Intuit Online Payroll Is An Incredible Value for Small Businesses. Does It Make Sense for You?

You can access Intuit Online Payroll anywhere you have an internet connection.  Its easy to use, offers automatic tracking and online filing of all federal and state tax forms, online tracking and payment payroll taxes, direct deposit of employee paychecks, and exports payroll entries to QuickBooks.  It handles pretty much every type of payroll related compensation, employee benefit, and deduction.  The first six months is free and at $9.95 a month threrafter it’s "dirt cheap".  Let's take a guided tour and then see if it makes sense for you.

You can transfer your payroll expense entries to Quickbooks so they are reflected in your income statement.

You have "Things to do" reminders to keep you up to date with filings and payments.

You can file all tax reporting forms online with the push of a button.

Keep track of your payroll liabilities

Pay your payroll liabilities online

Cut payroll checks and make direct deposits for employees, automatically calculating income, deductions, and employer payroll expenses

Set up a wide range of compensation and payment and deduction types, including health insurance and qualified retirement plans.

Online payroll automatically establishes federal, state, and local employee and employer taxes.


There is an abundance of reports to help you respond to employee, accountant, and government questions.

Intuit provides excellent telephone and internet support with timely answers and help from expert staff.

Sounds like everything you could ask for at an unbelievable price so what could possibly be the problem?



Well, not all of you, but here's the critical decision you need to make for yourself.  We get busy, we have a lot of things to keep up with and things can "slip through the cracks". While Intuit Online payroll gives us all sorts of reminders and makes it so fast and easy to take care of our payroll tasks, it can't reach out of our monitor, grab us by the ears, and tell us it's time to log into online payroll and press the button to file a return or to make a tax payment.

The IRS does not consider "I forgot" as an acceptable excuse.  It's not nearly as bad as forgetting your anniversary but they do expect you to pay penalties and interest when you don't file reports or pay taxes on time.

Therefore, each of us has to ask ourselves if we are ready to take on this responsibility or pay more money to rely on others, such as our accountant or a payroll service. However, if you think you can handle it, there is no cheaper, easier, way to take care of payroll.

Robert Guild is certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in Austin, TX who conducts CPE courses for CPAs and individual training and group classes to QuickBooks users. His company at www.QBCoach.biz, maintains a sixteen-station QuickBooks lab, providing hands-on training. You can contact him directly at rguild@QBCoach.biz or follow him on twitter at QBPro