Patriot Software Seamlessly Handles Accounting and Payroll So SMB Owners Can Focus on Success

In a Nutshell: Unless you’re an accountant, you probably didn’t start your career to do arithmetic. That’s why Patriot Software is a trusted accounting and payroll partner for small-business owners across all sectors. It handles the nitty-gritty of getting the numbers right so owners and managers can concentrate on what they’re passionate about: building their businesses, connecting with customers, and helping employees and communities thrive. The secure Patriot platform makes managing accounting and payroll simple, affordable, and a constructive part of your success.

Entrepreneurship is a calling, and leadership is about being inspired to sacrifice personal time and resources to achieve a higher goal.

That goal may be creative to introduce a new product or service to a new market in a new way. Or it may stem from a desire to create jobs and energize the community.

Most likely, it arises from a combination of factors inherent in a relatively few special people.

One thing’s for sure, however: People don’t go into business to do busy work. But there’s a lot about running a company that can get you bogged down in details if you’re not careful.

For all their importance, accounting, payroll, and related responsibilities occupy the category of being necessary but definitely not the reason most people go into business.

That explains why Patriot Software is so important to so many small-business owners. It takes care of the financial nuts and bolts of running a company without imposing obstacles or wasting time and money.

Instead, it’s one of those platforms that “just works,” making it a go-to resource for SMB owners and managers with the bigger picture in mind.

Product Marketing Manager Michele Bossart said the team at Patriot designed the platform to perform necessary work as efficiently as possible. It does the heavy lifting so busy entrepreneurs don’t have to.

“It’s just one of those things — people have to manage the books, they have to report, they have to pay their employees, and it all needs to happen on schedule,” Bossart said. “Our mindset is to look at every aspect of small-business management challenges and see how we can help.”

It’s been a long road of dedication to customers and product iteration at Patriot. The ownership team that gave rise to the company started in 1986, and years passed before Patriot achieved its current status as the nation’s simplest and most affordable accounting and payroll solution.

Along the way, the team developed design and engineering procedures that carry it to this day, enabling it to build a highly secure and robust platform with relatively few resources. And the company has passed those savings on to customers.

It also learned that to serve a clientele composed chiefly of non-accounting experts living their entrepreneurial passion, it needed to offer seamless support to help owners and managers quickly get up and running.

Patriot’s accounting module continues to follow that script, with no training required and a startup wizard that makes onboarding and data import easy.

One-click accounting settings take care of setup details by applying the most popular settings chosen by users.

“When we started, we asked customers to pick their settings, but then we discovered that 90% chose the same things,” Bossart said. “So we go ahead and pick the most common settings for them.”

Everything is configurable from the get-go, and as owners and managers learn the system, some make changes. But many don’t because Patriot has small-business DNA at its core.

The platform’s easy-to-use basic level supports unlimited users, customers, payments, and invoices and tracks all expenses and income. Users can import their chart of accounts, vendors, customers, and balances to ensure they’re ready to go from wherever they left off on their last software.

At the premium level, the platform incorporates account reconciliations and additional management features.

“You’re able to work smart,” Bossart said. “Time is money.”

The accounting platform also includes Smart Suggestion, a machine-learning-based tool that auto-classifies transactions based on aggregate data.

“We measure ourselves on how quickly you can get in and out of the software and get things done,” Bossart said.

There’s more detail involved in integrating Patriot’s payroll solution, but even with the compliance mandates that need to be taken care of, onboarding is surprisingly seamless.

Bossart said when users have a mindset to onboard, they can complete it in a few days. That includes everything needing approvals, such as third-party authorizations, bank accounts, and direct deposit.

It’s so simple that many onboarding payroll customers who elect to use Patriot’s free consultative setup service end up not needing it. The setup wizard associated with payroll onboarding is enough. The wizard guides new customers step by step through employee onboarding and many other details.

“You really can’t get lost — you’re never overwhelmed,” Bossart said. “We deliver information in bite-sized pieces and keep directing you through the process until you reach the end.”

But simple doesn’t mean slow. Bossart said the average payroll run time across all Patriot’s customers is about a minute and a half.

“That’s crazy fast,” she said.

Unlimited is the watchword with Patriot’s basic payroll service as it is with the basic accounting service. Basic payroll supports unlimited users, payrolls, accounting integration, and up to 500 employees.

The full-service version incorporates filing and depositing federal, state, and local payroll taxes and year-end payroll tax filings, with payroll accuracy guaranteed. Bossart said many payroll companies charge extra for year-end payroll filings.

“At the end of each quarter and the end of the year, you get a nice little tax packet ready to go,” she said. “And if you ever have an issue with a tax filing, if it’s our fault, we’ll pay the penalties and interest.”

Some folks are born to be accountants and bookkeepers, but it’s a safe bet that entrepreneurs aren’t usually among them. When a person’s passion is to start a business and take on the responsibility of serving customers and employees, a lot can get lost in the shuffle.

Bossart said some customers come to Patriot after growing weary of manually managing expenses on spreadsheets and shuffling through a shoebox full of invoices at tax time. Something’s got to give.

“I would encourage them to try to understand how valuable their time is for the business,” she said. “It may seem hard to spend money on an accounting and payroll platform, but the time you save will be so worth it — you’ll be so much happier to have a good record your accountant can use.”

Despite its dedication to easy onboarding and use, Patriot maintains a dedicated customer success team that is always a phone call or chat away. Copious accounting and payroll support resources, blogs, demos, and FAQs are also available to help customers get over the occasional hump.

Meanwhile, Patriot has incorporated HR software and Time and Attendance software as an add-on to the payroll platform. The Time and Attendance software includes timecard management, manager permissions, overtime rules, timecard history and summary reports, a nudge tool for late timecard submissions, and bulk approvals. The HR software lets users effortlessly share company documents, such as handbooks or benefit information, store employee data securely, track employment history and robust reporting for new hires, service anniversaries, demographics for EEO-1 or VETS 4212 and more.

And Patriot continues to welcome new integration partners, including the popular Stripe payment platform, to increase the platform’s versatility. It’s as if the team understood the challenges of running a small business, which it clearly does.

It all adds up to a trusted, comprehensive solution that gets better and better at keeping small businesses in line with their responsibilities and at maintaining cash flows where needed to ensure success.

“Our platform helps business owners focus on their business and keep working toward the things that will increase their profitability,” Bossart said.