How to Set Up Payroll for Photoshoots with Wrapbook

Let’s be honest. You didn’t become a professional photographer or photo producer because you wanted to do payroll. But as your photography business grows, admin work becomes a huge part of the job. 

When you’re employing assistants, models, technicians, and other crew members, the hassle of paying them all quickly and compliantly can become a huge chore. 

That’s why many photography professionals opt to work with a payroll company rather than paying their crew through a DIY or Venmo-type service.

In this post, we’ll give you a crash course in how to set up payroll for photoshoots using Wrapbook. But first, we’ll highlight a few key reasons why working with a professional payroll service could be a smart option for your company.

Let’s get started. 

First, download the ebook

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of payroll for photoshoots, let’s talk about how a payroll service can level-up your photo business, using Wrapbook’s handbook.

This eBook is an in-depth guide for making the most of Wrapbook’s digital payroll solutions. It details how Wrapbook makes photography payroll faster and easier, and explains how Wrapbook can make your photo business more efficient in maximizing revenue. 

Why photographers need a photo payroll company 

From paying photo assistants and make-up artists, to collecting tax forms, to ensuring compliance with state and local labor laws, production admin can get complicated. 

That’s why many photographers choose to work with a payroll company. 

Photography payroll services offer a number of potential advantages over handling crew payroll yourself. First and foremost, they reduce the substantial burden of managing payroll compliance.

Laws are always changing for photographers

In California, even with the addition of AB-2257, AB-5 challenges photographers to reconsider how they classify workers or risk hefty fines. In New York, the Fashion Workers Act has payroll implications for producers, owners of production companies, and photographers alike. 

Keeping up with the intricacies of tax and labor regulations is a full-time job. If you take a DIY approach to paying your workers, you’re taking responsibility for that job entirely on your own. If, for example, your lighting technician makes an error on their paperwork, you have to catch that error before it leads to  consequences. 

Not to mention, you also have to make sure you’re collecting the correct startwork documents for your state. 

Luckily, managing your payroll through a professional service can save you time and stress, while helping you avoid expensive payroll mistakes.

Using Wrapbook will help you and your company remain compliant with the relevant tax laws and labor regulations.

Whether you’re hiring contractors or employees, Wrapbook’s built-in labor compliance makes payment and tax paperwork headache-free. And because Wrapbook is a full-service employer of record, come tax season, all of your tax forms are handled for you. 

With Wrapbook’s fully digital onboarding process, you can stop wasting time assembling and distributing packets of paperwork. Automated, digital startwork makes it easy to get the right forms to the right workers. And with profiles that follow crew members from job to job and employer to employer, finding a necessary document later becomes a cinch. 

But working with a photography payroll company like Wrapbook isn’t just a matter of protection. Photoshoot payroll services can streamline your business operations too. 

Digital, all-in-one payroll can keep you more organized, so you can wrangle more work

Each time you take on a new employee or contractor, there’s tons of paperwork that needs to be filled out and organized before you start paying them. From release forms to I-9s, keeping track of all that paperwork slows things down. And that’s time you could be spending invoicing clients, chasing down leads, or setting up for your next shoot.With a photo payroll company like Wrapbook, though, onboarding forms get filled out faster, paychecks get disbursed quicker, and taxes get handled for you, freeing you up to focus on growing your business. 

With built-in compliance, in-app expense tracking, digital document storage, and a project dashboard that lets you keep track of every project at once, Wrapbook makes staying on top of your photography business easy so you can move onto new jobs faster. 

Digital payroll software lets you store your contacts & rehire instantly

You have your go-to crew whether they’re “employees” or not. Rehiring them should be simple. 

Wrapbook’s digital crew database keeps track of your team’s important documents, you can invite old crew to new jobs in seconds. 

Wrapbook’s individual profiles allow your crew to track their own expenses and onboard their tax information once. For each subsequent job, their tax forms are already stored, saving everyone from duplicate work.

The Wrapbook App allows workers to submit invoices and timecards directly from their phones. Payment can be remitted via direct deposit, and workers can track what stage their payment is in right in the app, eliminating the “where’s my check” conversation.

Working with a professional photoshoot payroll service optimizes your admin workflow and free you up to focus on what matters most to both you and your business. 

How to set up payroll with Wrapbook 

Let’s dive into how easy it can be to set up your next photoshoot’s payroll with Wrapbook. Remember, if you have any questions for one of our payroll experts, you can always reach out here.

1. Create an account

Whether you’re handling payroll on your own or working through a payroll company, you have to start somewhere. The DIY approach requires that you establish all the procedures and organization necessary to pay crew by yourself. You’ll need to prepare paperwork, invoicing methods, record-keeping systems, and much more.

To get started with Wrapbook, all you have to do is sign up for an account. You’ll receive a welcome email that will walk you through the steps for setting up your company. 

You’ll need to enter basic information like your company’s name, official contact details, and address. You’ll also need to provide tax information to aid with filings and compliance.

Currently, Wrapbook also requires that users provide a certificate of insurance (COI) denoting a general liability policy with Wrapbook listed as the additionally insured. 

If you don’t have such a policy, don’t worry. Wrapbook’s in-house insurance team can support your insurance needs with as much speed and at as little cost as possible. 

2. Connect your bank account

Once your company’s Wrapbook profile is up and running, you’ll need to connect it to your bank account. Connecting your account to Wrapbook will allow you to make payments and run payroll more efficiently. 

Wrapbook uses Plaid to instantly and safely connect your bank account using state-of-the-art encryption.A window will prompt you to select your bank and sign in with your banking information. Once you’re signed in, that’s it!

Paying your employees using Wrapbook isn’t just easier, it’s safer too. If you were paying crew directly out of your company’s bank account, you’d be responsible for each transaction’s accuracy. If you accidentally added a zero to a hand model’s paycheck, the extra money would still come directly from your account. You’d then be caught between having to personally foot the bill or negotiate the return of funds yourself. Not fun. 

On top of all that, you’d also be in charge of extra labor and the additional risks that come with it. If you needed to set up a direct deposit for a digital photo technician, for example, you’d have to handle it manually with your bank. If an error occurred at any time during the payment process, you’d bear the responsibility for dealing with it. 

With Wrapbook, once your bank account is connected, you’re ready to process payments immediately. You’ll be equipped to send funds securely and quickly to everyone on your payroll.

To avoid delays when making payments for the first time, be sure to notify your bank that you’ll be running payroll through Wrapbook. If there are any issues, a Wrapbook representative will be available to provide support.