NewsPod (Episode 1)

[00:00:00] Brian: Welcome to the News Pod, folks. This is something new for us, for you guys. What's up, Walt? How you feeling? I was excited about doing this News Pod. What about you? I'm excited.

[00:00:11] Walt: It's another wrinkle of AIP.

[00:00:16] Brian: IAP. I don't know. You tell me. It's

[00:00:20] Walt: another wrinkle of it's about payroll. Something else that we're doing. I'm definitely excited about it. I think is another way for us to put out more information to keep other payroll folks, even HR folks or

[00:00:32] Brian: anybody who's interested in payroll stuff. Yeah. Staying up to date.

[00:00:36] Brian: Keep them in the now, yep. Exactly. This is a I don't know, short digestible little nuggets for folks the show can get intense if you're, it's longer, we're, it's longer form, we're talking about a lot, we're, we get into it for real, and this is just little bits of info to help you along . So yeah, this is the news pod from IAP. It's [00:01:00] about payroll. io. You guys are the first subscribers to the new. Mini show this is just so instead of a newsletter, right? We launched our site. We're getting subscribers instead of doing a newsletter Like this is our medium basically, right?

[00:01:15] Brian: We like to make it easy. Just press play listen And go about your day, you know what I mean? I think, as I think about this news pod more I'm like, looking at all of the text heavy things that are on LinkedIn, and I'm like, I don't want to read this. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to read all this stuff.

[00:01:37] Brian: Come on, man. I'm hooked on podcasts, right? Which got me excited about doing this two years ago, whatever. Anywho. This is the news pod. We got some nuggets for you. It's going to be short and sweet and to the point. You ready to get into it? What you go first, man. What'd you find for us? The 1st thing that I have for the news pod today

[00:01:56] Walt: is minimum wage increases for 2023.

[00:01:59] Walt: This is [00:02:00] something as a payroll processor that you will normally do, but so I'm not going to go into the whole details here. Pay core dot com has a. Great list of states that should have had

[00:02:11] Brian: increases

[00:02:12] Walt: this year. The federal minimum wage has not gone up since 2009. It still remains 7 and 25 cents. So one of the States, two of the States that just recently had changes in July of this year are Nevada and Oregon.

[00:02:28] Walt: And in total this year, there have been 20 States that have increased their minimum

[00:02:33] Brian: wage . I did not know that. Thank you, sir. See what I'm saying? And that's good to know, folks, because if it basically, if you're like, oh, wow, that's good to know you, it maybe it's not your responsibility, but you should double check your HR team if they haven't I think when these impact, like whenever I'm, it's always like a team wide email.

[00:02:52] Brian: Hey, guys. Oh, my God, this one went up and we're like, Oh, yep, we're on it. Or your provider might actually tell you, depending on the payroll [00:03:00] provider, you have might tell you, But this is why we do the show. This is why we keep each other informed and we have the community because there is no one stop shop for info.

[00:03:11] Brian: Thanks for that. What else you got?

[00:03:13] Walt: Payroll trends. So there are some payroll trends in regards to payroll software, so I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. There's a site here that will be the links that we provide with the show notes. The select hub.com has some very interesting facts that you can look out for.

[00:03:32] Walt: So what's coming up in payroll software. So you're gonna see more all-in-one options. So that means there's going to be more softwares that provide all in one service. So you can get everything that you need from a payroll software. You're going to see more services provide flexible

[00:03:49] Brian: pay options.

[00:03:51] Brian: What does that mean? What? That means they may have that daily pay. Ooh. Earned wage access. Yes. [00:04:00] Yes. Got it. That's a big one. Okay. Thanks. Got it. And

[00:04:03] Walt: there's something else that we talk about AI and how that's going to impact the payroll industry and the payroll service industry. So short and sweet, AI will be able to anticipate what employees need.

[00:04:19] Walt: From payroll, and it will also be able to assist with compliance. This article here said that. A, I will be able to basically continuously and constantly monitor regulations and automatically update those regulations and respond and correct violations.

[00:04:41] Brian: That would be amazing.

[00:04:43] Walt: So think about that. That will take away a lot of some guesswork and the legwork, especially it happens.

[00:04:49] Walt: You come into these situations not to get too deep into it. You come to the situations that I think you and I have both been and as payroll professionals, your head of the job, someone leaves or goes [00:05:00] out, something happens and you're like, okay, how do I do this? How do I do that? How do I do this? And there's no instructions.

[00:05:05] Walt: There's no SOPs. There's nothing. And you have to figure it all out from scratch. So having AI in place in these softwares

[00:05:13] Brian: will assist with that. Could be a double edged sword though, because I would like to see, we're so early in this, right? We can speculate a lot. I would like to see it also give some type of...

[00:05:24] Brian: Job, aid tutorial type of thing, because then we, then as payroll professionals, you lose that touch of what it's doing. If I'm hearing this, if I'm re if I'm understanding you right, and if it's going to constantly look for the compliance and apply it to our systems automatically autonomously.

[00:05:44] Brian: I think

[00:05:44] Walt: you would still have to have someone verify that it's doing the right thing because if it's something is not, if something in the AI is not programmed properly, or you have a certain button turned on that shouldn't be turned on or

[00:05:58] Brian: vice versa. Something like [00:06:00] approval workflow before the AI updates, I need to press approve.

[00:06:05] Brian: Yes, that's perfect.

[00:06:06] Walt: We were just talking about processes

[00:06:07] Brian: and workflow. Yep. , I know, that's what made me think of it. That's dope, man. All right, cool. Good stuff. And then the last

[00:06:15] Walt: thing that I have I'm always looking , to see what the internet says about what the top or the best payroll softwares are.

[00:06:23] Walt: Okay. So far, business news daily.com list, these different. Payroll softwares, of course, they're in different categorized for different ones. I'm going to go through the list really quick and this is for the year 2023. okay. The payroll software voted the best for small businesses is on pay payroll software.

[00:06:48] Walt: Voted best for growing businesses,

[00:06:50] Brian: ADP payroll.

[00:06:53] Walt: Voted best for businesses of all sizes,

[00:06:57] Brian: paychecks. Okay, I'm shocked. [00:07:00] I'm shocked. I'm sorry paychecks, but I'm shocked. Okay.

[00:07:04] Walt: Voted best for added HR services. Gusto

[00:07:08] Brian: payroll. Okay.

[00:07:11] Walt: Voted best for employee self service.

[00:07:17] Walt: Paycore. Voted best for same day direct deposit. Intuit QuickBooks payroll.

[00:07:23] Brian: Interesting. Voted

[00:07:26] Walt: best for ease of use. Rippling

[00:07:29] Brian: payroll. Voted

[00:07:32] Walt: best for integration capabilities.

[00:07:35] Brian: Deluxe. Never heard of them. Voted best

[00:07:39] Walt: for tax filing,

[00:07:42] Brian: square payroll. Okay. That's all right.

[00:07:45] Walt: Voted best for companies with a global workforce, papaya

[00:07:51] Brian: global payroll.

[00:07:52] Brian: Oh, papaya shout out to Ian. What up Ian? And then

[00:07:57] Walt: last but not least voted best for [00:08:00] onboarding employees and contractors. Remote payroll.

[00:08:05] Brian: Very interesting. These are cool lists to look at, folks. You gotta, you gotta take it all with a grain of salt. You gotta look at the sources.

[00:08:12] Brian: Do your research, pick apart what, that's why we try to pick 'cause sometimes best services, right? And then ADP's the one putting out the article , you know what I mean? It's no, I don't want ADP's propaganda. You gotta try to get a unbiased service to look unbiased. Yes.

[00:08:29] Brian: Yeah. So it's just, that's why we went with, business news daily. Just an unpartial. Service that to look at it all, you know what I mean? So that's cool. That's an interesting list I definitely some folks I wouldn't have anticipated on winning for that category. So it's just yeah, that's cool I love also being like introduced to new names out there, right?

[00:08:52] Brian: That's what I find a lot and especially looking for new stuff. I find these companies that Our million dollar payroll and HR companies and you've [00:09:00] never heard of them, so it's cool. It's oh man, there's a whole kind of more of a, of the world that we're in is bigger than we think that.

[00:09:06] Brian: And you know what I mean? And then hopefully we help, we can close that for folks. And close that gap. Yeah. I got my, I got some stuff. What's up? No, like

[00:09:17] Walt: This may prompt tearing this list may prompt someone. To reach out to one of these and say, Hey, we need that service, or yeah,

[00:09:25] Brian: take a little bit more, but put them on your RFP list.

[00:09:28] Brian: And, you, when you're looking for new service, you want to look at least three, maybe start with a little more, whittle them down to three. So maybe this helps expand your lists.

[00:09:37] Walt: Before you go on what's

[00:09:39] Brian: RFP? Oh, thanks. Gosh, I don't even, I'll have to look it up now. I'll look it up while I go.

[00:09:47] Brian: Yeah. I know what it is, but I don't know what the acronym stands for now. You know what I mean? Cause we just went through this proposal. There we go. Thank you, sir. Request for proposal. And that means like when you are [00:10:00] searching for new software, you, us as the client, we would request. For proposal from the vendors.

[00:10:05] Brian: So from that list, if you got three, you know what I mean? You would go out and say, Hey, I want to, we want to request for proposal. And there's a process for that. Yeah, thanks for that. Thanks for calling that out. We try to break things down, folks. We're trying to, not assume we all know everything.

[00:10:21] Brian: And this is edutainment, so we can't assume that we know everything. All right. This first nugget is two parts, IRS newsletter for payroll pros. This is on purpose. The IRS has this out there, right? I went crazy one day on one of the IRS websites.

[00:10:36] Brian: So I signed up for one newsletter and then I just signed up for everything. So I get a ton of updates from the government. As a payroll pro, you should do this. I just thought today, good idea. Well, like if your company doesn't can't do it for you, maybe you just start like a Gmail, newsletter dump at gmail. com type of thing. And sign up for all the things you can put it to this [00:11:00] new email address and just have it go there. Because sometimes it's crazy. Like managing, you get so many emails from some of these subscriptions that it's ridiculous. I, and the government gives me a ton.

[00:11:11] Brian: I had to make rules and move it out of my box. I was like, Oh my God, what did I do here? So I just thought about that today. I was like, Oh man, I should have. And maybe in the future, I will create a little Email box, right? And I can push all the subscription stuff, all the information there. So that's a little nugget for you folks.

[00:11:29] Brian: If you haven't started subscribing to all this stuff, make a new email, create a new, don't put it on your work. One, you can drive yourself crazy, go create a Gmail. It's benign, right? You're not at risk of cyber threats. If you do this you can look at it on your somewhere else. So any who IRS letter had this little They have a newsletter update.

[00:11:49] Brian: They send it out all the time for payroll pros and what's recent on it is they're calling out the employee retention credit, they're saying folks are saying IRS continues to [00:12:00] see the aggressive marketing for the ERC, what they call it, the acronym for it is ERC. Don't let them quick talk you.

[00:12:08] Brian: Employee retention credit, also sometimes called an employee retention tax credit, and they prey on innocent businesses and payroll professionals. Innocent, more like ignorant, would probably be the better word, like if you're not aware of the scam you'll get the call. Hey, we can save you guys ERC.

[00:12:29] Brian: And then you think it's legit because they're talking about something that is legitimate, but they're so right. What are we just talking about this? So using the truth to tell lies, right? Yeah. That's what the scammers do. They're using the truth about ERC to tell you a lie, that they're part of it and they can help you with it and they're not.

[00:12:46] Walt: Absolutely. That's funny that you said that because I just got an email today about that from a Gmail account saying, Hey,

[00:12:55] Brian: yes, shady McShaderson at gmail. com. Exactly.[00:13:00] Great point. That is, yeah. That's one of the nuggets from the newsletter. Another one was, hey, this is a great time to re evaluate our personal tax table and to let your employees know as a payroll professional, not only do it for yourself, right?

[00:13:18] Brian: Get your tax world together. But also as a payroll professional, we can go out and that our companies know, Hey, we're at the mid year. This is a great time to evaluate your employee information profile. Employee self service is your address up to date. Are your tax withholdings up to date is, is everything else in order there?

[00:13:37] Brian: Information, emergency contact, a lot of your benefits. Your beneficiaries and your benefits, right? Things like that. You want to make sure that the employees are staying abreast abreast of this info. It's like on top of this information, any who, another one is IRS recommends all payroll professionals to share this special tax clip with.

[00:13:56] Brian: Tax tip with clients and partners. [00:14:00] This one you'll would like, sir, because we've talked about it many times on our true crime, and we've had a, if you haven't heard our true crime stories, we cover actual cases that deal with. Payroll providers who are scamming their clients, scamming their customers, right?

[00:14:21] Brian: So the irs is to the point now, right? Clearly the irs is also paying attention because they're saying hey When you're picking a new payroll provider, please be careful, right? That the payroll provider, because we got a couple of stories of payroll provider CEOs that are taking your money and going on vacation, literally, right?

[00:14:44] Brian: And look, I'll be honest, the jail time is not a lot. They can, it's worth it for them. You know what I mean? They steal millions and they go get a few years in jail. They probably have millions tucked away. We don't say this on the show. This is, these are for our subscribers, man. We're going to be a little bit [00:15:00] more blunt with our subscribers, right?

[00:15:01] Brian: That's the truth of it. So be careful as a payroll person provide owner. If you're going to find a payroll provider. Please. Super diligent, spend the extra money to vet your choices. Okay, whether that be a lawyer, a CPA, I don't know what care what you got to do. Hire the extra help to go vet them.

[00:15:28] Brian: The time is worth it and the money will be well worth it. Oh, hello. I'm sorry. Because the IRS warns. If a business contracts with an unreliable or fraud or fraudulent provider that can lead to missed tax deposits, theft, or returns, not being filed all things we covered. This is costly. For the affected business because they're legally responsible for reporting and paying the [00:16:00] taxes due regardless of whether the third party payroll service provider makes their required deposits and payments.

[00:16:09] Brian: Let me say it again. Let me say it again. The business will be held liable regardless of what happened to the money. Okay, think about Steve Harvey in this situation. The same thing applies to companies, right? Steve Harvey blames his CPA. IRS doesn't care. Yeah so Steve Harvey paid twice, right? Six, I don't know, whatever million dollars he paid once to the CPA because they stole it.

[00:16:35] Brian: And then he still owed it to the IRS. So he had to pay it again to the IRS. So that was the big call out like, and I tell folks this I'd be, warning people and they don't realize they're like, Oh no, any who that was the IRS newsletter. I found another little nugget from Experian.

[00:16:56] Brian: Experian has an update now that, and I don't know if [00:17:00] if you're not familiar with Experian, Experian is one of the big three credit bureaus that hold our credit scores. And they announced consumers can now choose to share information directly from their employer's payroll service through Experian Verify when applying for credit and blah, blah, blah, and all these things that they need.

[00:17:21] Brian: My only takeaway for this is payroll folks, just be aware because this might add a to do on in your job, and add a task, add something to be aware of. I don't know if it happens autonomously of our, is it an ADP thing that they're doing with Experian and we don't have to get involved?

[00:17:39] Brian: Or is there going to be some involvement from us? So it's a brand new story. Just be keep a lookout. And people start talking that and tripping that in your jobs and office. Oh, we can do it right through payroll now. Just make sure there's nothing that you need to do, or be responsible for, could be a new, it could be a new to do. [00:18:00] Those are the two big things. I had another two things that I wanted to share. One is that there's a blockchain company. There's a company out there using blockchain to try and deliver payroll services. It's right now. It's just to independent workers like, if you're a freelance and you're, things like that.

[00:18:15] Brian: So more to come, I'm going to keep looking into it. Maybe, I'll do a full report on the next news pod. And then something else again, these two, two things that I need to do a little bit more research on. I wanted to dig a little deeper is, and this was a warning about. Employer driven debt issues.

[00:18:36] Brian: And that's what caught my, exactly. They see the, huh, is what caught my attention. Cause I'm like, well, what is that? It doesn't sound right. And what it is my, my oldest just, walked, Oh no, she is still here. It made me think about my oldest who just went through some issues with scamming, and the job, we talked about it and, but they, what they were trying to do is, Hey, you need to buy your equipment. And then,[00:19:00] they were trying to put, so it made me think of this, that one, because one of the scams was trying to do that, like had equipment purchases involved. Now, apparently, companies are legitimately doing this, putting a purchase, and then taking out of their pay.

[00:19:14] Brian: Oh, you got to buy all this, but we'll take it out of your pay. All right. So they're saying that this employer driven debt is ramping up and it's something that we need to be careful with. Exactly. That's not good. That's not a good look for companies to be putting their employees in debt.

[00:19:31] Brian: I think of, I don't remember what company it was, but once upon a time I was with a company that had done away with So there the folks were able to buy retail products, like Amazon stuff from their paychecks, like through the, or rather, and the deduction of it, the payment of it could come through payroll.

[00:19:56] Brian: Remember that, right? They did away with it though [00:20:00] because people were just basically putting them, making themselves broke, buying stuff through this and not really not doing the math or just put it on my, take it out of my payroll, take it out of my payroll, 20 out of every check forever, it adds up if you keep buying stuff, right?

[00:20:17] Brian: And you're going to next, you don't have a check. So it made me think a little bit about that, but just, just all together, that's not a good look right employer driven debt and the takeaway for us and payroll is just be careful that you're not involved in these things because ultimately you're going to have to answer for it a lot Oh, my check is wrong.

[00:20:38] Brian: No, you just signed up for another loan and it's coming out of your pay. You know what I mean? And then it makes me also think about the state. Okay. Rules and regulations as far as deductions are concerned. There's a limit that your employer can impose on your pay. So just be careful with those type of things and state by state there's regulations on how to sign [00:21:00] off.

[00:21:00] Brian: Like you should, some states require a sign off for these deductions. Yeah,

[00:21:06] Walt: and not to get too deep into that, right? But you have to be careful really be careful with that. Very great nugget about the employer issue, because if you work for a company who, let's just say they pay for your background check.

[00:21:21] Walt: And they cover it, but

[00:21:26] Brian: you have this one off manager

[00:21:29] Walt: that just no, you got to pay for it. And I've seen it happen. I've seen to the

[00:21:34] Brian: point where going against the company policy. Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. That's a good call out though, man, because things like that, what's allowable, what's not allowable. And in a paycheck, right?

[00:21:45] Brian: Like exactly why we started the other show. It's about your paycheck to cover these items. Go subscribe, but that's the middle tier. Sorry. So yeah, [00:22:00] that's it folks. That wraps it up. That's. It's about payroll's first news pod. Will be there and we hope you enjoy it till the next time. Peace.