Common Nanny Payroll Questions

Here’s a quick guide to all Qs you’re positively longing to A. And if what
you’re looking for isn’t answered below, just shoot us a note.

Why Use Poppins for Household Payroll?

$49 a month!

What is included for $49 a month?

All of it! Right after you signup, Poppins will get you a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN), set up your state and local accounts, and send in your new hire reporting. You manage the amount of your payroll through your personalized dashboard on our website. You can pay weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly (unless your state requirements limit the frequency). We can handle the payment for you by direct deposit or you can write the check (or electronic transfer) yourself. At the end of every quarter, we’ll collect the state and federal taxes from you and submit them along with all the required reports. Finally, at the end of the year, we’ll prepare a Schedule H for you, which you attach to your personal income tax return to report your employer taxes, and a W-2 for your employee. Whew! That’s a lot for just $49 a month!

Why does Poppins cost so much less than the other full-service options?

First, we built our own modern and automated system to calculate, track and report your taxes. We’re all about an efficient process. That means a streamlined process for us and lower prices for you. Second, we don’t spend millions of dollars on advertising. Our strategy is do a great job for our clients, and they will tell their friends. You know what? It’s working.

Household employment

Why should I use a payroll provider that specializes in household employers?

It’s actually more complicated to file taxes for a household employer than for a business. Crazy, right? So, we focus on being household employer tax experts. We’re not trying to be all things for all people. The big companies can handle business taxes. And we’ll be your nanny tax experts.

Is there anything you guys don’t handle?

We don’t sell workers compensation insurance. Workers' compensation insurance provides benefits to your employee in the event of an on-the-job injury. It can also limit an employer’s liability. It’s certainly a good idea to have it, but it’s not required in many states. You can check out our resource pages for your state’s rules.

You can also chat with our partners at Bhalu Insurance, because they’re THE experts in Workers Comp Insurance for household employers. In fact, that’s literally all they do. Check out their site for a free quote or give them a shout. We think they’re pretty awesome.

Provide health benefits

What if I want to provide health benefits for my employee?

You have a number of options for providing untaxed health benefits for your employees. Our partners at Take Command can help you with setting up some of these options.

You can set up an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA). This allows you to reimburse your employee for qualified health expenses and/or their health insurance premiums through an ICHRA without a cap. It also gives you the ability to offer different reimbursement amounts to each employee.

You can also set up a Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement (QSEHRA), which gives some additional tax benefits to the employer, but also has additional set up and administration expenses an also requires additional reporting on W-2s.

If you are interested in an ICHRA or QSEHRA for your employees, you should chat with our partners at Take Command. Take Command specializes in helping employers like you set up untaxed health benefits for their employees. In fact, they’ve have been helping household employers set up health reimbursement accounts for a decade.

You can also enroll in a health insurance policy through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP). This may enable you to take advantage of the Health Insurance Tax Credit for Small Employers.

Lastly, some accountants believe that if you have a single household employee, you can simply reimburse your employee for their health insurance premiums directly. While you can add reimbursements easily into payroll, Poppins does not take a position as to whether such reimbursements are income subject to payroll taxes. You should discuss this with your accountant before deciding how to proceed.

How do I know Poppins Payroll won’t make a mistake?

We guarantee accuracy and on-time payment of your payroll taxes. We’ll cover any penalties and interest we cause. In short, we stand behind our work.

Coming soon to your state

Can I quit anytime?

Yes—there is no minimum contract period. As long as you’re an active client, there’s no charge for quarter-end or year-end filings. Keep in mind, if you want us to keep doing work after you quit, we do charge for that. So, if you want us to pay taxes and file quarter end reports after the month that you quit, we charge $49. And, if you quit before December, but you want us to make your year-end filings and provide you with year-end documents like the Schedule H, W-2, W3 and state year-end filings, that’s $110.

When are you coming to my state?

We’re always expanding, but we don’t want to get too big for our britches. We make sure we understand the laws, regulations and procedures inside and out before we start accepting clients in a new state. Being experts, so we can take care of our clients, is more important than being everywhere. We’ll get to all 50, but we’ll do it the right way. Shoot us an email if it makes you glum that we’re not in your state yet. Maybe, we’ll move your state up on the list.

Does Poppins handle small business payroll?

We stick with what we know—household payroll. So, we don’t dabble in small business payroll. Instead, we’ve partnered with the best in the business: Gusto. Gusto is the #1 rated platform for small business payroll, HR, benefits, and more. Give them a shout, and they can take care of all your small business needs. Gusto will even give you the first 3 months free if you let them know you’re a Poppins client.

How Poppins Works

Signup takes only 10 minutes

Is Poppins Payroll easy to use?

Yes! Sign-up takes about 10 minutes. After that, you can relax. If you pay your employee the same amount every pay period, you literally don’t have to do anything–you can set your payroll to run at your default settings each pay period. Does your payroll vary each pay period? No problem! We send you an email when the pay period ends and remind you when you need to make any adjustments to payroll. Adjustments are easy to make with a couple clicks on your personalized dashboard. In either case, we make all the calculations, and we’ll either pay your employee using direct deposit or we’ll send you an email with how much to pay your employee. At the end of each tax period (typically quarterly) we withdraw the taxes from the payroll you ran in that tax period, and send it in to the tax authority along with the required reports. You don’t have to worry, because we’ll handle all the registrations, filings and reporting.

How do I sign up?

Signup is all done through our website. It’s a two-part process, with each part taking about 5 minutes. In the first part, you create your password and enter your information. We’ll then send you an email with the documents that your employee needs to complete—the federal I-9 and W-4 plus any required state documents. We don’t need those documents, but you’ll use the information to complete the second half of signup. At the end, you e-sign all the authorizations we need, and you’re ready to start running payroll immediately.

How and when does payroll run?

You elect the frequency of payroll (unless limited by your state)—weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly or monthly. You’ll get email reminders to let you know that a work period is closing. You can adjust payroll anytime during the work period and for 2 days after the work period closes. If you do not have changes to make, you won’t need to do anything to run payroll. Payroll will automatically run per your default pay settings. Payment is always a week in arrears to allow time to adjust hours and move funds.

Reading a book

What if I need to change my employee’s payroll?

It’s easy peasy with Poppins Payroll. With a couple of clicks on your personalized dashboard, you can quickly and easily revise payroll. You’ll also get email reminders at the end of each work period. So, you can make any needed adjustments.

How are taxes collected and paid?

Household employer taxes are made up of two parts: 1) the amounts withheld from the employee and 2) the amounts that the employer must contribute. We calculate each tax type every payday. At the end of the quarter, we’ll collect all the taxes from you and submit them on your behalf along with the required reporting. Taxes have never been less, well, taxing.

How do I track how much I’m going to owe in taxes?

You don’t, we do it for you. Your personalized dashboard shows how much tax liability you have accrued and when it’s going to become due. We also send you an email before the end of every quarter reminding you that taxes are going to be coming due. Just to be triple sure, we send you another email about 3 days before we pull the tax amounts out of your account to pay them. No one likes a tax surprise.

Can I track PTO and sick leave with Poppins?

Yes! You can set up a PTO and/or sick leave policy through your personalized dashboard. You enter any PTO or sick time that is used, and we’ll track the balance and include it on your employee’s paystub.

Does Poppins handle paystubs?

Yes! You can elect to have paystubs emailed directly to your employee. They’ll also magically appear in the Filing Cabinet on your personalized dashboard on your employee’s payday.

Can I pay my nanny a salary instead of hourly?

Unless you are in a state where a domestic worker must be paid by the hour, you can elect to pay either hourly or by salary with Poppins. Check our state by state resource pages for the rules in your state. Regardless of whether you pay hourly or salary, you must still pay your employee overtime and at least minimum wage. If you decide to pay a salary, you should have a written agreement as to how many hours the salary covers and at what rate. Not to worry, we put together this Sample Nanny Contract to help you out.

What if I have more than one employee?

We’re happy to help you out with additional employees. Each one will just cost you an extra $10 a month. So, two employees would be $59 per month. There is no charge if you remove an employee and replace with a different employee, and no charge for extra W-2s at the end of the year.

Family dog

How does the one month free work?

We give you one free calendar month. So, if you signup anytime in September, your first payment will be at the beginning of October. We do this so that you can see how everything works on the site before you’re committed. If you don’t like it, just cancel and you don’t owe us anything. Strange thing is, this almost never happens.

What if I already have an EIN?

You’ll be asked to enter it during signup. We’ll still ask for your approval to get an EIN when you e-sign the authorizations we need. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean we’ll get you a second EIN. We just need the approval in case we need to get one later.

If I’m in a nanny share, do all the families have to pay nanny taxes?

Yes. Each family in a nanny share is a household employer and must register and pay taxes separately, regardless of which house the nanny actually works in. If you use Poppins, each family will set up their own account to run their portion of payroll. We’ll handle all the filings and reports for each family and their nanny will get a W-2 from each family at the end of the year.

What if I’m in a nanny share and I need to pay two different hourly rates?

With Poppins, you have the ability to have two different hourly rates, an overtime rate and reimbursements (which are not taxed). So, you can set up one rate for when your nanny is watching all the kids and one rate when she is just watching your kids.

All About Nanny Taxes

For questions like Am I a household employer? What are my obligations as a household employer? Do I need to pay overtime? Check out our Household Employer Guide to Payroll.

THE CONTENT OF THIS WEBSITE IS GENERAL AND INFORMATIONAL IN NATURE AND MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES. THE INFORMATION IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE LEGAL OR TAX ADVICE, AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON WITHOUT CONSULTING WITH AN ATTORNEY AND/OR TAX PROFESSIONAL.