PAYROLL OR PAYROLLING. WHAT DO THEY MEAN IN ENTERTAINMENT

PAYROLL/LABOR in the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY is what? When you call that labor company in some town in the USA, are you calling a PAYROLL COMPANY or a LABOR COMPANY. What is the difference? Payroll is the sum of all financial records of salaries for an employee, wages, bonuses and deductions. A LABOR COMPANY may do payroll, but has the labor you are looking to use and may use a payroll company.

Payroll Company responsibility is making sure the deductions are on the paychecks. Most companies outsource their payroll service. When looking for a payroll service, you will pay around 2 to 3 percent of total payroll costs. If you are a large company, you might even get that outsourced payroll service for 1 percent.

There are many entertainment payroll companies that you can outsource your payroll service to. Cast and Crew, Entertainment Partners and Caps Universal are several names that come to mind. At the end of the day, it is a cheap way of having your payroll done.

You, the company has the contracts with the labor union or organization, you make the call, you deal with the labor, you supply all the safety gear, you fill out all the labor time sheets, you add the hours, pay rates and send to the payroll service total hours and rates per person per day for a week total, you have a person whose sole job is dealing with payroll paperwork. The payroll company added  federal and state taxes to your numbers and send back the total cost for that weeks labor with a 1 to 3 percent markup for each worker.

Now you have all this information, what happens next? You agree to the total payroll cost for that weeks employees payroll and send money to the payroll company. Some payroll companies have the ability to withdraw total payroll costs from your bank account. This is done in two steps. First step is hourly payroll. Second step is all taxes and deductions that are sent to the government.

If you don't have the money in the bank to give the payroll company, the employees don't get paid. The employees are yours, the problems with the employees are yours. Don't hand the employees a paycheck for services rendered as you may have a problem, not the payroll company. The responsibility of the payroll company is to make sure the taxes and deductions are right and paid to the government. If you don't pay the payroll service, they have no responsibility to you or the employees. This is how they charge that 1 to 3 percent.

Doing non-union payroll takes very little time when processing payroll.  Start adding union benefits, benefits in general and the cost starts to increase unless you are giving that payroll company $100,000.00  plus worth of payroll each week. Your hired payroll processing employee does all the work and the payroll company cuts payroll checks. If you have done the payroll wrong and need that paycheck for that employee, that is an extra cost to cut payroll checks out of order. WE AT IN-HOUSE PRODUCTION CAN BE THAT PAYROLL COMPANY, OR ADD A TWIST AND KEEP YOU FROM HIRING THAT PERSON TO PROCESS PAYROLL.

What is a PAYROLLING/LABOR COMPANY?  Look for the next story to come.