Nathan,
IMHO, excel is a possible -but inappropiate- vehicle for a payroll package. For corporations over 50 employees, Federal regulations require a fair amout of reporting as well as historical record keeping which go far beyond the intracies of the accounting process.
For smaller organizations, it is simply a matter of knowing the various business, local (county/city/...), state and federal requirements, and -of course- implementing them.
If the 'Boss' wants to 'get away with' the simplistic approach by doing this 'in-house', ask for the pertinent rules and regulations for each jurisdiction involved.
Based on these, provide him with a project outline, implementation plan and man-hour estimate to implement the process. If, at this point, the project still appears to be a viable approach, please consider hiring me as the outhouse programmer to implement your payroll processing.
MichaelRed
m.red@att.net
There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over