payroll

In "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," answering three questions correctly got you safely across the Bridge of Death, but a wrong answer meant, well, death. Small business owners can relate. They cross many such chasms with few safe bridges. But when it comes to cutting paychecks, help is as close as Excel with Basics Payroll 2013. This free Excel workbook simplifies the payroll process for small and medium-size businesses. It's compatible with Microsoft Excel 2007 and later; we tried it in Excel version 14 in Office 2010. While Basics Payroll 2013 is free, you must activate … Read more

Small and medium-size businesses do all kinds of different things, but one thing they have in common is they're in business. Something else they have in common is payrolls. Meeting them, managing them, recording them -- no wonder so many business owners and accountants always seem worried! It's a lot of responsibility. Payroll Mate 2013 from Real Business Solutions can help. It handles just about every part of the payroll process except providing the actual pay (sorry -- that one's still yours!) for a reasonable price. It can prepare payrolls, calculate taxes and withholding, print paychecks, create … Read more

Wondering what Uncle Sam does with your hard-earned tax dollars? The White House's Taxpayer Receipt page has been updated for 2011 to help answer that question.

To get started you'll need to enter the social security tax, medicare tax, and income tax that you paid for 2011. If that information isn't handy, you can estimate by choosing from a range of households and incomes, such as single with no children, married with one child, or married with two children.

In return, the site displays how much you doled out in tax dollars to the Fed for last … Read more

Business Services Co has been providing business freeware and low-cost software since the 1980s. Delta60 Accounting Software 6.0 World Version is the latest iteration of its free business accounting solution. It offers Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Invoicing, Inventory, Payroll, and General Ledger features. Among its improvements are a new integrated graphical user interface and better support for international users in its new World Version.

Delta60 opens with its baseline USA Version and the option to run the new World Version. We chose the World Version. Delta60's Stargate Interface is based around a circular command center feature that resembles … Read more

Time clock software is easy to understand: employees clock in and out on a PC instead of a wall clock. It ought to be easy enough that any employees can use it, no matter what their skill level. And it ought to be free, since the typical small business needs all the help it can get. Few programs can cover all three "oughtas," though. We looked at one that hits a triple: CKZ Time Clock. It's supersimple for employees: click on your name and then click the big Clock In or Clock Out buttons. Employees can check … Read more

Even if you use a payroll company to pay your employees, in many cases you're still legally obligated to keep your own payroll records. We've encountered several programs that let users do that with varying levels of success. Personal Payroll Manager, we're sorry to say, is among the worst. While it technically does keep track of your payroll records, it's difficult to use and lacks important features.

We had trouble getting Personal Payroll Manager to open at first; it requires Microsoft Access, and when we tried to launch Personal Payroll Manager, we had to manually select … Read more

TimeTrex is an interesting Web-based, modular, multiplatform payroll and employee time management system. Employees can keep track of their time at the office, at home, and on the road, even from their cell phones. TimeTrex Standard Edition is free and includes the open-source Payroll Module, the Employee Scheduling Module, and the Time and Attendance Module.

TimeTrex's On-Site client is a substantial download, nearly 56 MB, including the Apache database software. The setup process involves installing the client and then setting up the software via a Web-based process, chiefly initializing our database. We entered our company's information as well … Read more

Even if you use an accountant or payroll company to handle your business' payroll needs, it's still important--and often legally required--that you keep payroll-related records yourself. Employee Payroll Template is a template for Excel that can help you keep track of this important information. It's not a payroll calculator, so if you're expecting something that will help you do payroll yourself, you'll need to look elsewhere. But if you just need a tidy way to keep employee payroll records, Employee Payroll Template fits the bill.

The template is plain and attractive, with a blue header across … Read more

Without a decent program to manage it, doing payroll can be a serious pain. Unfortunately, Payroll 5 could not by any stretch be called a "decent program." Although there's nothing functionally wrong with it, it has some serious deficiencies when it comes to basic features.

We knew we were in trouble when we first saw the program's logo, which consists of a dopey-looking cartoon guy with a goatee. This graphic is more befitting of an avatar generator aimed at tweens than a professional payroll application, and every time we look at it we're a little … Read more