Accuchex Blog

7 Steps In Payroll Management of Charitable Giving

Posted by Tristan Ruhland on Mar 5, 2015 11:04:44 AM

principles-payroll-management-software-novatoAmerican employees – along with many of their employers – give over $4 billion dollars annually to charitable and non-profit organizations. It is very likely that, if you work with a corporation or for the federal government, you’ve been involved in one of these programs.

Payroll Management Helping Employees Give 

Workplace giving was intended to improve the overall efficiency of American charities, but much of the burden of managing the process falls on the donor organization. In other words, it falls on the payroll and HR departments of those organizations. 

Giving through the workplace is a benefit for your employee, because these programs offer the convenience of automatic payroll deductions without losing the tax benefits of giving to non-profits. As an employer, your company can match your employee contributions. This approach also gives your employee the opportunity to be directly involved in your company’s charitable giving.

An additional benefit of workplace giving for the charity is that even small donations from employees have a larger impact because of the employer’s matching funds.

Charity Navigator, the largest charity evaluator in the U.S., offers the following 6 tips as a guide for employees who donate through workplace giving programs:

  1. Examine your values to determine which causes you want to support.
  2. Review your personal finances to determine how much you can afford to give.
  3. Learn how the participating charities were pre-screened and back it up with your own research.
  4. Find out what percentage of your donation is going to the charities you’ve chosen.
  5. Maximize the amount of money going to charity by reviewing your employer’s matching program.
  6. At the end of the year, find out how your donations were put to use.

Workplace Giving From A Payroll Management Perspective

But how does the actual giving work with your payroll management process on through to the recipient organization? This infographic developed by YourCause, LLC illustrates the path of donations from workplace donor to recipient. 

 

Charitable-Payroll-Deductions

 

Planning is Critical to Effective Management

An effectively managed workplace giving program will benefit your business and employees. But the key to an effective payroll management process for your giving program is sufficient planning. Your company should consider the size and goals, or objectives. for your workplace giving program.

Take into consideration not only the resources you have available to manage a workplace giving program, but also whether the recipient organization is in alignment with your own company's interests and values.. Plan through all the logistics of enabling your employees to make charitable donations through payroll deduction. With thorough planning and strategy, you can cesign a program that your payroll management staff can implement effectively with management controls in place.

Payroll Management as a Human Resource Process

As a payroll management professional, your job reqires that you facilitate a variety of tasks and processes. Because of ever-changing regulations, rules, and legislation, you must constantly stay apprised of the compliance aspect of your job. Changes in technology, your own company structure, and best practices require that you stay agile and ready to shift accordingly.

Implementing such elements as a workplace charitable giving program has the potential to add to the burden of all these dynamic elements of your role.

One direction you can consider is outsourcing. This can be simply outsourcing one process such as payroll. However, with a full-service provider such as Accuchex, you have additional options for outsourcing as well.

Let Accuchex help you in managing your HR needs, payroll processes, and staying on top of compliance demands. Get your Free Download: Payroll Outsourcing Guide to help you make an informed decision or call Accuchex Payroll Management Services at 877-422-2824.

 

Free Download: Payroll Outsourcing Guide

Topics: payroll management, payroll tax filing, human resource management

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