At first glance, the idea of paying a company to do payroll management seems surprising. Isn't paying wages as simple as writing out checks to whoever has earned some during the last pay period? It turns out that the answer is a resounding "no" – even for the smallest of companies. In fact, any business that hires even one worker must meet several regulations, at least in most areas. Which regulations are involved depend, in part, on where the business is located.

Most of the regulatory aspects go on behind the scenes, out of sight of the worker. This is why new businesses are often caught by surprise. Such regulations can include documentation of the age of each worker, needed to comply with laws against child labor; documentation of paid and unpaid breaks; documentation of how much time was worked, so overtime is appropriately paid; records of any insurance benefits; records of other benefits; payments to a variety of tax agencies; and more.

As you can easily see, keeping track of all of these things easily becomes onerous. It's easy for errors to creep in just by forgetting to record something or by losing the records.

Payroll management services eliminate the need for companies to deal with all of these things on their own. The company still needs to get records of workers' ages and what kind of perks they get, and it still needs to keep track of when everyone worked. However, instead of going through them every week, they transmit the information to the payroll services company.

Doing things this way ensures that all of the documentation is properly processed and that copies are kept in a place where they won't get lost. Of course, the payroll company also cuts the checks, but that is actually a minor aspect compared to all of the other payroll services that are done.