Is Your PEO Set up to Help You Pay Freelancers?

Human resource teams in any business wear many hats. From completing administrative tasks such as payroll, addressing performance issues, and providing benefits, there are a lot of moving pieces to support their organization. HR challenges can be a burden to businesses and slow down hiring and growth, which is why many companies, especially small or medium-sized businesses, choose to outsource these tasks.

What is a PEO?

PEO stands for a professional employer organization that is traditional a full-service HR platform. When you outsource to a PEO, they handle all of the HR tasks, provide benefits, and the liabilities that come with payroll and compliance. Companies usually choose a PEO service so that they can pass off the reports, infrastructure, resources, and time they need in order to focus on more important tasks and grow their business.

However, traditional PEOs like ADP, Paychex, Gusto, Tri-net, or JustWorks are built for full-time employees. Through a PEO, employees have access to benefits and payroll on a set schedule. While this is a great solution for full-time, 9-5 employees, what happens when you begin hiring a flexible workforce? Paying freelancers is much different than paying your full-time workers. They need flexible payments based on projects and assignments that happen on an as-need basis. There are also big differences in taxes and classification that need to be considered.

You need a Freelancer Payments Platform Instead

Freelancers are an important talent source with 57 million people in the US already engaging in freelancer work. As that number grows, businesses need to be ready to hire, onboard, and pay this segment of their workforce. Making sure that your freelancers are paid on time and correctly is a very important step. The truth is, traditional PEOs are just not designed for efficient or compliant freelancer management and payment.

What businesses need is one centralized platform and system of record where they can easily pay each freelancer, track their spend, manage the work being done, and ensure that they are compliant with all state and federal laws for each freelancer whether they are classified as W-2 or 1099 workers.

By working with a payments platform that has been specifically designed for freelancers, businesses can have the flexibility that they need while also making sure they are staying compliant on classification. Everyone at the company can be on the same page and have access to all of the onboarding, projects, timelines, and payments for their freelancers. A freelancer payments platform has the same outsourced benefits that businesses receive from working with a PEO but with the tools and resources they need to pay their flexible workforce.

Ready to learn more about how AllWork can help you classify, onboard, manage, and pay your freelancers? Schedule a demo of our platform here.