A payroll template is a way to make sure that your business has all the necessary information in order for you to correctly file taxes and remit payments on time. The best templates can be found by looking online, but here are some tips for coming up with one of your own.
Payroll templates are pre-made spreadsheets and forms that aid in the organization, calculation, and tracking of payroll information. They’re ideal for company owners who are getting ready to recruit their first workers and want to improve their payroll management. To save money on add-ons like time tracking, you may use these templates instead of or in combination with payroll software.
Consider Gusto if you need a simple solution to conduct payroll and instantly sync time tracking to payroll without having to use templates. It’s a cost-effective alternative that includes free automatic payroll tax payments and filings.
What Are Payroll Templates and How Do They Work?
Payroll templates are preformatted, so all you have to do is fill in the blanks with the relevant data. If you want to customize the templates, make sure you have an editable version so you may add or remove rows, columns, and cells.
Free paycheck templates made using spreadsheet tools (such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets) may save you time, particularly if they employ formulae to automate computations. Once you input the appropriate numerical information, these formulae act as a calculator, automatically calculating answers.
There are also simpler templates that may be printed and filled out by hand, such as employee information sheets and vacation trackers. However, certain forms (such as pay stub templates) demand that data be typed rather than scribbled to seem more professional.
If you choose to utilize an online payroll template rather than developing one from scratch, keep in mind that you will need to download and save it to your computer. If you use a template without storing it beforehand, you risk losing important data if your system or website crashes.
Payroll Processing Template for 12 Months (Annual)
Our 12-month template has a lot of features, including the ability to compute gross and net compensation for each month. If you specify the appropriate tax rates, it calculates taxes for each employee. Payroll expenditures are also broken down by month and summed as yearly costs. Other components controlled in the spreadsheet include benefit contributions, payroll taxes, and reimbursements.
The PTO summary tracker in the “Set Up” page of this template is another important feature. The spreadsheet will maintain a rolling tally of available PTO per employee if you input the yearly amount of PTO hours that each employee is entitled to, as well as the credits utilized each pay period (in the monthly tabs).
Employer payroll taxes and workers’ compensation expenditures have their own tab. It estimates how much you owe each month automatically if you input the rates you must pay. You won’t have to re-enter FICA tax rates since they’re already built-in.
Template for Payroll Budgeting
Creating a payroll budget is critical, particularly for individuals planning to start a firm or continue operations for a new year or month. You’ll need a means to budget ahead of time for costs so you can prevent cash shortages and IRS problems.
With a Template for Payroll Budgeting, you can plan and track expenses for staff wages, benefits, and Social Security taxes. This form has five tabs, wherein the first one contains instructions. It provides you the option of budgeting for a month, a year, or both. Regardless of which time frame you choose to budget, you should always start with the corresponding “Wage Budget by Employee” tab. It feeds into the “Payroll Expense Budget” tabs and automatically calculates FICA taxes.
Furthermore, you may use this form to budget for both paid and hourly personnel. There’s even a separate section for future bonus payouts. You may also use it to budget for overtime costs.
Only fill in the white cells with relevant information.
Tips are one thing that does not fit inside the template. If you have tipped workers, keep in mind that although you will have to pay taxes on employee tips, the tips will not be a payroll expenditure.
When it comes to tip payments, if you pay tipped staff less than minimum wage (and so qualify for the tip credit), you should budget at or over minimum wage. This is a cautious strategy that ensures you have enough money to pay staff if they do not get enough tips to bring their hourly salary up to the legal minimum wage. It also guarantees that you have enough money set up for taxes.
Pay Stub Template for Employees
You may be obliged to present your workers with pay stubs that indicate how much you paid in wages, the time for which you paid them, and other pay-related facts, depending on your state legislation.
We have a few customized pay stub templates that you may use if they match your company in addition to the generic pay stub that we’ve given.
While there are numerous free pay stub templates available online, you can also use our forms to choose one that will work for your company.
Template for Payroll Expense Analysis
A Template for Payroll Expense Analysis is good for any company that’s undergone at least a month of payroll expenses. It provides key metrics to help you identify any red flags you should monitor going forward. With our template, you have five calculations that you can choose to use. You can enter annual payroll expense totals to see if there are any noticeable trends. The other analyses perform various calculations for you, while the payroll trend analysis is more of an observation than a calculation.
It’s even possible to calculate managerial pay costs as a proportion of overall costs. If you wish to compare expenses, you may replace management expenditures with labor costs for various sorts of employees (like dishwashers, hosts, and chefs). Having access to this information may help you save expenses by reviewing how you schedule particular personnel or identifying whether you’re overpaying in certain areas.
If you run a restaurant, for example, you may use the template to figure out how much of your sales is spent on wages. According to Upserve, restaurateurs often strive to maintain labor expenses between 20% and 30% of revenues. Imagine learning that your company is spending 50% of its budget on labor after inputting the necessary information into the payroll template. This permits you to do further research to find out what’s causing the high prices.
To assist you to examine your payroll expenditures, you may use up to five calculations.
Templates for Payroll Time Sheets
You’ll need a timesheet to log employee work hours for payroll processing if you don’t have time tracking software like Homebase. This is especially important for organizations that use hourly workers, such as restaurant servers.
There are six different free payroll timesheet templates to choose from. Employers that pay daily, weekly, bimonthly, semimonthly, monthly, or by the project may use the timesheet.
Choose the one that best suits your pay plan and company needs:
Template for Employee Information
If you don’t utilize payroll software like Gusto to handle payroll, our employee information sheet might help you keep track of new recruits. You should print several copies of the templates so that you have them on hand when new staff starts. It’s also quite self-explanatory—new recruits fill out particular data sections with personal information (such as name and date of birth) as well as emergency contact information. There’s also a section for employment specifics that you can fill out, including areas for pay-related information and a supervisor’s name.
Chart of Accounts for Payroll
Before you can start recording payroll transactions in your company’s financial ledger, you must have a chart of accounts that includes payroll accounts. Our Chart of Accounts for Payroll template can be used and printed as is without adding any information to it. However, if you need to personalize the template—whether by renaming an account or updating a description—you can copy the data and paste it into a Word file.
Template for a Vacation Log
If you provide your workers with paid time off (PTO), you’ll need a mechanism to keep track of how much PTO they utilize. Our free vacation tracker is available in two formats: an electronic spreadsheet and a printed version. It contains 12 tabs designated by month for tracking vacation hours by day and month.
If you want to utilize the template electronically, keep in mind that the total hours will fill as you input information. This makes it simple to keep track of how much paid time off each employee has accrued.
You may also print and put the tracker at your workplace for quick access. Before printing, be careful to erase all of the data in Column AG (the “Total Hours” column). It now contains a formula that adds all of the cells to its left, explaining why it reflects zero. When you eliminate the formulae, the cells become blank, allowing you to manually input a total at the end of the month.
Template for Employee Scheduling
Having a Template for Employee Scheduling is useful, especially if your company operates outside of normal business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.). We have two templates available for you—one allows your employees to request changes within the spreadsheet, while the other doesn’t. Both forms help you create weekly schedules as far into the future as you’re willing to plan.
Conclusion
Free payroll templates are a useful tool to use when handling your own payroll. They’re not only free, but they’re also customizable. Consider your company requirements while determining which templates are suitable for you. While templates are useful for organizing, recording, and calculating, they aren’t always appropriate for dealing with specific employee and payroll scenarios.
Consider Gusto if you want a versatile payroll source that can manage a variety of circumstances (such as numerous pay kinds). It can automate your payroll and manage payroll tax payments and filings for as little as $39 + $6 per employee every month (federal, state, and local taxes). All data is saved online, and the supplier provides a number of templates to help you streamline the recruiting process.
