MakePaySlip Blog
Payroll Insights
Learn how to manage payroll, stay compliant, and grow your business.
Payroll Accruals Explained: How to Account for Wages and Liabilities Between Pay Periods
Payroll accruals are one of the most misunderstood concepts in small business accounting — and one of the most consequential. When wages are earned in one period but paid in another, your financial statements can seriously misrepresent your true costs. This guide explains what payroll accruals are, why they matter, and how to handle them correctly so your books reflect business reality.
Payroll Software Integrations: Connecting Your Systems for a Seamless Business Workflow
Running payroll in isolation from your other business systems is one of the most common — and costly — mistakes growing companies make. This guide explores how connecting your payroll platform with accounting software, HR tools, and time tracking systems eliminates duplicate data entry, reduces errors, and turns your compensation data into a strategic business asset.
Final Paychecks and Employee Offboarding: What Employers Must Know About Termination Pay
When an employee leaves — whether through resignation, layoff, or termination — how you handle their final paycheck carries serious legal and reputational consequences. This guide breaks down the rules around termination pay, state-specific deadlines, accrued leave payouts, and the offboarding practices that protect your business while leaving departing employees with dignity.
Payroll Record Retention: What to Keep, How Long, and Why It Matters
Most businesses know they need to keep payroll records — far fewer know exactly which records, for how long, in what format, and under what security conditions. Getting record retention wrong exposes your business to audit vulnerability and legal risk. This guide provides a comprehensive framework for payroll record retention that satisfies federal and state requirements while remaining practically manageable.
Payroll's Role in Mergers and Acquisitions: What Happens to Compensation When Companies Combine
Mergers and acquisitions generate enormous strategic excitement — and enormous payroll complexity. From day-one employment tax decisions to multi-system integrations and employee communication challenges, the payroll workstream in an M&A transaction is one of the most consequential and most underestimated. This guide explains what HR and finance teams need to address before, during, and after a deal closes.
Tipped Employee Payroll: Navigating Tip Credits, Minimum Wage Rules, and Reporting Obligations
Tipped employee payroll is among the most compliance-intensive areas of wage administration, combining federal tip credit rules, state minimum wage variations, tip pooling restrictions, and IRS reporting obligations into a framework that trips up even experienced employers. This guide breaks down every layer of tipped payroll so hospitality and service businesses can pay correctly and stay protected.
Payroll for Non-Profit Organizations: Navigating Unique Compliance Challenges and Funding Constraints
Non-profit organizations face all the payroll compliance obligations of their for-profit counterparts — and several unique ones that many non-profits don't realize apply to them. From executive compensation rules to grant-funded position tracking, this guide covers the payroll landscape every non-profit leader needs to understand.
Benefits Administration and Payroll: How Your Compensation Package Affects Tax Withholding and Compliance
Employee benefits are not just an HR concern — they are a payroll and tax matter with significant implications for withholding accuracy, compliance, and employee financial outcomes. This guide explains the relationship between benefits administration and payroll, and how getting the integration right protects both your business and your employees.
Managing Expatriate Payroll: A Practical Guide to Compensating Employees Who Work Across Borders
Sending an employee to work in another country triggers a cascade of payroll, tax, and compliance obligations that most businesses are not prepared for. This guide explains the key concepts, common pitfalls, and practical approaches to expatriate payroll that protect both the organization and the employee throughout an international assignment.
Payroll KPIs and Metrics: How to Measure and Continuously Improve Your Payroll Department's Performance
Most businesses know when payroll goes wrong — but far fewer track the metrics that reveal how well it's going right. Payroll KPIs give HR and finance leaders an objective view of processing accuracy, cost efficiency, and compliance health, turning a reactive department into a data-driven operation capable of continuous improvement.
Leave Management and Payroll: Integrating PTO, Sick Leave, and FMLA Without Losing Accuracy
Leave management is one of the most administratively complex intersections of HR and payroll — and one of the most consequential when it goes wrong. From FMLA intermittent leave to state-mandated sick pay, this guide walks through the systems and practices that keep leave policies legally compliant and payroll accurate even when employees are away from work.
Pay Equity Audits: How to Identify, Close, and Prevent Compensation Gaps in Your Organization
Pay equity has moved from a compliance checkbox to a strategic business priority — and for good reason. Organizations with unexplained compensation gaps face growing legal exposure, recruitment disadvantages, and retention risks they often don't see coming. This guide explains how to conduct a meaningful pay equity audit and build compensation practices that stand up to scrutiny.