Balancing the Budget: Outsourcing Business ServicesBalancing the Budget: Outsourcing Business Services

About Me

Balancing the Budget: Outsourcing Business Services

My company is now over a decade old and I still outsource several key functions. It isn't that I can't afford to keep them in house. It is just that outsourcing is the most financially responsible decision I can make. I outsource all sorts of support services. One company manages my IT needs. Another partner takes care of the payroll and remitting taxes. I even have a cleaning service that comes in at night, does the windows, and in general keeps everything spotless. If you think outsourcing might benefit your business, let's talk. I'll tell you what I outsource and why. From there, you can decide if my strategy would also work for you.

Hiring Employees For The First Time? Factors To Consider

3 March 2017
 Categories: Business, Blog

If you have been in business for yourself for a while but have pretty much done everything on your own or with a partner, the prospect of having to hire employees for your business can be at the same time daunting and exciting. After all, the need for employees means that your business is successful and growing. But at the same time, you are not familiar with the process of finding the right employees that will serve your company well. Get to know some of the most important factors to consider when you are hiring employees for the first time so you can be sure you are doing everything in your power to secure your company's future.

Make Sure You Are Set Up For Employment Taxes

One of the biggest factors to consider when you take on your first employees is being prepared to deal with federal and states employment taxes. If you do not have one for your business already, this means applying for an EIN (employer identification number) with the IRS. This is your company's unique ID with the IRS so that you and your employees can correctly file taxes.

Additionally, when you actually hire your employees, you will need to make sure that they fill out the proper tax forms for their tax withholding as well as verification that they are able to legally work in the United States. These are the W-4 and I-9 forms respectively. You will also need to set up a system that ensures you withhold the proper amount of taxes from each employee's paycheck and that records are kept of all of these amounts.

Set Up a Background Check and Screening Process

As you are interviewing candidates and selecting the applicants that you want to offer jobs to, you will also need to keep in mind that background checks and employee screening are important parts of the hiring process. As such, you should determine what types of background checks and screenings you should be doing to ensure that you are hiring reliable and trustworthy employees without any criminal or other histories that would make them ineligible to work for your company.

Depending on the type of work your company does, this could include working with a company that performs ink fingerprinting services, such as Poway Livescan, to run the person's fingerprints through FBI and international databases. These types of background checks are especially important if your business deals with sensitive customer information or if you have any type of government contracts.

Other background checks only require your potential employees to fill out a basic information form and a third party company will check their employment histories, criminal records, credit history, and abuse registries. If any red flags come up, you will receive a report with the details of those issues.

With these factors in mind, you can make sure that you are prepared to begin the process of hiring your first employees.