Can you run payroll for my group practice?

Yes, as long as your payroll system is already up and running. That is the one condition I want to be upfront about. If you have a payroll provider in place and your people are already in the system, I run payroll every pay period so your clinicians and admin staff are paid right and on time.

Setting up a payroll system from scratch is the piece I leave to others. Registering with the federal and state agencies, opening withholding and unemployment accounts, choosing a provider, and getting that first configuration correct is its own project. If your practice is starting from zero, your payroll provider almost always has an onboarding team that will walk you through it, and your tax professional can weigh in on the parts that touch taxes. Once that foundation exists, I take it from there and keep it running.

Here is a simple way to tell whether your practice is ready for me. You have an EIN, you are registered in the states where your employees work, you have an active account with a payroll provider, your employees have finished their onboarding paperwork, and you have a pay schedule with agreed compensation for each person. If that sounds like your practice, we are set.

A pay period with me looks like this. I collect hours or confirm salaries, apply what your practice has agreed to for each clinician, look the run over for anything that seems off, submit it, and then make sure the wages and payroll liabilities post cleanly in QuickBooks. That last part matters more than people expect, because payroll is usually the largest cost in a group practice, and books that record it properly are what let you see whether adding the next associate is actually working. You can read more about how payroll processing fits alongside monthly bookkeeping.

Most group practices I work with have a mix of W-2 employees and 1099 associates. Payroll covers the W-2 side, contractor payments get tracked all year, and I prepare 1099s in January. The question of whether a clinician should be an employee or a contractor belongs with your attorney or tax professional, and the books record whichever answer is true for your practice. Tax rates, wage thresholds, and filing dates also shift and vary by state, so confirm current figures with your provider or tax preparer.

I spent more than 15 years as a licensed nurse in mental health before this work, so bookkeeping for therapists and group practices feels like familiar ground to me. If you would like to hand payday off to someone dependable, book a consultation and let’s talk about how your payroll is set up today.