Payroll Knowledge

Having such a lengthy, in depth career in the world of payroll, one would expect that I have a broad knowledge base.  And I do.  So here's a list of the key items that I have experience with, at a level of highly competent or greater:

• Standard payroll processing
• Complete understanding of pay types (hourly, salary, commissions, etc)
• Complete understanding of deductions, and all rules regarding them, including garnishments, insurance deductions, retirement deductions, and more
• Complete understanding of all benefit types and calculations, including employer 401K match, employer health contributions, union and prevailing wage benefits, and more
• Payroll reporting for all purposes, whether standardized reporting, or ad hoc reporting
• Collaboration with third party providers, such as 401K and health insurance providers
• Workers' compensation audits (a special skill of mine, having also sold over $20 million in workers' compensation premium as an agent)
• Tax calculations
• Tax filings with state, federal, and local jurisdictions (I have worked in over 30 states)
• Tax payments with state, federal and local jurisdictions
• Electronic filing and integration with state, federal and local tax jurisdictions
• New hire reporting to all state tax agencies
• Registration of new employer ID's with state and local jurisdictions
• Direct deposit procedures, to include rules regarding NACHA file creation and submission
• Maintenance and implementation of a complete HRIS database
• Maintenance and utilization of time keeping systems
• Complete understanding of labor laws and overtime provisions
• Experience with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
• Certified payroll creation, along with submission to the Department of Industrial Relations, and any other party that requires reporting
• W2 and 1099 filing, along with electronic submission to the Social Security Administration
• Complete payroll auditing to ensure compliance
• Accounting system integration of payroll data
• Integration of other 3rd party systems, including timekeeping, 401K providers, and other related systems
• Leading and training teams to accomplish all of the above items independently

And most importantly, while all of the knowledge in the world is great, in the world of payroll, you must have one quality about you, or you will not be successful.  And that's the absolute zero tolerance for errors.  And that is one quality I pride myself in.  It begins with a quality procedure, ensuring that all "opportunities for error" have been removed.  From there, it is a committment to excellence, ensuring that all work is double checked at critical points along the way in the process.  Payroll is the only profession in the world where the tolerance for error is literally zero.  No one wants to be the one employee in one thousand with an error on their check.  It's the job of the payroll professional to ensure that this doesn't happen.  And I pride myself in error free work.