After conducting extensive research and analysis of online payroll services, we recommend SurePayroll as the best online payroll service for paying household employees.
- Payroll Service Buyer's Guide
- Roundup: The Best Payroll Services
- REVIEW: Best for Small Business Overall
- REVIEW: Best for Sole Proprietors or S Corps
- REVIEW: Best for Very Small Businesses
If you have a full-time nanny, caregiver, housekeeper or other household employee working for you, you might be asking yourself why in the world you would need a payroll service. How hard could writing one check a week be? The answer revolves around taxes. In essence, your home is now acting as a business that needs to withhold taxes and make tax payment to the state and federal government, just like all other businesses do. That's why a payroll service might be a good idea.
Why SurePayroll?
Cost-effective
For household payroll services, you have a choice between providers that solely handle household payroll needs and those that also provide small businesses with payroll services. SurePayroll, however, provides both services, making it one of the most cost-effective payroll providers.
If you want to pay your nanny or senior caregiver weekly, SurePayroll costs $72 per month. If you only want to pay your employee once a month, the fee drops down to $49 per month. Included in both of those monthly costs is a $2 charge per employee. So, if at some point you decide you want to bring on a housekeeper, a full-time landscaper or a second nanny, your cost would only increase by $2 per month. That is a significantly cheaper increase than some of the other services we examined, specifically those that are household specialized, which charge anywhere from $20 to $75 per additional worker. For that monthly price, you are able to pay your household worker every week or month, depending on the package you choose, and have all of their payroll tax responsibilities handled for you.
While there are some significantly cheaper online payroll services for household employers out there, none of the others offer a full suite of tax services like SurePayroll does. Those that do offer full tax services were comparable in terms of monthly costs, but charged much more for additional workers. SurePayroll's monthly cost also includes the option to pay your employee either by direct deposit or printed check. Some services charged extra for that option. There is also no initial setup fee with SurePayroll, while many of its competitors charge as much as $100 for setting up an account.
Tax services
One of the biggest benefits to using an online payroll service is the tax services provided. Many of the services we considered either did not offer tax services or charged extra for them, but SurePayroll handles all of your payroll tax responsibilities for no additional charge. That includes calculating and deducting Social Security, Medicare, and federal and state unemployment taxes, along with filling out and filing your federal, state, and local tax forms and payments. In addition, SurePayroll files a quarterly 1040-ES on your behalf, and provides you with a signature-ready Schedule H that you attach to your annual 1040 filing. These services are completed automatically, without any extra input from you.
In addition to taking on the responsibility of completing these services for you, SurePayroll also guarantees that it will be done correctly and on time. The service takes on the full liability for your payroll taxes. Should an error be made, the company will pay any of the fines or interest fees that you incur. Not all of the services we reviewed offered this type of guarantee.
Customer service
When analyzing SurePayroll's customer service, we contacted the company multiple times by phone and email. We found the level of customer service to be extremely high. Both times we called, a representative answered in fewer than three rings. Some of the services we examined had long wait times, which didn't reassure us that we would be able to get the help we needed when we needed it. During our calls to SurePayroll, once about its small business offerings and once about its household payroll services, the customer service representatives were extremely helpful and insightful. They answered all of our questions in great detail and made sure we fully understood exactly what they were saying. They gave a clear description of what their service offers and how the company is different from its competitors. After our calls, both representatives sent emails to see if we had any follow-up questions and to highlight some of the services provided.
In addition to providing links to videos that outline how their service works, this was the only payroll provider we contacted that offered to let us test drive the system. The customer service agent gave us temporary login credentials that allowed us to see exactly what it was like to use the service. The representative had us log in during our call and then walked us through each part of the system to demonstrate how easy it was to use. While you can glean a lot from the numerous online videos payroll providers offer, these pale in comparison to actually using the system. We got a great feel for what it would be like to set up the system, enter in new employees, and run payroll every week or month. What was nice about this was that the customer service agent offered this test run unprompted. It wasn't even something we needed to ask for, which was a pleasant surprise, and something none of SurePayroll's competitors offered.
SurePayroll provides customer support six days a week. Monday through Friday, it's available between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. (CST) and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (CST). We like that the help lines are open later in the evenings and on Saturdays, which is something many of the other services didn't offer.
Ease of use
Since we did get the opportunity to test out the system, we were able to see just how simple it is to use and navigate. When you log in to the system, the first page you see is your account-center home page. On this page, you see your payroll status and any reminders you need to know, such as your upcoming payroll processing dates and any bank holidays. This page gives you a clear overview of where your payroll needs stand.
When you need to add your nanny, caregiver or other household employee into the system, you simply click on the Employee link at the top of the page. Once on the employee page you select Add Employee, and you are able to easily enter all of the worker's personal information, such as name, birthday, Social Security number and emergency contact details. Once all of that information has been added, you can enter the employee's bank account number, if the worker will be getting direct deposit, how much the individual is getting paid either by the hour or week, and the tax-withholding details. Once all of that is saved into the system, you are ready to start running payroll.
This can be accomplished in three steps: After clicking on the payroll tab at the top of the page, you select your employee and add in the hours they worked. Since you have already established the employee's pay rate in the setup process, all of the calculations are done for you. If the employee is salaried, you only need to enter the weekly, or monthly, amount owed. After that, you just need to click on the Preview Payroll link at the bottom of the page to review all of the details and make sure everything is accurate. On the preview page, you will see a breakdown of the employee's gross pay and how much is being taken out of the worker's checks for employee and employer taxes. If everything looks good, you click on the Submit for Approval link at the bottom of the page, and your payroll will run. At that point, you will be provided details on when the money will be transferred for direct deposit or when you can print out the checks for your employee.
A nice feature of the system is that your household employee will also have access to the account to review pay stubs and pay history. To learn more about using the system, you can watch videos on the SurePayroll website and on YouTube.
Other benefits
A nice added benefit of the SurePayroll system is that it can be run completely via mobile devices. The company offers mobile apps for both Android and Apple devices that allow you to enter earnings, deductions, hours worked and benefits (such as vacation and personal time), all from a smartphone or tablet. This gives you the ability to run your payroll from anywhere.
We also found it appealing that the company provides payroll services for small businesses, too. Rather than simply focusing its offerings on household services, this company is also responsible for maintaining a service that is sophisticated enough for a small business to use. Even though you may only by running a household payroll each week, the system is the same as that provided to small businesses. You might think because you're only running payroll for your nanny or caregiver you won't receive the same attention as a business with 10 to 20 employees does. However, we found otherwise. We received the exact same high level of support when we called inquiring about the small business service as we did when calling about the household services. That is a sign to us that SurePayroll values each of its clients equally, regardless of the size of your payroll.
Limitations
One potential downside of the SurePayroll service is that it isn't offered in different packages like some of the nanny-specific payroll services we reviewed. Some of SurePayroll's competitors offered cheaper plans for lower levels of service. For example, they gave you the option to pay less if you only wanted the service to calculate your tax withholdings and prepare your tax documents. If you would rather handle paying your employee on your own and send in your tax documents for yourself at a lower cost, you don't have that option with SurePayroll.
Another slight negative with SurePayroll is that it doesn't offer live chat assistance via its website. Some of the company's competitors give you the ability to immediately start chatting with a customer service agent directly from your payroll page. That means you don't have to stop what you're doing to make a phone call or write out an email asking for help.
We chose SurePayroll from a pool of the dozens of payroll services we considered. To read our full methodology and for a more comprehensive list of payroll services, visit our best picks page here.
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