Unlocking Cost Savings For Your Clients: Why PEOs Are a Smart Move

As an accountant or other professional advisor who provides guidance to small business owners, the value you provide your clients can extend far beyond providing services and advice. When you connect your clients with solutions that will help them effectively navigate real-world challenges, you’re both positioning yourself as a trusted partner and cultivating loyalty.

Directing your clients to a Professional Employer Organization, or PEO is one of the best ways to do just that. Beyond streamlining HR, payroll, and compliance, a PEO can drive serious cost savings for your clients. Let's explore exactly where those savings come from—and how positioning a PEO can elevate your role as a trusted advisor.

What Is a PEO?

A PEO is an HR outsourcing organization that partners with small and mid-sized businesses through a co-employment model. This means the PEO becomes the company’s employer of record for tax and benefits purposes, while your client retains full control over their people and operations. This setup allows businesses to access the same tools, benefits, and protections as much larger organizations—without the overhead.

The PEO handles payroll, HR, benefits administration, compliance, workers’ comp, and more— all bundled into one simplified relationship. And, by referring clients who would benefit from PEO services, not only are you helping them find an affordable, scalable solution to important HR challenges, but you’ll also be helping them save money both directly and indirectly while adding an additional revenue stream to your business without having to expand your capacity. 

Direct Cost Savings of Working with a PEO

Big-Business Benefits at Small-Business Prices

Because PEOs aggregate thousands of employees across multiple clients, they can negotiate health insurance plans and rates comparable to what much larger companies, even Fortune 500 firms, are able to offer. This helps small businesses offer stronger, more affordable benefits—without footing the full administrative bill or absorbing time-consuming tasks associated with employee benefits administration. 

Lower Workers’ Comp Costs

PEOs often operate under master workers’ compensation policies, spreading risk across a wider base than possible when an individual company secures its own coverage. That usually translates to lower premiums, fewer claims processing headaches, and proactive safety support—all of which can help your clients save money.

Reduced Vendor and Admin Expenses

Instead of juggling multiple systems for payroll, benefits, timekeeping, and compliance, Justworks’ clients work with one provider. This simplification alone reduces technology fees and vendor costs significantly, while saving time that other companies spend doing double (or more) data entry into systems that don’t talk to each other. 

Indirect (But Equally Valuable) Savings

Compliance That Prevents Costly Mistakes

Justworks PEO clients have access to HR consulting services and compliance assistance, which is invaluable for small or growing businesses. From keeping up with wage and hour laws to Affordable Care Act filing requirements, staying compliant can be tough—especially for startups or other lean teams. Pointing your clients in the direction of PEO services can you’re your clients avoid penalties, audits, and lawsuits that could potentially cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Better Retention and Talent Acquisition

Offering competitive benefits helps clients hire and keep top performers, both of which are key to success for small-to-mid-size businesses at every stage, from startup through maturity. Reduced turnover leads to financial savings in the form of lower hiring, training, and productivity ramp-up costs.

Time Is Money

For entrepreneurs, founders, and business managers, it’s a fact that time is money. Working with a PEO helps give back time. When your clients are able to spend less time buried in administrative and compliance tasks—which working with Justworks PEO will allow them to do— they can fully focus on growing the business.  

Justworks for Accountants: Partnering With Our PEO

If you’re an accountant or business-to-business professional services provider, recommending a PEO positions you as much more than a vendor; instead, you’ll become a strategic growth ally. You’ll be able to help your clients save money and gain peace of mind, and they’ll view you as the one who brought them the solution that changed the game and help them take their business to the next level.  

Bottom line? Working with Justworks PEO can amplify the value you deliver. Ready to explore how partnering with a PEO could benefit both your clients and your business? Let’s talk; we’re here to help you get started as a Justworks partner today.