Who We Help With Our Services

We can assist in a new manager’s assessment of their department and help them put together a plan of correction. This will mitigate risks, prepare them for growth, identify where the manual effort could be reduced and automate processes to be prepared for audits and improve supervisory controls eliminating errors and issues.

Sometimes payroll departments are not using all the functionality of their systems, much to the dismay of the third party providers, either because they don’t’ know it’s available, the company customized the system so much that it rendered that functionality useless, or impossible to gather. It may even be that the company isn’t aware of the many powerful uses of employee-related reporting information available to them and so never asked for it.

Often pension plan providers are faced with receiving information that they know could contain errors. This presents a risk to them and the company. Many times too, there are simple solutions offered by the pension plan providers that they haven’t convinced their clients, the companies, would benefit them by reducing errors, automating certain manual processes, and eliminating duplication of efforts and correction of errors which has a downstream effect on the pension plan providers as well. We can identify for the client companies the benefit to them, correct systematic issues, strongly recommend the automation of processes to improve internal controls, and correct the coding and business rule issues that cause the errors and create the extra manual effort.

We work closely with all parties to the payroll processes and after deep discussions can help them direct the changes necessary to reduce re-work and errors. This is accomplished by developing an internal audit process of all retirement contributions and match calculations. Then performing this audit on each payroll prior to the actual payroll run and post payroll run. Each payroll run needs to be compliant with all company retirement plan rules including any true-up calculations. Often, we would recommend an enhancement to the third-party payroll provider reports, customized to meet the payroll department’s need and thus eliminating the manual effort in obtaining the very same data.

Often times the CTO or other technologists are charged with a project that is intended to enhance reporting, streamline the process and improve operations, like time and attendance, more advanced time clocks, or scheduling systems designed to improve workforce effectiveness and efficiency. But frequently, the new systems or enhancements are added to an already burdened platform, not necessarily out of date and by definition functionally able to handle the add-ons, but because of inconsistencies in how the business rules were applied and written into the existing platform, the complexity of adding the new enhancement becomes nearly impossible without even further programming complexities rendering the entire system even more “customized”.

We can sort out these complexities, identify the inconsistencies and bring together the operators to recommend changes in the business rules to simplify the programming, reduce labor risks, as well as automate the internal controls to reduce the re-work making go-live more feasible.

Typically, third-party payroll providers perform a service for their clients, but often cannot influence the way the program is used, implemented, installed, or later changed to accommodate the company perceived needs. This causes friction between the clients or the company and the third-party provider, and in some cases, makes the clients believe that their relationship with the third party provider is not as good as it could be because they can’t seem “to get the solutions they need to make the system work the way they want it to.” This may even cause some to consider alternative payroll processing providers, as drastic a move that could be for both parties.

With the third-party payroll provider recommendation or even engagement, we can help identify those areas that are causing them concern and contributing to the troubles that strain the relationship between them and their clients. Most of the time, this is caused by the customization of the system, the inconsistency in the coding, complex business rules that had been interpreted differently within certain departments and entities within the same company, or not a clear understanding of the functionality of this system. We can straighten these issues out and show the client companies why the system is not producing the result they are looking for, as well as recommend the changes necessary that will not only improve the processing of the payroll nuances but also create efficiencies.

Resulting from their close work with payroll departments in either financial, workers compensation, or pension plan auditors can typically tell pretty quickly whether there are difficulties in the payroll department processes. When the department can’t produce or has trouble providing the necessary information required to satisfy the auditor’s request. While on the surface this may seem inconsequential, it is indicative of a deeper issue. The audit should be smooth and uneventful, and if it isn’t, more than likely they haven’t got the proper internal controls. Those controls include simple automation tools to run pre- payroll and post-payroll reports (from the existing systems) to validate and check totals and amounts transmitted. Other supervisory controls and control totals to ensure what was processed was in fact paid or transmitted.

We can help payroll departments strengthen internal controls, set up routines to produce the auditor documentation with every payroll, reduce the risks and re-work while improving processing time and eliminating the manual intervention.

The linkage between HR and payroll is inexplicably close, or it should be. When it isn’t, that might be indicative of a problem. Often the hand-off of paperwork between these two departments causes a strain in the relationship and they may even seek to avoid one another. The paperwork passing between them includes personnel update actions of every kind, like new employee records, status changes, pay rate changes, and pension contribution changes and updates.

Sometimes long-standing companies with longstanding payroll departments have operated under the same conditions for many years. They have gotten used to manually developed spreadsheets and reports that the operators need to run their businesses. The only problem with this is that change is sure to happen. Can they accommodate the change or will the department blow up or require even more people to manage what they have been plowing through for many years. Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. Sounds redundant, but it means that there may be functionality out there that could create tremendous efficiencies in the current payroll department’s workflow. Like what you ask? Simple automation.

Not rocket science, but simple tools that can be added to assist the payroll department and the departments around them become more automated, so that the audit routines are self-balancing, that pre payroll reports are run and checked as are post payroll reports. Documentation is accumulated automatically to supply for worker’s comp audits, financial audits, and pension audits. This is relatively simple for us to help you get installed, and will save you time and effort, aggravation, and fear when it comes to audit time. You will be ready for anything.

This will also mitigate risks, prepare you for growth, identify where the manual effort could be reduced and automate processes to be prepared for audits and improve supervisory controls eliminating errors and issues

Often times companies have decided that it is time to change systems because 1) they don’t have a good relationship with their payroll provider, 2) they don’t believe that their current system meets their needs, 3) they can’t get what they need from their existing system, or 4) the grass is always greener theory or some other reason of perceived value that may exist elsewhere.

The truth be told, most third-party payroll systems have very much the same functionality and capabilities unless you are talking about a small boutique provider, in which case they may have more limited functionality and offers. But most, if not all have the same features and capability. That is not to say that some may have strengths in some areas of say reporting and graphics, but most offer the exact same features.

Typically, worker’s compensation audits are routine and underwhelming, but where this is not the case you need perfect payroll. Because they should be simple, straightforward, expected, and even welcomed. When they are not, it could potentially affect your renewal or even the charges you sustain on an annual basis. Banks, who hold debt, may be interested in your payroll data set, to ensure you meet debt covenants and their requirements. More importantly, companies in receivership because of debt forbearance or otherwise operate under other default requirements need to make sure that payroll is perfect and the headcount reports generated are reliable and consistently captured

It is not unlike many companies who have gone through a merger to have disparate systems and processes. Ultimately, they may want to bring all their functions together and centralize the functions to save time, effort, and redundant departments. We can help with that. We will look at all the features of the unique companies and departments and identify for you where they intersect and where they depart. We can also tell you where the business rules need to be confirmed and more consistent. Further, we can help you with the collection of data across the entire entity and between entities on headcount and payroll-related matters.