[orky56]

We have a small business and print checks manually for employees. With 50+ employees and majority of them working less than 10 hours per pay period, the per employee cost to use a direct deposit/payroll service is cost prohibitive. With our employees being typically over 40, it's been rare to even have someone request direct deposit. Just thought I'd share a different perspective than the typical HN crowd.

[sidlls]

Direct deposit has been a thing for literally decades. Someone over 40 has likely had direct deposit as an option their entire working life.

[ghaff]

Yeah. I've worked for many thousand person employers down to those with less than 10. I haven't had physical payroll checks to deposit since at least the mid-eighties. (Probably longer but I just don't remember.) Probably took longer for all expense etc. checks to go direct though as they're often through a different system.

[velcrovan]

I ran payroll for a 20 person company (US) for seven years, not a single person asked for or received a manual check in that time frame. This was between 2005-2012. I was the only person there under 40 years old.

[perl4ever]

"for a 20 person company (US) for seven years"

That's an odd way to phrase it, since it doesn't seem like a particularly large sample as you state it. So how many individuals are you talking about, given your turnover?

[velcrovan]

Back up here. OC said "we run a small business and print checks manually". OC also said "With our employees being typically over 40, it's been rare to even have someone request direct deposit." So I responded from my own experience running payroll at what was also a small business, with employees who were also all 40+ years old. Where the heck does sample size come into this? It’s completely beside the point. We’re sharing anecdotes here, not research projects.

[matco11]

The issue is that the cost of direct deposits should be lower, so that they can be more widely adopted

[GhettoMaestro]

Never dealt with finance/payroll. What is the typical per-user cost associated with direct deposit? I figured being as pervasive as it is that the cost was negligible.

[orky56]

We also have high turnover so maintaining direct deposit info doesn't make sense either. It ends up being around $10/mo per employee for a low-end payroll service which includes direct deposit/year end taxes/forms/etc.