This past December, QuickBooksTM added an online payroll option to their payroll lineup of QuickBooksTM Basic Payroll, Enhanced Payroll and Intuit’s Payroll Service.  How do you decide which one is best for you and your company?  Let’s take a look.
QuickBooksTM Basic Payroll – Allows you to create paychecks to pay your employees using the most current federal and state payroll tax rates.  You have the ability to print federal payroll tax forms, but not state payroll tax forms.   I don’t generally recommend this version, since it does not come with the state payroll forms. 
QuickBooksTM Enhanced Payroll – Like basic, QuickBooksTM Enhanced Payroll allows you to create paychecks to pay your employees using the most current federal and state payroll tax rates.  Tracks when your payroll tax payments are due.  You can then run, print and file your quarterly (and year end) federal and state payroll tax forms and W-2’s by mail or electronically.  Use E-Pay to pay your federal and state payroll taxes electronically.  If you are going to process your own payroll and you need job costing, this is the best option.
Intuit’s Payroll Service – This is QuickBooksTM version of an outsourced payroll service, like ADP or Paychex.  It integrates with QuickBooksTM, but Intuit does everything:  print checks, file quarterly and yearly reports, makes payroll tax payments on your behalf.
Intuit Online Payroll – This version is an online payroll service that does not require that you have QuickBooksTM, but does integrate with QuickBooksTM software.  This choice has many of the same features of the enhanced payroll offering, but has limited state tax forms, so make sure you check to see if it supports your state tax forms before moving ahead with this offering.   The advantage of this choice is that you can run payroll from anywhere you have an internet connection, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If you still have questions or are considering a change to your payroll, give me a call.  Mention that you read this article and I will give you a free 15 minute consultation regarding your payroll to determine which of these offerings would work for you.