Employee Leasing Quotes : PEO Blog

Earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service joined the Department of Labor and state agencies in cracking down on employers that misclassify employees as independent contractors, leaving business owners and hiring managers scrambling to reevaluate their contractor relationships and ensure that they are complying with the law.

To help sort through the confusion, here are five characteristics of independent contractors, from lawyers and law firms on JD Supra: Read more:

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Two new insurance agencies in Pennsylvania have chosen Employee Leasing Quotes to be their sole employee leasing solutions provider. We’re very proud of our more than two dozen agency relationships throughout the country and have found them to be an extremely powerful benefit for the business owners we mutually serve.

www.EmployeeLeasingQuotes.com

Extremely successful and positive trip to North Carolina last week. Met with the owner and leaders of a new structural steel client in Greensboro. This is their first experience using PEO services and they’ll start off by saving over $40,000 in workers’ compensation insurance this year.

From there, I was also able to see a few current customers, a restaurant in Raleigh and an asphalt company, new to PEO services in WInston-Salem. Made it back just in time to for a long weekend of basketball tournaments. Go GATORS!

Fast, productive and busy week, ending with two more newly established brokering relationships with some top tier employee leasing providers and two insurance agencies that we’ve formed marketing agreements with to help more business owners in their service areas.

What’s great about the employee leasing industry is how it continues to evolve, with more services, benefits and unique options available to help business owners. For example, we connected a small chain of supermarkets (grocery stores) in Missouri with a PEO company that was really struggling with payroll and human resource services. They had an excellent workers’ compensation history, so the PEO provider simply carved that portion of the services out, to manage just the problem areas.

A few other industries we’ve been consulting with to provide an employee leasing solution include:

1. A mining company out of Montana. Faced with one of the state’s highest workers’ comp rates, we were able to help them save 27% on their annual workers’ compensation insurance premiums.

2. A structural steel company out of North Carolina. This company recently had an increase in their experience rating of almost 38% based on two expensive work comp claims. Their overall history was excellent up to this time period and the employee leasing provider we helped place them with, virtually erased that increase.

3. A renovated golf resort in Tennessee. The owners have previous experience with employee leasing services and understand the valuable benefits. They’re able to get started with no money down on their workers’ compensation, with a 35% discount off the current Tennessee state rates.

www.EmployeeLeasingQuotes.com
1-888-582-8388

As the Employee Leasing or PEO industry continues to grow and I have more conversations with business owners new to these services, one of the first questions asked is, what are the benefits – or how will this improve my business?

The simplest answer is that an Employee Leasing provider will help you reduce three of the most pivotal aspects of running and managing your business.

Number one is, Reducing Your Administrative Burdens. Look, you started your business to sell a product or provide a service, and generate income doing what you’re trained to do, what you love to do. But what kills the excitement and prevents growth, is the time -and money, wasted on work that doesn’t produce a dime for your business.

Dealing with payroll administrative work, governmental compliance issues, workers’ compensation and health insurance management - are a small portion of what costs employers roughly $5,000 a year, per employee - in time and paperwork (Small Business Administration 2004).

Imagine the relief of unloading the responsibilities of annual payroll management, reporting accurate deposits, quarterly reports and dozens of other tedious tasks. An employee leasing provider has a fully staffed team of payroll and human resource experts, dealing with these issues daily for hundreds of employers. This means you can outsource the administrative headaches and the liability - for less than you could do on your own.

Part II – Cutting Business Costs.

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Geographic limitations:

• Are you limited in any way to the number of states we can hire new employees? If so, which states are you currently not registered in to provide PEO services?

Payroll Taxes:

• What is the State & Federal unemployment tax rate which we will be charged? What are your own current unemployment rates and is the PEO’s rate higher than your current rate?

• Do you stop charging State & Federal unemployment & ETT tax when our employees reach the required wage thresholds? (The payroll tax thresholds are the first $7,000 wages for CA and Federal)

• When highly compensated employees reach $106,800 in YTD wages, do you stop taking social security tax (6.2%) from the employee? And do you stop the 6.2% social security payroll tax match for the employer?

• If we leave your PEO services mid-year, what happens to all the payroll taxes our company has paid YTD? Do all our company level employee and employer taxes start from zero again?

· Do we get those employer payroll tax monies back?

· Do we need to double pay all of our employer payroll taxes again?

Section 125 Employee Medical Premium Contributions I Employer FICA Tax Match:

• Can the employee contribute to their medical premiums on a pre-taxed basis?

• Do we the employer get the FICA tax match break on our employees medical premium contributions? Or do we still have to pay the employer FICA tax match portion on our employee’s medical contributions?

• If we have an FSA plan, do our employees contribute to this on a pre-tax basis?

• Do we the employer get the FICA match tax break on our employees FSA contributions? Or do we still pay the employer match portion of FICA on the FSA contributions?

• At the end of the FSA plan year what happens to the unused FSA funds. Is it returned to us or does the PEO keep those funds?

• Is the billing easy to understand and broken out by: service fee, gross wages, payroll taxes, workers’ compensation premiums and health benefit premiums? Or is the billing a “bundled” percentage of gross wages and confusing to decipher which services cost what?

• Does my billing percentage rate decrease as each one of my employees reaches their first $7,000 in wages? Specifically, do you respect the threshold for employer taxes for State & Federal unemployment? (Hidden fee alert)

Benefits Flexibility:

• Regarding health benefits: Do you offer us the flexibility to select any carrier we want?

• Regarding workers’ compensation: Do you offer our company the flexibility to select any carrier we want? Can we shop for a new WC policy each year?

• Regarding 401(k) plans: Do you offer our company the flexibility to select any 401(k) plan we want? Can we shop for a new 401(k) Plan if needed?

• If we utilize your PEO services, but decide to leave your payroll services, can we keep the health benefits plan, workers’ comp policy and 401(k) plan?

• Can you administer any third party plans or policies that are not your own? For example: Health, workers’ compensation or 401(k)?

Officers/Owners of the Company:

• Will we be charged work comp premiums for the officers/owners of the company under your program? (Officers and owners are typically excluded from WC premiums)

• Do the officers/owners of the company have to sign an employment agreement to be employees of the PEO?

Officers/Owners of the Company:

• Will we be charged work comp premiums for the officers/owners of the company under your program?

• Do the officers/owners of the company have to sign an employment agreement to be employees of the PEO?

Company Process:

• Do we still retain the right to hire and fire our employees?

• Who will actually be the employer of record?

• Will our employees W2’s at year end say our company name or the PEO company name?

• Will our company be held to Federal & State HR compliance laws based on our actual number of employee or will our company be looked at as a much larger organization because we are pooled under your FED ID #? Will we be subject to additional Federal & State compliance laws of a much larger company? (i.e. COBRA, FMLA)

www.EmployeeLeasingQuotes.com
1-888-582-8388

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What services do you need? “Picking the right PEO is of paramount importance,” says Sheridan. The PEO should be certified by the Employer Services Assurance Corporation, have experience in the client’s industry and cover that company’s territory, he says. Also bear in mind that some PEOs specialize in a Web-based high-tech approach, while others are focused on face-to-face support.

Remember — each PEO is different, and business owners would do well to read the fine print.

Read the full article here: http://businessonmain.msn.com/browseresources/articles/managingemployees.aspx?cp-documentid=25949577&source=msnmoney

www.EmployeeLeasingQuotes.com
1-888-582-8388

Isn’t this a great time of year to be a sports fan? It is for me anyway – maybe not my wife. I’m watching the Cowboys, Giants game the other night and thinking about, why Wade Phillips is still the head coach (sorry Wade, think you’re a great defensive coordinator). Anyway, my mind wondered off into how sports and business have so many things in common. Here’s just a few and write me back if you have others, I’d like to lengthen the list.

1. A well respected assistant coach shouldn’t always deserve a head coaching job, nor does a veteran salesman deserve to be a sales manager.
2. A good manager knows what the goals should be with the talent their given and takes responsibility if there not met.
3. I’ve been a part of strong and weak talented ball teams and sales teams. The team with the best chemistry usually wins.
4. Both professions require consistent effort to better - to have a chance to be great.
5. Think about it, ball players and salespeople start at fighting for a job, then they either fail to make the cut or begin playing on another level. Then there are, the Hall of Famers for both categories.
6. There are what is called “serviceable players” in each profession.
7. Successful sports franchises and businesses have two things in common: Owners and managers know how to communicate and managers know to communicate with their team.
8. Risks and investments must be taken whether in sports or business to have a chance to be great, otherwise you’ll always be average or less than.
9. How you deal with adversity and losses determines future outcomes.
10. In sports and business, your “statistics” tell who you really are!

Mike Burgelin
www.EmployeeLeasingQuotes.com
1-888-582-8388

From Maximizing your Employee Leasing and PEO services, Q&A with successful business leaders, to helpful information regarding new health care laws, we’ve posted our September newsletter for you to view. Follow the link and take a moment to sign up and start receiving valuable tips, trends and expert advice regarding HR issues, payroll, business insurance and employee leasing information.

http://www.employeeleasingquotes.com/employee-leasing-quotes-newsletter.php

Mike Burgelin
www.EmployeeLeasingQuotes.com

For years now, PEO outsourcing services have continued to grow dramatically each year, in every state. While many business owners connect with a PEO service for savings on workers’ compensation insurance or to reduce rising group health care costs, with increased governmental regulations and health care reform, help with human resource services have quickly become an urgent need for employers.

While many may not think of HR services as a “good investment”, if you can’t answer yes on most of the questions below, you’re wasting productive time finding and dealing with the answers yourself.

1. I’m aware of the new federal and state labor regulation changes that took effect this year.
2. I know how to handle unemployment claim disputes.
3. I know which questions are illegal to ask a new hire during the interview process.
4. I understand how the new health care reform laws will impact my business.
5. I understand COBRA compliance and can manage COBRA administration.
6. My employees know that I am an “At Will” employer and understand what that means.
7. I understand all the mandated OSHA forms that apply to my business.
8. I complete performance reviews regularly with all my employees.
9. I know my responsibilities for our out-of-state employees.
10. I conduct reference and background checks on all our new hires.

Find more information regarding PEO services on our frequently asked questions page.