Pay Stub Generators: What Are They And Why Your Business Needs One
Whether you’re a company that staffs employees or a self-employed individual, you need to know how much you made each year, calculate your taxes, and reduce the risk of legal errors.
While you could use pay stubs to advertise your startup to potential employees or customers, it can also make you legally compliant in states that require it. For example, Utah requires employers to provide employees with access to a pay stub, either electronically or physically.
Self-employed business owners need pay stubs as proof of income. Lenders, utility companies, and phone companies need proof of income to lend money or set up services. However, making pay stubs can be complex and time-consuming unless you use a reliable pay stub generator.
What Are Pay Stub Generators?
Pay stub generators are free or paid software that populates and auto-completes income, tax, and deductions onto a pay stub template. For example, FormPros pay stub generator will ask you to fill out necessary information, such as company info, employee info, and payment details.
While free pay stub generators aren’t as robust as paid versions, they’re still incredibly useful for small businesses and self-employed workers. However, if you’re managing 10+ employees, paid tools are the way to go. That’s because they can often integrate with other payroll software.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Pay Stub Generator
Quality pay stub generators are low-cost, easy to use, and don’t require accountant-level knowledge to create.
Here’s some other reasons your business needs a pay stub generator.
1. Pay Stub Generators Make it Easy to Budget
Figuring out a budget and keeping it under control is a challenge, especially when you don’t keep an accurate record of what everyone’s paid every week. If you pay out a commission or your staff frequently works overtime, you can’t even use your team’s base salary for budgeting.
When you use pay stubs, you’ll be able to keep a closer eye on your finances. Each month, you can accurately calculate where your money is going, allowing you to allocate your cash flow effectively. Plus, your budget-conscious employees benefit from knowing their weekly salary.
2. Pay Stub Generators Offer Little Room for Error
Manual and handwritten data entries on pay stubs are vulnerable to human error. An incorrect decimal placement here or an extra vowel there can provide lasting consequences for business owners and employees. It will also cost company resources and its reputation to fix it quickly.
Pay stub generators are less likely to negatively affect your business and its bottom line. Not only can you keep reusing it, but you can also calculate employee taxes and deductions right from the tool. The automation process prevents and avoids errors common in manual pay stubs.
3. Pay Stub Generators Encourage Record Keeping
The more employees you have, the harder it will be to keep track of who gets paid what, which deductions to apply, and what benefits your staff receives. It’s very important to keep accurate records, or you could open yourself up for payroll fraud, employee lawsuits, or IRS crackdowns.
Fortunately, a pay stub generator can help you make personal files without worrying about piles of paper, endless files, and physical storage. What’s more, the right pay stub generator will encrypt your pay stubs, ensuring no outside force will steal confidential employee information.
4. Pay Stub Generators Create Professional Checks
Business owners and self-employed individuals can impress banks, clients, and lenders with their professionally made pay stubs. If your penmanship is lacking or you don’t have the means to print a large batch of checks, pay stub tools can produce sleek and smart documents for you.
Some of the more sophisticated tools allow you to customize pay stubs using templates. You can add more than the required legal information, place backdrops on your checks, or design each pay stub based on your employee’s preferences. With a generator, the sky’s the limit.
5. Pay Stub Generators Are Hassle-Free (and Cheap)
Even if you’re used to making multiple pay stubs manually every week, it won’t make the task any less tedious. If you’re self-employed, this may be the first time you’ve ever made a pay stub, which inevitably confuses you. How should you create a pay stub? Will it be legally compliant?
With a pay stub generator, you don’t have to worry about messing up, as most tools will walk you through the process. Income and deductible calculations become hassle-free, and that alone is worth the price. But depending on what tool you use, you won’t have to pay a cent.