People and Payroll – If you want to run your payroll in-house? Maybe its just you on the payroll? Timesheet based? What Software should you use to manage all of the submissions and tax requirements?

Onto the people and payroll function.

Now people and payroll is probably where most of the admin in a small business lies and certainly it does prevent a lot of companies from actually scaling, not only outside of the area or their country, but trying to access talent across the world. Thankfully, today’s tools are brilliant, they reduce most of that friction, and they really make running a payroll or even hiring contractors or freelancers, exceptionally easy.

We’ll start with payroll, which is really focused more towards fixed employees, most of the tools I mentioned previously, Xero and  QuickBooks Online, as an example. They have their own inbuilt payroll function and I can also highly recommend these, I’ve used Xero payroll myself, I’ve used Embar’s payroll solution and both of those are very, very good, very easy to use. Embar’s probably the most lightweight, they just have the basic functions for very, very simple setups.

Xero has a lot more complexity, and like I said earlier, if there are any more complex requirements, maybe running a timesheet-based business or you may be running a slightly more distributed workforce, then there are other applications that can plug into Xero.

I would, really if you’re looking for an early start, QuickBooks online, or Xero have a payroll function and then manage all the tax requirements, they directly post your number straight into the tax authority, they’ll also help you prepare and actually submit your returns, if you’re in a country that has electronic submission and they really do facilitate all the different paperwork that’s needed to run a compliant payroll function.

Next is running a contractor function, if you want to hire a contractor, may be looking for part-time marketing assistant that’s based in Mexico or Indonesia, previously, it was quite difficult to try and find the right contract for them and make sure that you comply with the local legislation around hiring a contractor.

Today’s tools take away almost all of that friction, and make contracting, negotiating, the different rates, they’re very flexible in terms of how you pay these people. And then actually facilitating their payment, they take all that friction away.

The tool that I enjoy the most is Deel. You don’t really need to look much further than Deel. Deel is a wonderful solution that caters for most countries in the world and it does all of the different requirements that you may need to hire a contractor quite quickly. They can actually hire an employee for you, almost on your behalf. They like back-to-back it with their local company and their rates are relatively affordable for both. But certainly they would be my go-to solution for contractors.

And then lastly if you’re looking for more maybe job based requirements, freelancers are a great way to actually help you scale your business. I’m sure most of you aware of the number of platforms that are out there that give you ready access to a number of skills.

Platforms include Freelancer, Upwork, Fiver, those are good general tools, if you are looking for web development or even developers or any kind of small function really, writing, ghostwriting, they just have a number of different skills that are on those platforms. And if you’re looking for slightly more specialist or niche skills, you can go to platform like Top Tell or Brain Trust. These are slightly more selective, they pre-screen most of their candidates and they do allow you to access maybe the high end of the experience base.

So you’ve got payroll functions, you’ve got contractor functions, and then you got freelancer.

All of those are both for scale and allow you to rapidly onboard different skill sets and different staff members, as you may need.

Brian is a seasoned finance expert who has experience spanning both the corporate world as a SVP in various finance and sales roles, as well as the consulting space, helping a variety of business to grow and prosper.