Author Archives: CorpStrat News

Is Your Time & Attendance System Losing You Money?

Today we want to cover why it’s so important to have a robust Time & Attendance System for your organization. A lot of employers look at Time & Attendance Systems as this super simple thing: my employees clock-in, they clock-out, that’s the end of it. It’s understandable why you would want to believe Time & Attendance was this simple and easy. But we’ve found that what you don’t know can hurt you. This is one of the areas employers can really get hurt from a financial standpoint. Making sure you have the right Time & Attendance system that meets the needs of the organization is something you must invest in.

In a recent American Payroll Association Survey, they found that companies that lack a comprehensive Time & Attendance system had up to an 8% error rate in pay every payroll.

That’s more than four hours of wasted pay, per employee per payroll, that the employer’s paying for. That’s a lot of money. Think about that over a month or a year at x number of employees and do the math.

As an employer, I’m sure you understand the litigiousness of the employer/employee relationship. Wrongful termination suits are at an all time high. When ex-employees look for ways to go after employers, one of the easiest ways is through incorrect pay: missed lunch punch, incorrect overtime pay, no employee acknowledgement of time sheets, et cetera et cetera. And unfortunately in today’s world, the burden is on the employer to prove that they pay correctly, not on the employee to prove they didn’t.

This is why having a robust Time & Attendance System to help you reduce time errors, reduce overtime costs, increase compliance, increase efficiency, and put your business in a substantially better position is vital for success.

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Want to get set up with our CorpStrat Time & Attendance System? Let’s talk. Email us at marketing@corpstrat.com

“Can I Deduct Medical Expenses Not Covered by My Insurance Plan?” – Answer Inside

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What if we told you there was a way you can deduct all of the medical expenses that are not covered by your insurance plan. Doesn’t that sound interesting?

We’re talking about things like deductibles, co-insurance, doctor visits, doctor’s who don’t take insurance, eyeglasses, therapy, etc. Basically, all the things that you shake your head at and wonder, “why am I paying thousands of dollars for every year, after tax dollars?”

We’re here to tell you that there is a way to make all of these expenses deductible through a Discriminatory Medical Reimbursement Plan. This plan is available to:

Subchapter S Members
Sole Proprieters
Members of an LLC
Officers of an S Corporation.

If this pertains to you, please give us a call now and we can help make sure you’re maximizing deductibility. Your CPA may tell you that it’s not possible, but let us check to see what we can do.

At CorpStrat, our primary focus is helping business owners utilize all available strategies to overcome the complexities in benefit planning, reverse discrimination of benefits, and maximize deductibility. If you want to learn more about medical reimbursement strategies, reach out to us at marketing@corpstrat.com

LEARN MORE IN OUR ONE-MINUTE VIDEO:

Group Disability Insurance: Just How Important Is it? (Hint: Very)

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Getting disabled. It’s easy to think, “that’s never going to happen to me” or “stuff like that only happens to other people”. We get it, nobody thinks they’re going to be the victims of a disability. Did you know that 1 in 7 Americans can expect to be disabled for 5 years or more? You heard us right, 1 in 7.

Most people dismiss the idea of becoming disabled without giving it a second thought. We think it’s one of the biggest mistakes employers and employees can make. Becoming disabled could be financially catastrophic, especially for families that rely on a single income. If you’re a close relative of Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, becoming financially burdened may not be a problem for you. But if you’re not, you need to ask yourself: how are you going to replace your income in the event that you can’t work? Both business owners and employees who earn and need to continue to generate incomes must protect themselves and their families.

That’s where Group Disability Insurance comes in. Group Disability Insurance is:

1.) Extremely affordable
2.) A fantastic Employee Benefit
3.) Protection for people who need to protect others.

Some people are under the false impression that Group Disability Insurance is expensive. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In the event of the unthinkable, NOT having Group Disability Insurance is far more costly. Even though it’s not a flashy benefit, none of your employees are going to jump for joy, it’s one of the most important benefits you can provide. Because when life happens and someone gets disabled, this will be the lifeline that keeps their family financially afloat.

If you’d like to set up Group Disability Insurance for your team, contact us at marketing@corpstrat.com and we’ll get you started!

Can Employers Offer Employees Different Levels of Contribution?

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Today we want to share a hack around discrimination in employer contribution to employee benefit plans. The question we often receive is: Can you give different employees different levels of employer contribution?

The short answer is “Yes you Can.”

It’s commonly thought that employers don’t have a lot of discretion in designing and delivering health care benefits for their employees. But the reality is, there are many ways employers can enhance the delivery of their benefits by defining the class of eligibility. Thus creating legal and non-discriminatory ways to enhance employee benefits by class.

Now while it is possible, there are some complexities to setting it up because it touches on some issues regarding employment law and may not be advisable depending on workplace culture. But in general, an employer can create classes of employees and define the contributions or the offering of benefits to these select classes of employees.

Non-discriminatory ways to define an employee’s class of eligibility:

Generally employers have discretion when structuring their benefits plans and are able to make distinctions among employees and the benefits they’re offered. Plans may differ among employees only on “bona fide employment-based classifications”. A “bona fide employment-based classifications” might include: full-time versus part-time employee status; different geographic location; membership in a collective bargaining unit; date of hire or length of service; or differing occupations. Each of these can be treated as different groups of similarly situated individuals and receive different levels of employer contribution. For example, it is perfectly fine to offer three weeks of vacation to exempt employees and two weeks to nonexempt employees because the basis of the vacation benefit is their FLSA category and not any protected category.

The key is to make sure that benefits plan decisions are non-discriminatory, and that’s where we can help. We can make sure protected groups remain protected and design an employer contribution plan that delivers the best possible benefit while eliminating any unintentional discrimination that may result from these decisions.

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With the current challenges in recruiting and retaining it’s a perfect time to revisit how you deliver, what you deliver, and make sure your benefit packages are competitive in helping you attract, retain, and reward the A players to move your business forward. Need help creating classes of employees and defining contributions? Let’s talk, shoot us an email at marketing@corpstrat.com

7 Key Benefits of Automated Payroll

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When your HR team is all tied up with number crunching week to week and manually running payroll, they don’t have as much bandwidth to focus on important responsibilities like hiring, employee relations, and training and development. Having automated Payroll set up is a huge win for your HR department and here are a few reasons why:

1. Reduces Errors

Many outdated systems require Payroll managers to migrate data from one platform to another leaving opportunities for human and programatic error. Our Workforce Ready system features a single database which means real-time updates and no syncing, ensuring Payroll is always on time and accurate.

2. Save Time

With automated Payroll, managers no longer have to run around wrangling timesheets, double checking approved time off, or submit corrections. With Workforce Ready, managers can run Payroll quickly, saving 3-5 hours per week.

3. Geofencing Capabilities

With outdated Payroll systems, many times employers were limited by location and relied on an honor system. With our automated Payroll system, Geofencing gives employees the opportunity to clock in from within a certain distance of a work site and offers employers deeper knowledge into the exact hours their employees are working—all of which lead to more efficient and accurate Payroll.

4. Increased Security

Security is a huge concern when you’re managing valuable employee and company information. With an automated Payroll system, your data is encrypted and password protected so it’s only accessible to your team.

5. Makes Taxes a Piece of Cake

Gone are the days of number crunching, referencing various spreadsheets, and pulling out your hair trying to understand confusing new tax rules. With an automated Payroll system, you never have to worry about being compliant with new tax rules because the system is constantly being updated to reflect current tax policies. Also, tax withholdings are automatically calculated for each individual employee so you can rest assured that everything is filed correctly and on time.

6. Easy Reporting

When it comes to Payroll, we think the more data you have the better. The deeper insight you can have into how your workforce is performing, the better you can make informed decisions for your team. With automated Payroll, you can easily download beautifully designed reports that give you both a birds eye and granular view of your Payroll, which will help you make more strategic labor cost decisions.

7. Self-Service Employee Portals

One of the biggest headaches for HR Departments is having to chase down employees for signed time-sheets or documents. Automated Payroll takes this stressor away immediately by offering each individual employee their own login credentials and dashboard. Through their self-service portal, team members can make updates to their information, sign time-sheets and documents, access documents, and so much more.

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Curious about automating your organization’s Payroll? Let’s talk. Give us a call at 818.377.7260 or email us at marketing@corpstrat.com