How To Set Up Personal Payroll as a Freelancer

March 22, 2022



As a freelancer, you are used to figuring out how to do things on your own — whether it is scouring the internet to find the best way to get new clients or learning a new skill. Being self-employed isn’t always easy, but it is rewarding, despite its unique challenges. As your own boss, you’ll need to do your own payroll.

But, what does self-employed payroll look like? And why do you need to set it up? With an employer, payroll is the process of paying employees and setting aside portions of income. As a freelancer or a self-employed person, you are your own employee. That means you’ll need to figure out how to do self-employed payroll, paying yourself, while setting aside money for your quarterly tax payments. Without an employer doing this for you, the process can get complicated and time-consuming. 

This is why Catch exists — to let you automate the necessary, but frustrating, busy work, so you can get back to doing what you love and what you’re best at. Catch is the first and only personal payroll and benefits product, putting your taxes, retirement, savings, and health insurance all in one place. Personal payroll lets you get back to making money, not managing it. 

Step One:

The first step to setting up personal payroll is to create a Catch account and a tax withholding goal. Catch does all the calculations for you, so you don't have to worry about making mistakes. Catch will recommend the estimated percentage to take out, however, how much you want to take out of your pay is completely up to you. 

Step Two: 

The second step to setting up personal payroll is to create savings goals. A common freelancer mistake make is miscalculating their business expenses or, worse, mixing personal expenses with business expenses. Fortunately, Catch makes it simple to automatically set aside income for your day-to-day business needs or personal expenses without lifting a finger. Organize the things that matter to you into goals and choose how to divvy up these funds between the different goals you have created. How's that for efficiency?

Step Three:

The third step is to create a retirement account. When you make a Catch account, you have the option to open up a Roth or traditional IRA. Contributing to your retirement is easy. You can set it up to happen automatically from every incoming payments or select the individual paychecks that you want it taken out of. 

Setting up personal payroll and organizing your income may seem overwhelming, but by setting up processes that automatically organize income, it becomes effortless. Tax withholding, savings, and retirement are all made simple with a little automation. 

Your personal payroll journey awaits! Download the app on Apple or Android