What is the difference between your Full-Service Payroll and Payroll Oversight?

The core distinction is who processes the payroll. With Full-Service Payroll, ClearLedgers® handles everything from start to finish. With Payroll Oversight, your payroll platform runs the payroll while ClearLedgers makes sure it stays accurate and connected to your books.

Full-Service Payroll means you approve the data and ClearLedgers does the rest. The firm processes your monthly payroll including gross-to-net calculations for earnings, deductions, and employer contributions. ClearLedgers initiates and confirms each payroll run, calculates and submits payroll taxes, prepares and files quarterly and annual payroll returns, and issues W-2s and W-3s at year-end. The payroll runs monthly with a check date of the 27th, and any changes are due at least five business days before that date. You maintain your own payroll software subscription while ClearLedgers acts as the authorized administrator handling all the processing.

Payroll Oversight is for businesses already running payroll through a platform like ADP, Gusto, QuickBooks, or SurePayroll. You or your platform continues to process each payroll run. ClearLedgers maps your payroll activity to the general ledger so the books reflect what payroll actually did. The firm handles employee onboarding and offboarding in the system, including pay rates, tax elections, direct deposit, and benefit elections. ClearLedgers calculates and maintains benefit withholdings, reviews unemployment tax rates annually, investigates and responds to notices from the IRS or state agencies, and performs a year-end review reconciling wages, taxes, and benefits before W-2s go out.

The question to ask yourself is how hands-off you want to be. If you want payroll completely off your plate with someone else processing every run and handling every filing, Full-Service Payroll is the right fit. If you already have a payroll platform you like and someone who can push the buttons, but you want expert support to catch errors, keep the books in sync, and handle the administrative work around employees and compliance, Payroll Oversight makes more sense.

Both services ensure payroll and bookkeeping work together. Payroll needs to reconcile to your books regardless of who processes the run. The difference is whether you want to hand off the entire payroll function or keep running it yourself with professional oversight behind you.

If you’re not sure which is right for your business, book a consultation and we can figure it out together.