Payroll compliance important to horticulture industry

For more than a decade, Marc Fowler has been implementing Sage HRMS for Practical Software Solutions for a wide range of industries, from car dealerships to hardware stores to industrial manufacturers. He has seen many “creative” ways companies have skirted payroll compliance, whether intentionally or out of ignorance.

As government oversight has entered the horticulture industry over the past decade, the need to stay in compliance for HR and payroll has become more important than ever before. Even though many large-scale greenhouses still may be able to do their payroll on an Excel spreadsheet, it doesn’t provide the checks and balances for compliance that a program such as Sage HRMS Payroll can provide, Fowler said.

Like many other small- or medium-sized businesses, many greenhouses have a limited number of front office staff to take care of payroll. Nashville Wire Products has been using Sage HRMS Payroll since 2007, and according to the company’s payroll administrator, Melinda Wiley, its ease of use is important for companies their size.

“With the system we used to have, it was harder to do reports,” Wiley said. “We had to go to the IT department to get them set up. In a company our size, we take care of things in-house, and the IT department has other things going on, much less having to stop their work to create a report with the name of an employee and what they make in a year, and silly stuff like that. With HRMS Payroll, we just have to go into reports, and after setting up some basic queries, and you can pull in all the information you need.”

Before they installed the BASpay add-on with Sage HRMS Payroll, it was “awful” to take care of wage garnishments on their old system, Wiley said.

“I had one employee with four garnishments, and I had to do them manually each week,” Wiley said. “I had to look at his gross pay, and then calculate what he was going to have to pay for each garnishment. Now we have BASpay, and I love it. All I have to do is go in there, hit a few buttons, check a few things, and we’re good to go.”

Also like many larger greenhouse operations, Nashville Wire Products has expanded operations to multiple states. Although Wiley uses a checklist to make sure she’s remembered all the processes she has to do for her job, having Sage HRMS Payroll has helped maintain order and compliance.

“I have three different companies with weekly, biweekly and monthly payroll,” Wiley said. “We seem to be gaining states. Aside from Nashville, we’re currently in California, we’ve already acquired Kentucky, soon we’ll have Missouri and we have new employees in Indiana. It’s a little nerve-wracking when dealing with other states to make sure you have everything set up correctly for the employee.”

Payroll is not industry-specific like some other business processes. If a company has employees, it has payroll. Greenhouse payroll managers might see certain scenarios more than some other industries, however, due to the nature of their business. Some of these include piece-rate pay, drivers who are paid by the mile or the number of carts picked up, or states that have guaranteed minimum wage. When it comes to these issues, Fowler said Sage HRMS Payroll can assist greenhouse growers as well.

Practical Software Solutions is a Sage Authorized Partner. For more information, contact Greg Lafferty at 704-721-6800 ext. 3019 or glafferty@practicalsoftwaresolutions.com.