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More than Payroll

The national service bureaus push the one-stop-shop approach, which is certainly the case with Rochester, N.Y.-based Paychex, which says it is seeing an increasing demand for information about the client.

"CPAs are becoming more like the CFO of a small business. They want access to information, including immediate reporting online," says Paychex senior vice president Walter Turek.

That demand for information produces increasing demand for Paychex's other services, such as 401(k), insurance and workman's comp, which help the accountant play a more consultative role, not just one that results in paychecks.

Michael Alter, CEO of Chicago-based SurePayroll.com, also sees payroll generally becoming part of a broader line of services handled by accountants.

"Online payroll is moving to online full-service payroll," he comments. That includes services such as new- hire reporting, which SurePayroll will perform for the company. And with the expectation that regulation is going to increase, it will be increasingly useful for accountants to deal with services that can handle new demands.

Alter believes that one of the important parts of self-service payroll is that it dramatically reduces the possibility that the accountant will have to answer questions from clients' employees, which is a drain on profitability.

For example, SurePayroll posts W-2s online and if employees suddenly need new ones, the forms can be printed.

"The accountant doesn't have to do anything on April 15, nor does the company," he says.

Another place that reduces conversation that takes time of out the accountant's day is the need to talk with companies about withholding. Alter says that with paper, that ends up in an exchange of faxes in which both parties try to make sure all information is available. SurePayroll provides the information online through SureChoice access in which the accountant can see all payroll information for an individual company.

Naturally, giant ADP offers a wide range of services. Indeed, ADP, like CompuPay and Paychex, also offers accountants the chance to get out of the business by acquiring their payroll customer bases.

But it's the newest offering, Run ADP, that put the company into the wholesale business, enabling practitioners to mark up the price of services for sale to their clients. That offered accountants a lot of flexibility, such as the flexibility that Weinstein notes in how accountants handle tax filings.

He says accountants also like the ability to handle checks on a client-by-client basis, whether printed by the accountant's office, at an ADP site for the client to pick up, or drop-shipped to the client by ADP.