What is payroll processing?
Pay runs prepared, checked and ready on the same cadence every period.
Payroll processing is the recurring run itself: turning approved hours, salaries, and changes into a paycheck on a fixed schedule, every cycle, without a missed date. Most US small businesses run weekly, biweekly, or semi-monthly — the choice usually comes from cash flow and hourly-vs-salary mix, not preference, and once it is set it drives every other deadline: the input cutoff, the approval window, the funding date. Our job is that run. Your cadence, your provider account, and any filing stay with you and your CPA or provider — we take your inputs by the cutoff, prepare the run inside the payroll system you already use, route it for your approval, and hand off a clean, correct payroll each cycle.
The mechanics are the same whether you run 3 employees or 80: hours and salary changes come in, get checked against the prior run for anomalies, get entered or synced into Gusto, ADP, or QuickBooks Payroll, and go to you for a final look before the run is submitted. A missed timesheet, a late new-hire form, or an unapproved overtime hour anywhere in that chain delays the whole cycle — so the cutoff discipline is the actual product, not the software.
Why it matters
| Without a system | With CapEasy |
|---|---|
| People paid late or incorrectly | Pay runs on schedule, every cycle |
| Payroll journals that never tie to the bank | Payroll ledger that reconciles |
| Year-end reconciliation done from scratch | Your filer gets clean numbers, on time |
What we need from you
People
- Employee master data
- Employment contracts
- Salary structure
- Benefits and deductions
- Start and leave dates
Each cycle
- Attendance and overtime
- Leave records
- Bonus and commission
- Reimbursements
System
- Payroll software access
- Prior payroll reports
- Registration references held by your filer
How it runs, step by step
- Setup
- Employee onboarding in the payroll system
- Salary structure configuration
- Benefits and deductions setup
- Each pay run
- Gross-to-net calculation in the system
- Overtime and bonus adjustments
- Deductions processing
- Booking & reconciliation
- Payroll journal entries
- Payroll ledger reconciliation
- Liability reconciliation
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Payroll processing, the reconciliations and reporting behind it, and the questions list that keeps it honest. |
| Your CPA or enrolled agent | Everything that carries a licence in United States — rendered exactly as written: issue compilation, review or audit reports — those are restricted to licensed cpa firms. |
| You | One conversation with one named person, and the decisions that are genuinely yours. |
Payroll processing in United States
Who is authorized to file on the wages we process
Form 8655 (Reporting Agent Authorization) names who the IRS recognizes as allowed to deposit payroll taxes and file 941s on an employer's behalf — that's your CPA or the payroll provider's tax service. We prepare the run; the entity holding the 8655 authorization files it. If you don't know who holds that authorization for your account, that's the first thing to confirm before any off-cycle run touches tax deposits.
Overtime and the FLSA workweek
The Fair Labor Standards Act sets overtime at 1.5x for non-exempt employees past 40 hours in a defined workweek — and the workweek has to be a fixed, recurring 168-hour period the employer sets, not a floating average. We flag hours that look like they cross that threshold or that don't match the defined workweek before a run goes out; classifying an employee as exempt or non-exempt is a determination your CPA or an employment attorney makes.
State final-pay timing on termination runs
A number of states require the final paycheck same-day or within a short statutory window when an employee is terminated — California is same-day for involuntary termination, others give 72 hours or the next scheduled payday. This is exactly why off-cycle capability matters: a termination that can't wait for the regular cycle needs a run prepared and approved fast. We track the deadline your state sets and prepare the check to hit it; the legal determination of what counts as termination vs. resignation stays with you and your counsel.
Multi-state withholding and reciprocity
When an employee lives in one state and works in another, withholding can follow either state depending on reciprocity agreements between them — and where there's no reciprocity agreement, both states can have a claim. That call belongs to your CPA or the provider's tax engine. Our part is keeping the work-location and home-address fields in the payroll system accurate and flagging any employee whose address changed since the last run, because a stale field is what turns this into a filing problem months later.
What your CPA or enrolled agent receives from us
- Each run pre-checked against the prior cycle for hour, rate, and headcount anomalies before it reaches your approval screen
- A cutoff calendar mapped to your specific cadence (weekly, biweekly, or semi-monthly) with the exact day/time inputs are due
- Timesheet and salary-change inputs entered or synced into Gusto, ADP, or QuickBooks Payroll ahead of each cutoff
- A written approval step before every run — scheduled or off-cycle — is submitted
- Off-cycle runs prepared same-cycle for terminations, corrections, or bonus payouts, logged the same way as the regular run
- Work-state and home-address fields checked for drift on every new hire and on any employee flagged as relocated
