etc. Not sure with this kind of solution whether you can backtrack to old periods, or retrospectively add data (let's say you wanted to start using Intuit from an earlier period and see whether the calculations are exactly the same as an existing program, for example) - you are going to have to just try it and see.
I do have gripes about Intuit, and it's to do with their long-term consistency - they ditched the UK market completely in 2005. What can they do in similar vein with your on-line data? Where do I start? Quite often businesses need to refer back to previous years' data if the tax authorities demand it (note the position of the apostrophe there i.e., not necessarily last year's data, but the previous year too, etc). What if Quicken decide to abandon the service? Or: What's to stop them hiking fees for accessing the service in the future, or for accessing historical data? Captive market: you have no choice, you are locked in to paying whatever charges they ask.
Don't get me wrong, Nick's idea is probably the #1 choice that is nearest to meeting the stated requirements (except it definitely ain't opensource), and I'm not saying that they *will* "stiff" you, but I have seen this many times in the industry, so just beware the pitfalls!
Business Accounts
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by: moorhouselondonPosted on 2009-07-26 at 00:05:21ID: 24944624
Don't do it!
How often are Payroll parameters changed by your Tax authorities? If you did find an opensource program do they warrant that their parameters will be kept up to date and compliant with Tax Rules? Who takes responsibility for any mistakes if the software gets it wrong?