Industries
Accounting and Payroll for Staffing and Temp Agencies
For a staffing agency payroll tax is not a cost line. It is the business model, and a point of margin either way decides the year.
The whole business is payroll
Most businesses run payroll as an administrative function. A staffing agency runs it as the product: wages, employer taxes, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation are the cost of goods sold, and the bill rate has to cover all of them plus a margin.
That makes accuracy commercial rather than merely compliant. Unemployment insurance rates move with experience, workers’ compensation rates vary by the classification of the work each placement performs — not by what the agency does — and an agency placing across several industries carries several different rates at once.
A bill rate built on an average burden will be wrong on the placements that matter. Knowing the true loaded cost per class is what separates an agency that is growing from one that is growing unprofitably.
Co-employment, and the thresholds that arrive suddenly
Placing workers at a client site creates a relationship with obligations on both sides, and which party is responsible for what needs to be established in the agreement rather than assumed. Getting it wrong surfaces at the worst possible moment, usually after an injury or a claim.
Headcount thresholds are the other thing that arrives without warning. An agency can cross into applicable large employer territory on the strength of temporary placements, which brings obligations it did not have the previous year and may not have noticed acquiring.
- Light industrial and warehouse staffing along I-85
- Administrative and clerical placement
- Skilled trades and technical staffing
- Direct-hire and temp-to-perm arrangements
- Agencies expanding across state lines, where registration multiplies
Cash flow is the constant pressure: the agency pays its workers weekly and gets paid by clients on terms. A business can be profitable and still unable to make payroll, which is why current books matter more here than almost anywhere.
The services behind this
Industry pages describe how our work applies to a sector. These are the services themselves.
Payroll Services
Full-service payroll with tax filings, direct deposit and year-end forms.
Learn moreBookkeeping
Clean monthly books, reconciled accounts and reports you can actually use.
Learn moreTax Planning
Year-round strategy so the return in April reflects decisions made all year.
Learn moreBusiness Formation
LLCs, corporations, EINs and South Carolina registrations, set up tax-ready.
Learn moreFrequently asked questions
How should I set bill rates?
On the true loaded cost for that class of work — wages plus employer taxes, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation at the rate applicable to what the placement actually does. An average burden will be wrong on exactly the placements where it matters most.
Why do workers comp rates differ per placement?
Because they follow the classification of the work performed, not what the agency does. An agency placing into warehousing and into clerical work carries different rates for each, and pricing them the same way loses money on one of them.
What is co-employment and does it affect us?
Placing workers at a client site creates obligations on both sides, and which party carries what should be set out in the agreement rather than assumed. It tends to surface after an incident, which is the wrong time to be reading the contract for the first time.
We are growing fast. What arrives that we will not expect?
Headcount thresholds. Temporary placements count, and an agency can become an applicable large employer on the strength of them without noticing. Worth tracking through the year rather than discovering it — see tax planning.
Not the question you had? The full tax FAQ covers more ground, and our client reviews say what the work is actually like.
Other industries we work with
Nonprofits
Exempt status is not the same as no filing obligation — and the bookkeeping that supports a 990 is not ordinary bookkeeping.
Learn moreReal Estate Investors
Rental property is one of the few areas where the tax treatment can matter as much to the return as the rent does.
Learn moreRestaurants & Food Service
Thin margins, daily cash movement, tipped employees and high staff turnover — restaurant books go wrong faster than almost any other sector’s.
Learn moreContractors & Trades
For the independent tradesperson, the tax problem is rarely the return — it is the quarterly payments and the mileage records nobody kept.
Learn moreHealthcare Practices
Practice income arrives late, unevenly and net of adjustments — which makes cash accounting and tax planning unusually easy to get wrong.
Learn moreE-commerce Sellers
Selling online from South Carolina means one income tax return and a sales tax question that can involve many states.
Learn moreConstruction Businesses
For a builder, the question is never how the business did last year — it is whether this job is making money right now.
Learn moreTrucking & Logistics
Almost nothing about an owner-operator’s return works the way a normal small business return works — starting with the meal deduction.
Learn moreSalons, Barbers & Booth Renters
Two completely different tax situations happen under one salon roof, and most people in the chair have never been told which one they are in.
Learn moreShort-Term Rental Hosts
Three questions decide how a short-term rental is taxed, and none of them is how much it earned.
Learn moreChildcare & Daycare
Home daycare is the one small business the tax code gives its own exception to the home office rules — and almost nobody claims it properly.
Learn moreReal Estate & Insurance Agents
Commission income arrives in lumps, nothing is withheld from it, and the deduction list is longer than almost anyone claims.
Learn moreAuto Repair & Body Shops
In South Carolina the parts on a repair order are taxable and the labour generally is not — which means the sales tax line runs straight through every invoice you write.
Learn moreChurches & Ministries
A minister is an employee for income tax and self-employed for Social Security at the same time — and almost every mistake in church payroll starts there.
Learn moreManufacturing & Machine Shops
Inventory is what separates a manufacturer’s books from every service business on this site — and it is where the profit figure is either right or meaningless.
Learn moreFarms & Agriculture
Farming has its own tax return, its own deadlines and a method of levelling out good and bad years that nobody else is allowed to use.
Learn moreAttorneys & Law Firms
A law firm keeps two sets of money apart, and one of them is not the firm’s. That single fact makes legal bookkeeping a discipline rather than a variation.
Learn moreLandscaping & Lawn Care
A business that earns most of its money in seven months cannot use an annual average for anything — least of all its tax payments.
Learn moreFitness Studios & Gyms
Money taken in January for a year of membership is not January’s income — and a studio that books it as though it were has no idea how it is doing.
Learn moreFood Trucks & Mobile Vendors
A restaurant owes tax to one municipality. A food truck can owe it to five, and the difference is where it parked.
Learn moreCleaning & Janitorial
In a business where labour is most of the cost, how the people are classified is not an administrative detail — it decides whether the model works.
Learn moreFranchise Owners
The initial franchise fee is not a deduction in the year you pay it, and almost every new franchisee finds that out at the worst moment.
Learn moreConvenience Stores & Fuel
One counter sells items taxed three different ways, plus a state lottery product that is not really a sale at all.
Learn moreProperty Managers
Most of the money in a property manager’s account belongs to somebody else, and the books have to be able to prove whose.
Learn moreEngineering & Architecture
Two provisions treat these firms better than almost any other professional practice, and both are routinely left on the table.
Learn moreTherapists & Counsellors
A private practice is a small business whose owner trained for years in something else entirely — and the accounting usually reflects that.
Learn moreVeterinary Practices
A veterinary practice is a clinic and a pharmacy and a retail shop, and the three are taxed differently on the same invoice.
Learn moreBreweries & Taprooms
A brewery is a manufacturer, a bar and a federally regulated excise taxpayer, and it has to keep books that satisfy all three.
Learn moreIndependent Auto Dealers
Every car on the lot is inventory, financed inventory, and a tax question with a ceiling on it.
Learn morePhotographers & Creatives
The session fee is a service. The prints are goods. That distinction decides whether you owe sales tax, and most photographers have never been asked the question.
Learn moreIT & Software Consultants
Two people doing similar-looking technology work can get different answers on the largest deduction available to them, and the difference is what they are actually selling.
Learn moreEvent Planners & Caterers
Deposits taken twelve months out are not this year’s income, and a business that treats them as such pays tax on money it may still have to refund.
Learn moreHome Health & In-Home Care
Caregivers work in clients’ homes, across long and irregular hours, for an agency paid on someone else’s timetable. Every hard problem in this sector comes from one of those three facts.
Learn moreTell us what you need
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