On Jan 9, 2009, at 8:31 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
--- On Fri, 1/9/09, David E Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
For some dose of reality, how I see it anyway, is that
Payroll companies don't usually do much pay calculation.
In many cases they just get the pre-calculated numbers and
generate checks, and maybe help with some simple calculation
of taxes and other deductions. If they do anything very
complex it is custom code... not something OOTB in any
system (or rather, combined with OOTB parameterized things
that are somewhat complex, but you can only do so much when
guessing in advance). If it's going to be custom it
requires analysis and design just like anything else, and
might as well be implemented in OFBiz as in a separate
system that doesn't have access to the company's
data that would be used in the calculations.
I have been writing and supporting payroll software for over 20
years, and I can assure you, that is NOT how payroll processing
companies work. You supply them with employee info (marital status,
withholding allowances, payrate, benefits, etc) and they calculate
what the employee should be paid, print the check, PLUS provide all
of the necessary tax forms for local, state and federal taxes, as
well as group insurance payments, etc.
The payroll service you described would not be worth the fee - it
would be cheaper to buy a printer.
It sounds like you're describing the filling out of basic forms for
payroll processing. That's what I was referring to as the simple case
where they help you figure out the numbers for different people, ie
"help with some simple calculation of taxes and other deductions".
Those are things that most systems can handle OOTB and that change
according to tax code changes and such, but generally really aren't
that complex and usually the tax code and such is boiled down to a few
simple forms and formulas based on them. That's easy stuff, just
implement to the forms and the calculations they describe. There are
corner cases and funny laws that cause problems, and payroll companies
frequently mess these up too until they get a complaint and make a
manual fix of some sort.
What I am talking about for complex payroll stuff is when
organizations build up hundreds or thousands of different policies for
overtime, vacations, non-tax deductions, bonuses, commissions, and the
list goes on and on. Granted these are more typical for larger
organizations, but hopefully this helps clarify what I meant by simple
versus complex cases and customization that payroll outsourcing
companies don't automagically help with (like they do for the simpler
cases).
-David
