Payday should be the quietest day on the calendar.
Instead, it’s often a lot to get done before payroll can go out. A client sends hours late. Someone needs to update a deduction. A new hire needs to be added. You spot something that needs fixing just as you’re getting ready to submit.
And suddenly, the clock matters a lot more than it should.
We hear this from our customers who run payroll all the time, whether they’re running it for their own business or managing payroll for dozens of clients. So we’ve been looking at the small things that can make payday easier — every pay run.
Here are three ways to take some of that pressure out of payday: more time to get payroll done, a simpler process, and a real person to turn to when you need help.
1. More time to get payroll right
Time zones can make payroll deadlines feel earlier than they need to.
For businesses in Western Canada, an Eastern Time deadline can mean payroll is due before the workday has really got going. What feels like a reasonable afternoon deadline in Ontario or Quebec is earlier in the workday in Alberta or British Columbia.
And when you’re running payroll for multiple clients, those hours matter. You’re trying to get payroll done while also running the business, answering clients and dealing with whatever else comes up that morning.
That’s why Wagepoint now gives all customers more time to finish payroll, with a new 3pm ET finalization window. Your employees still get paid on time. You just get more of the day to get payroll done.
For a business owner, that could mean the difference between processing payroll the night before to avoid a 9 a.m. PT deadline and having the full morning to open the doors, catch up on emails, make a few sales, and get payroll done in between.
And this rings even more true for the accountants and bookkeepers that work behind the scenes, running payroll for their clients. Just multiply that morning chaos across a full client roster, and having to juggle every file due in the same narrow window, all at once.
The result is simple: more time to review, make changes and get payroll right, without giving up the same on-time payday.
“With multiple locations and busy teams, payroll used to be one more thing we had to squeeze in between everything else. Wagepoint changed that. Stat holidays, new hires — it’s all straightforward, even when things move fast. It’s one less thing we have to think about, and that matters on busy days.”
— Brianna Adams, Finance Controller, Great Canadian Oil Change
2. Stop moving numbers around manually
One of the easiest ways to make payroll more work than it needs to be is to enter the same information more than once.
If you’re running payroll and then manually moving payroll data into your accounting system, you’re spending time copying numbers, checking that everything matches and fixing things when it doesn’t.
Where your systems can connect, let them do the work for you.
Wagepoint integrates with popular accounting software so payroll information can flow from payroll into your accounting system without having to re-enter it manually. That means fewer spreadsheets, fewer copy-and-paste jobs and fewer opportunities for a number to end up in the wrong place.
For business owners, that can mean less time spent on the administrative side of payroll. For accountants and bookkeepers, it can save time across every client where payroll and accounting need to stay in sync.
Try this: Look at what you’re still entering manually after each payroll run. If you’re copying payroll numbers from one system into another, check whether an integration can do it for you. It’s one less step to remember every pay period.
That’s one of the ways Wagepoint aims to make payroll simpler. Not by adding more to your process, but by taking some of the repetitive work out of it.
“The interface is incredibly intuitive — if you can use online banking, you can use Wagepoint.”
— Sharad Gondaliya, CPA, Gondaliya CPA
3. Make it easy to get help when you need it
Even when the payroll process is straightforward, questions come up.
Maybe you’re not sure how to handle a new hire mid-pay period. You’re filing an ROE for the first time. Something doesn’t look right before you submit payroll. Or a client asks a question you haven’t had to deal with before.
The easiest way to handle those moments is to know where to go before you need the answer.
With Wagepoint, customers can reach a real support team when they have a payroll question. That matters for business owners who don’t run payroll every day, and for accountants and bookkeepers who may be supporting multiple clients at once.
It also means you don’t have to become the expert on every payroll scenario yourself. Good software should handle the routine work, and good support should be there when something falls outside the routine.
Try this: Before your next payroll run, make sure you know where to go if you hit a question you can’t answer yourself. Save the support contact or help resources you use most, so you’re not searching for them when you’re already under a deadline.
“Wagepoint support was immediate and extensive. They help us set up everything and are always responsive.”
— Lynda Ambler-Joanisse, Director, The St. Lawrence Academy
Make payday a little easier
None of this makes payroll disappear from anyone’s to-do list. What it does is take the emergency out of it: more time to do it, less that can go wrong while you’re doing it, and a real person to call if something does. That holds whether it’s your payday or your client’s.
If you’d like to see what that looks like in practice, we’d be glad to walk you through it, whether you’re running one payroll or thirty.
Book a demo to see how Wagepoint helps 30,000+ Canadian small businesses run payroll with confidence, every single payday.
