Many household employers agree with their caregiver - whether this be a nanny, senior caregiver or other - on a set wage per week for a certain number of regular hours. This is common, and fine, yet a household employer who fails to translate this weekly wage into an hourly rate can open themselves up to costly wage and hour disputes. This is the last thing you want to be involved in, as wage and hour lawsuits are expensive. President Obama's initiative to protect workers from unpaid overtime means the US Department of Labor is adding 300 more investigators, and household employers will be even more at risk for getting caught.

I worked with a new client who had just hired a housekeeper to help her dad around the house. Her father needed help at home - laundry, cooking and just general homemaking services. A recent widower, he had never been terribly involved in household management according to his daughter, and it was getting away from him. My client was referred to an experienced senior homemaker who was looking for work through word of mouth, and she and her brother agreed to privately hire the housekeeper to help Dad several days a week.

If you employ a household employee (defined by the IRS as any domestic worker earning more than $1900 in calendar year 2014), you are responsible for the so-called "nanny taxes". By keeping track of paperwork, you'll be in a much better position come tax time next year. Nanny agency owners can also benefit from staying organized during the year whether they are filing their agency's taxes on their own or with a tax preparer.

The US Department of Labor on September 17, 2013 issued revised rules within the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that codify recordkeeping requirements of employers with live in domestic service workers. The revised rules closely mirror the recordkeeping advice that HomeWork Solutions gives all household employers. Good recordkeeping is not just the law; it also protects the household employer from unpaid wage claims.