Can You Pay Payroll With A Credit Card?

By Bruce Boswell •  Updated: 12/14/21 •  6 min read
Filed under: Credit Cards

When you are running a company, you need to know how to pay your employees. Paying your employees in a way that is effective and safe for both you and them is a key part of being an employer.

This is why you might be wondering, if you have recently started a business or just taken one over, how can you ensure that your employees are paid quickly and effectively?

Can you pay payroll with a credit card

Figuring out the best way to ensure that your employees are properly paid can at times be difficult. Should you pay them through PayPal? Can you pay them directly to their bank? Can you pay payroll with a credit card?

All these questions will be going around your head. Getting the right answer to them all is what this article will do for you. 

How You Should Organize Your Payroll?

The first thing that you should do is to make sure that you properly organize your payroll. This is because if your payroll isn’t properly organized then it can lead to not only confusion for you but for your employees as well. As an employer you have a great deal of responsibility for ensuring that the payroll works effectively and sends your employees money to them on time. 

Firstly, you must ensure you have a grasp of the monthly (or if you pay your employees more regularly, weekly) amount of money that is owed to them. Once you know that organize your payroll into a clear order that demonstrates to you how many people you have to pay particular amounts at particular times. 

It is also worth finding out how your employees would like to be paid. Most employees like their money to be paid into their bank account however there are equally many people who prefer their money to be paid into their PayPal accounts. This is because they might want to transfer their money from it to several different accounts. 

Whatever way they want to get paid, make sure that you have their details easily to hand so that you can get their payment out to them straight away on pay day. 

Can You Pay Directly To Their Bank?

Now that you have an idea of how to organize your payroll you might be thinking – can you pay them directly to their bank? You might be thinking that it could take you ages to pay everyone who is working for you. 

The answer of course is simple. When you have a business account you can open a sub account for which to pay your employees with. This account will contain all the money that is needed for their payments. 

Simply set up a monthly direct payment to each of your employees for the amount of money that they are owed and make sure that it is sent to them all at the time on that day.

The process, if you are dealing with new additions to the workforce, can be extra troubling at times – if you forget to add someone to the payroll at the right time, they may end up getting paid later than everyone else which is of course a problem for you and for them as you may be accidentally in breach of contract. 

Should You Pay Through PayPal?

As has been mentioned in this piece you can pay your employees through PayPal. Some people prefer to be paid through PayPal as it allows them to transfer their money wherever they like. 

The question of course is should you pay your employees through PayPal? The answer is, unless they specifically request it and you are fine with it, probably not.

This is simply because PayPal can at times be difficult to use and can hold up monetary transactions in a way banks don’t. 

PayPal’s system will often jump on payments it thinks are suspicious and hold them up, even when they are perfectly legitimate. This means that your entire workforce could be out of pocket if you rely solely on PayPal. This is why it is not a good idea to pay all your employees via this system. 

Can You Pay Payroll With A Credit Card?

If you are having a slight cash flow problem and want to keep your business ticking over you might consider paying your employees payroll with a credit card. Again, as with PayPal, the question is – should you?

The answer is similar – you shouldn’t attempt to pay your employees payroll with a credit card and the reason is pretty simple. By paying your employees payroll via a credit card you put them and you at risk. 

Whether you have many employees or only a couple, paying them with a credit card on a regular basis will not only mean that your credit card will some get overrun with payments that you will find difficult to get back, if something goes wrong with your credit card then your employees will suddenly find themselves in a lot of difficulty. 

Credit cards can be useful for getting us out of a particular hole and giving us a chance to get our finances in order. However, they should never be seen as an alternative to using your own money to pay your employees.

This is because overusing a credit card can easily become more of a problem than a solution and force you to either borrow money or attempt to defer other payments in order to pay the credit card’s debt off. This is never a good way to operate a business. 

Finding Solutions To Your Payroll 

When you start out in business you might find all of the trouble with payroll to be utterly confusing. It might seem as if you cannot get it straight in your mind. Things get easier with practise of course and once you have sorted out your payroll once you will have no trouble in the future. 

Businesses need help and support and that’s why when you are going into business you should seek as much support and help as you can. Messing up a payroll could easily set your business back when you need it to be charging forward into the future.

This is why you should ensure that how your payroll works is as clear as possible to you and to anyone else working for you. 

Bruce BoswellBruce Boswell

Bruce Boswell

Bruce Boswell enjoys researching and writing about all things related to investing and saving money. Whenever he has a chance, Bruce loves travelling all around the world with his wife and trying new foods.