As a new or aspiring small business owner, it can be overwhelming trying to get all of the behind-the-scenes pieces together. When you have questions, it’s nice to have a professional to help you. Is an accountant the advisor you’re looking for?

At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we have more than 50 years of experience in advising new businesses. Here, we address the questions you should ask your accountant when starting a small business, and we take a deeper look at some of the things an accountant may be able to help you with, including:

• Setting up a chart of accounts
• Finding the right accounting software
• Selecting the best entity structure
• Establishing payroll needs

Have you heard of Sports Page Bar & Grill in Bloomington, Minnesota? According to the owner, Becky Rademacher, “It’s just a local sports bar. You know - greasy burgers, cold beer, nothing too fancy.”

Becky’s story is a little different from other clients’. She didn’t struggle with other accounting or payroll providers, but she wanted to share the story of how CSI Accounting & Payroll helped her business by:

• Managing its accounting and payroll
• Providing excellent customer service
• Obtaining the COVID relief funds that would prove to be critical to its survival

If you manage your small business's payroll in-house, you're probably one of the many payroll software users out there. While the software offers the necessary features to comply with payroll regulations, it can fall short because it lacks the intuition that only a trained payroll specialist can provide. In fact, there are many downsides to doing your own payroll.

So what's the alternative? Outsourcing your payroll!

At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we've worked with small businesses for more than 50 years. For the first few decades, we only handled small business accounting needs, but due to popular demand, we opened our payroll department in the 2000s. We fully understand that there are many benefits of outsourcing small business payroll, such as:

• Better compliance and accuracy
• Time saved
• More cost-effective

What makes you want to do your own payroll? If your answer is along the lines of, “I want to save money,” you may see avoiding expenses as a safer option than making an investment. This is not true for every situation. While we can admit that some situations may benefit from doing payroll in-house, for many small businesses, it's a mistake.

At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve spoken with thousands of small business owners over the past several decades, so we know what commonly drives people to want to do their own payroll. However, when you do your own payroll, you need to consider the following hazards:

• Difficult-to-use software
• Ongoing software fees and other expenses
• Extra time required

When you’re searching for an accounting or payroll service for your small business, you don’t have the time to sit through consultations from services that aren’t a good fit for your business. After all, isn’t wanting more time back in your day a big reason why you wanted to outsource in the first place?

On that same note, CSI Accounting & Payroll consultants would also love to get some time back instead of meeting with small business owners who aren’t a good fit for our services. We’re not going to be a perfect match with everybody! Continue reading to learn about the technical components and values that it takes for us to be a bad match.

Criminals have developed many believable scams over the past few years. Chances are, you even know somebody who’s fallen victim to one. It can happen to anyone.

Even if you’ve heard about certain payroll schemes, it’s still possible to fall for them if you’re busy running a business! While speed is valued in work, jumping into tasks quickly means that sometimes red flags are missed.

At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we have worked with small businesses for more than 50 years. Because of this, we know what to look out for. 

There are plenty of ways that you can be taken advantage of internally (by your own staff), but we’re going to focus on the following details of a common external scheme called “payroll diversion.”

• What are payroll fraud and payroll diversion?
• How can I detect payroll fraud?
• How do I prevent payroll fraud?

It’s hard enough to implement year-round tax strategy, prepare, and file your business taxes - but there’s an added element of difficulty when you’re not sure which taxes you should be paying.

Do you have to pay unemployment taxes? Social Security taxes? What about payroll and income taxes? (And if they do have to be paid, is it you who’s responsible - or your employees?)

CSI Accounting & Payroll has worked with small business taxes for more than 50 years (and payroll taxes for over a decade), so we know a thing or two about the different types of taxes and who’s responsible to pay them. 

Let’s take a deeper dive into payroll taxes and income taxes - which we consider to be separate taxes.

With the rise of remote and hybrid work over the past few years, some excitement - and confusion - has grown around the idea.

Remote work was originally thought of as only possible for large businesses or the self-employed, one-man show. Now, even some small and medium-sized business owners have begun to adopt this work style if it's possible for their industry.

As a business owner, you may have questions about remote and hybrid work. CSI Accounting & Payroll supports many small and medium-sized businesses with this work style, so we're familiar with the answers to these commonly-asked questions:

• Will having remote employees cost more?
• What are the benefits and downsides of remote employees?
• How are remote workers taxed?

As a small business owner, you should be consistently looking for ways to improve operations, increase profits, and reduce unnecessary spending. At first, this can look like juggling several tasks yourself or passing some off to an in-house administrative employee. Oftentimes, bookkeeping is one of these tasks.

While you certainly can do your own accounting, there comes a time when it starts to make more sense to hire accounting and payroll services.

At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we've been helping small business owners outsource for more than 50 years. That means we have the expertise to explain three of the top ways that accounting and payroll services can help save you time and money.

You own a small business in the Twin Cities area, and you’ve been swamped with handling your payroll yourself on top of everything else that you do - or you’ve gone through the same experience that so many others have with big-name national payroll services.

What’s the logical next step? Find a reputable, local payroll provider to help you get back on your feet.

While CSI Accounting & Payroll works with small businesses across the continental United States, we haven’t forgotten the good folks at home in the Twin Cities area. 

We also understand that you will want to consider all of your options. We actually encourage it! We know that we’re not the right fit for everyone. The following providers offer a range of prices and service levels, and it’s important to do your research to find the best fit for you.

Prospective clients will often ask us who our competitors are so they can do their research, and that’s why we’ve compiled this list of the top six small business payroll providers in the Twin Cities area. To remain neutral, CSI Accounting & Payroll is excluded from this list.

Keep reading to learn more about the following firms:

• Business Cents
• Dorsey Enterprises
• Payroll Direct
• Payroll Post
• Press Gold Group
• Spruce Valley Payroll and Services