Dive Brief:

• The San Francisco-based Square debuted Square Payroll on Tuesday, entering a market of heavy hitters such as ADP, Intuit, and Paychex. It was designed for hourly employees in mind, but can also do payroll for salaried employees, according to the San Francisco Business Times.
• The service is targeted toward small business owners and seeks to simplify the complex, regulatory-heavy payroll process.
• Currently the program is only available in California, but it has plans to expand, said the Times.

Dive Insight:

Square is no stranger to entering a market full of big names—its original credit card processing service did it. Here, Square seeks to help small business owners avoid potential pitfalls and fines while recording payroll.

“There are more fines for mishandling payroll than there are businesses with employees,” Square said to the Business Times, citing data from Bloomberg and the U.S. Census Bureau.

The pricing scheme has been touted as rather transparent and considerably cheap: $20 per month plus $5 per every employee paid that month. It automatically handles withholdings, payments and even makes the tax filings on behalf of the business owner, said the Times.

Square Payroll is only the latest competitor in payroll for small business. ZenPayroll, a Silicon Valley start-up, offers a similar product for $25 a month and $4 for each paid employee. Both services function on the belief that ADP, Intuit, and Paychex are “too complex” and do not serve businesses with less than 100 employees (particularly hourly employees) in a cost-effective way, according to Fortune.