You’re probably used to hearing this phrase, but “in-home care payroll doesn’t run itself!” We all know how complicated payroll within the industry is due to the complexities in regulatory compliance at the federal, state, and local levels.

As a result, generic software just won’t cut it. Instead of helping you run your business effortlessly, it holds you back and leaves you fixing small mistakes when you could be doing more important day-to-day tasks.

However, times have changed, and there is now software that can cater to your needs without requiring you to sacrifice much time or money.

The Downfalls of Generic Software

Unable to Handle Intricacies in Pay

Although you have to keep track of the hours your employees worked in any field to pay them properly, in in-home care, you also have to deal with multi-rate overtime, retroactive pay, particular payroll nuances, and other agency-specific situations, such as live-in and on-call cases, family caregivers, and holiday and weekend premiums. If you’re working with a generic software provider, your organization will continually have to do extra work to ensure compliance and accuracy.

Limited Reports with Multiple Errors

The drawback of most cookie-cutter software is that they don’t provide reports needed by specific industries like home care and home health. Instead, they only generate generic reports, and you need to do the rest of the work on your own.

Incompatible with Other Software Programs

You might use different human capital management (HCM) vendors for payroll, agency management, talent management, time and attendance, you name it – but are all of these systems integrated and able to exchange data?

Unfortunately, when these systems aren’t integrated, you are more prone to encountering errors and producing incorrect information. This could affect your employees’ pay and result in inaccurate reporting too.

ROI-Proven In-Home Care Customization That Makes a Difference

Payroll Meant for In-Home Care

You can’t say ROI without explaining exactly how it works! Obviously, ROI is the return – usually money and/or time – that you gain or lose from a given investment, like your agency’s payroll software.

When you have software and service that helps you mitigate lost time, profit leaks (including fines and lawsuits), and other risks, the result can be a game changer for efficiency and your agency’s bottom line and may even give you added peace of mind. Let’s talk about some of the features that can help make a difference in your payroll life.

Retroactive Pay/Overtime

What it does: Allows you to automatically pay prior weeks due to late timesheets and determine if overtime is necessary.

ROI: This feature helps you avoid paying hefty fees for errors that can be caught early on and enables you to look back and allocate the hours properly in your payroll software without having to manually input everything. At Viventium, we also retroactively blend the rates to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime rules.

Custom Pay Stubs

What it does: Allows employees to see pertinent information upfront, like charge dates, location, and rates, and audit unpaid hours easily.

ROI: Custom pay stubs breakdown your caregivers’ pay, increasing transparency of their wages and assuring them that they’re being paid accurately. This will help keep them satisfied and less likely to leave your agency, which will help keep your turnover rate low and avoid the costs and time associated with hiring, onboarding, and training frequently.

Geo-Tax Location

What it does: Automatically populates employees’ profiles with federal, state, and applicable local taxes.

ROI: By quickly and easily allocating taxes based on your employee’s place of residency, your agency will not only save time when onboarding but will also be at less risk of noncompliance.

Global Search

What it does: Lets you find employees and paychecks without having to search within each software tab.

ROI: When you’re spending so much time endlessly searching, you’re not just time crunched – you’re also frustrated. Why not make it easy?

Overtime Premium/Blended Rates per FLSA Guidelines

What it does: Helps automate and blend two or more pay rates and calculate overtime for blended rates based on the work your caregiver did in excess of 40 hours per week. FLSA requires that when employees perform work at two or more pay rates, overtime must be paid out at a blended rate.

ROI: It’s very common to have caregivers working for multiple rates with different cases. So, at what rate do you pay overtime?

Automating this process will help you save time and stay within compliance, as the software can calculate the regular rate using the weighted average of all the different rates for the week, and your employees’ checks will include the overtime premium paid for those blended rates and for straight time as well.

If your current provider doesn’t blend rates, then it’s setting you up for failure, putting your agency at risk for noncompliance and potentially resulting in penalties due to incorrect tax withholdings.

Reports That Are Incredible

Gone are the days that you had to spend hours trying to retrieve information while comparing and analyzing reports, wishing you were an Excel wizard able to just wave a wand and let magic help you better run your business. With a business intelligence tool that connects with your HCM software provider, you’re able to easily run reports, create charts, and build graphs, helping you display and gain insight on any aspect of your payroll and employee data.

Some of the most common reports in-home care agencies pull regularly:

• • ACA eligibility reporting
  • Overtime compensation by date of service

Integration That Saves You Trouble

If you find an agency management software (AMS) provider that you love but it can’t integrate with your present HCM software, what’s the point? The most innovative companies today make sure their software is ready for integration.

At Viventium, we’ve got all of this covered – our software was designed to be flexible and easy to integrate and is specialized for in-home care. To find out more about the solutions we provide to home care and home health, visit our In-Home Care page.