Accounting & Payroll
Payroll Processing & Compliance
Payroll is the one obligation where the penalties reach through the entity and find the owner personally.
Payroll looks like an administrative task and is legally something quite different.
When you withhold income tax, Social Security and Medicare from an employee’s pay, that money is not yours. You hold it in trust for the government until you remit it. Failing to remit is treated far more seriously than failing to pay your own tax — and through the trust fund recovery penalty, the IRS can assess the entire withheld amount personally against anyone deemed responsible.
It reaches through the corporation. It survives bankruptcy. It is the single largest avoidable risk in most small businesses.
Running it properly
We process payroll on your schedule, remit the deposits on the correct cadence for your deposit schedule, and file the quarterly and annual returns — 941s each quarter, 940 annually, W-2s and W-3s at year end, 1099s for contractors.
The deposit schedule itself trips people up. It is determined by your lookback-period liability, it changes as you grow, and depositing on the wrong frequency incurs penalties even when the full amount is paid.
Worker classification
Treating a worker as a contractor when they function as an employee is common, usually not deliberate, and expensive when found.
The tests turn on behavioural control, financial control and the nature of the relationship — not on what the agreement says or whether the worker prefers 1099 treatment. Reclassification brings back employment taxes, penalties and interest, potentially across several years.
We review classification when workers are onboarded, and re-review when roles change. Where a position is genuinely borderline, we document the reasoning contemporaneously, which is what makes the position defensible later.
Multiple states
Remote and distributed teams create obligations in every state where an employee actually works.
Each of those states generally requires withholding registration, unemployment registration, and its own filings. Reciprocity agreements between neighbouring states change the answer again. We handle the registrations and keep the filings current.
Integrating time and attendance
Most payroll errors originate at the data entry step, when hours are re-keyed from one system into another.
Connecting your time and attendance system directly to payroll removes that step. For businesses running hourly staff across shifts — grocery and retail especially — it is usually the highest-value change available, both for accuracy and for the hours it gives back to whoever was doing the re-keying.
Common questions
What is the trust fund recovery penalty?
Withheld payroll taxes are held in trust for the government. If they are not remitted, the IRS can assess the full amount personally against any individual deemed responsible — owners, officers, sometimes bookkeepers. It pierces the entity, and it is not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Our contractors — are they actually contractors?
Frequently not. Misclassification is one of the most commonly assessed payroll issues, and reclassification brings back taxes, penalties and interest. We review classification as part of onboarding.
Can you handle employees in other states?
Yes. Each state requires its own withholding and unemployment registration, and remote employees create obligations in the state where they work, not where you are.
Do you integrate with our time clock?
Yes. Time and attendance integration removes the re-keying step, which is where most payroll errors actually originate.
Often paired with
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