Why does a payroll company need a client portal? Payroll companies that offer a client portal provide a higher sense of security with regards to communication. It also comes with easy access to all their payroll information to view, make edits, sign, and submit anything they wish. As a payroll company, you want to provide services your clients love and rely on. The largest piece, of course, is keeping their information safe. You’re dealing with people’s private details that should always be secure. This is not just for payroll companies but also for CPA’s and accounting firms who need to keep client data processing secure and efficient. There is a decent amount of competition out there and your customers can switch at any time if they feel you don’t provide the right tools or don’t feel you are properly protecting their information. Below are just a few bigger companies who provide payroll services. Payroll companies Gusto Paychex ADP Square Quickbooks Paycor Many major payroll companies have portals in place to help the company manage the business better and provide employees useful tools which helps keep everything secure and in one place. The problem that still exists is that even with the portals many companies are still exchanging private information through emails. The Benefits Inside the payroll industry, your clients expect you to go above and beyond otherwise they will seek their services elsewhere. They want on-demand access to all of their employee payroll information, a quick way to change details, a highly secure system, and more. As the payroll company, you have client portal software solutions which increase efficiency in your daily workflow including things like customer service which can decrease costs. Let’s take a look at some of these benefits. Communication It is much easier to access information that they need and contact you. Your team members can collaborate easily and have discussions with any client they need to in order to provide even better customer assistance and service. More important is the level of security that comes with this communication. Email exchanges and phone calls are no longer safe. Therefore, no information should be shared through it. Of course, there will always be people trying to call in for customer service issues. Email, however, should never be used anymore. Security With the levels of hacking and attacks we’ve seen, it’s no wonder people are nervous about having any personal information stored. Client portal security is much higher than that of email so communication and the processing of information are protected better. There are also ways you can protect your business better just in general. Portals just make everyone’s life easier and provide a better sense of security. Flexibility Both you and your client can access the client portal from any device, at any time, anywhere in the world (as long as you can access the internet). You and your clients will always know what is going on because you have this ability. Your clients can also complete many activities without any interaction from you. Documents It is very common to use a lot of paper to store client files and details about their account. By keeping everything digital it will save a lot of money on paper and ink. It also helps save you time on tracking documents down, finding people to have them sign items, and sending out mail. Client portals make it easy to send one another documents, you can e-sign them instantly, find a document with a couple clicks all while keeping everything more secure. Central Location It used to be that we had our computer which had multiple programs for which we needed to use to complete a task. We would flip back and forth between them trying to run client payroll, complete W-2’s, and other details. If we needed to communicate there was calling, emails, or some other program. Now with an online client portal, everything is in one central location saving time and effort. Easy Integrations A great client portal allows you to use 3rd party software within the portal itself. This really creates a great structure for everyone to do what they need all in one place. A great example is integrating Quickbooks into your client portal for easy accounting tools. Customer Service It doesn’t matter whether you are a big payroll company or a small payroll company, you always want happy customers. When you are a smaller company sometimes it can be hard to compete so the best way to help is by using digital tools. Besides just making the payroll process simpler and easier, it provides other items for your customers they may not have thought about. Tutorial videos on how to use everything is an example. Time So much time goes into exchanging large amounts of emails and even phone calls. The communication details are generally about running payroll, issues, what needs to happen with documents, and various other transactions. For example, a client may call saying I need to change an employee’s direct deposit information. The client has to wait for you to email over the document. They print it, fill it out, sign it, and send it back through email. Your team must then go through the process of entering the new information in and filing the paperwork. Depending on how fast everyone does it, it can take hours, days, or even weeks. This is a complete waste of resources and this is just one of the thousands of transactions that happen. The overhead costs alone and the time wasted are just unacceptable in today’s world. You can’t compete with other companies if this is your process. With a client portal that “wait time” is completely diminished. Again, on top of that its a huge security risk to send this sensitive information over email. Money It’s already been mentioned, but one of the largest benefits of using a client portal is how much money you can save. It’s not just about the savings on overhead costs which include materials like paper, phones, call charges, and mailing, but also about the time wasted. That time you save can be put towards creating marketing campaigns or any activity that helps you bring in more customers. That’s the ultimate goal. Of course, purchasing a ready-made portal or creating one from scratch requires money. There will be a decent upfront cost for implementing it. Yes, there could be a recurring fee to keep it running as well. However, you will be able to cut many other monthly and/or yearly recurring costs. In the end, you will end up saving a lot more. These are some of the reasons why your payroll company needs to have a secure client portal. Technology has made it so much easier to remove many of the payroll headaches to allow both parties to benefit. They are here to make things easier and more secure for everyone. Remember even if you are already using a portal don’t communicate with your client through email anymore. If you are interested in learning more about client portals and how to go about implementing it, you can contact the software development specialists at SDI. You can call or email Sakshi Sharma at 408.621.8481 or sakshi@sdi.la.