SuperStar Guest Charles Read, Get Payroll www.GetPayroll.com

The Peril book author.

I love it.

We wrote the book.

I want, I want to talk about the book. So thank you for having this recorded already, Michael. It's awesome. So hello. So, so normally we go live on Facebook and then I put it on YouTube, but this is great. We can Zoom right into the meeting. I love it. And thank you so much for this because I really am interested in what you have to share. So I'm Adrienne Barker. I have Candid Conversations with Adrienne Barker, and I also sell logo merchandise, promotional products, which is what I love.

Very good.

And you are Mr. Charles Reed of Get Payroll with the open door policy. I love that.

That's me.

I— so first, you really have a lot of, uh, and the other program I had everything going across, you know, you have so many titles.

Well, you get old, you get—

you accumulate them over the years. Well, you're a young guy, so I want to hear— tell me about your, uh, your open door policy. I thought that was interesting.

Well, you know, we do payroll for lots of clients, lots of people, and a lot of people have questions. So anybody's welcome to call our office, talk to my staff, and if they can't answer a question, they'll send it to me. They'll send— I'll pick up the phone, I'll talk to you. I mean, I like people, I like to talk to people. You got a problem, you know, I'm a problem solver. So if I can solve your problem off the cuff, we do it at no charge. We just do it as a public service. If I'm gonna have to go do research or something, you know, I'll quote your price, but Normally with my experience, I can usually answer them off the cuff.

So how long have you been in the payroll business? How long has it been for, like, 1991 is when we started the company.

I've been around payroll for, you know, 50 years. Uh, so we've seen it change and change and change, but the company started in '91. Uh, the franchisor that I bought the original office from went bankrupt. And we incorporated in August of '91 as a separate company and have been going ever since.

It's interesting. So I grew up in a family business and I remember payroll, my parents, before some of the, you know, the other names out there. My mom would do it all herself and the amount of time, like just one person could take so much time to make sure and get all their calculations correctly. So I can't try to remember in 1991 what that looked like. Were there some other players in the field going at that time?

Oh, sure. I mean, ADP and Paychex already existed. A lot of the other players are newer. We're now an old-timer. But I grew up in a family business. My father did his payroll on basically on paper spreadsheets that he created and mimeographed. Okay, if you remember that. And that was before Xerox. I remember the first Xerox machine we got. And when I was a young CPA just out of college, I'd go back up there to do corporate taxes for him, and I'd audit all his payroll for him. And I, you know, I told him, he said, stop doing it by hand. But he retired shortly after, so sold the company, and, and he and mother went to California.

Oh, that's nice. I know a lot of people back, you know, and it went ADP and the larger companies came in. A lot of people felt that they were too small, like that their company was too small for such a large company, or that they— that wasn't a good match. A lot of people weren't sure of the match. So is that, you know, what, what got you to go into the payroll business?

Well, when I, when I went and bought the franchise, it had a payroll piece piece already there. I basically hung out my shingle as an accountant. So yeah, I'm a CPA. And so, uh, it was there and I liked it and we used it as a way to sell accounting. And then I took on a partner 15 years ago and about 7 years ago I sold him the accounting practice because I was tired of doing accounting and taxes. And to do that and to be up to speed on payroll, It's a little tough to do both. So I sold him the accounting practice, I kept the payroll, and that's what I enjoy, and we do it, you know, every day. I, you know, I tell my staff there, I'm not gonna retire, they're gonna find me dead at my desk one day. I enjoy coming to work, I enjoy the business, I enjoy my clients, I enjoy the changes. I've spent the last 3 years on IRSAC, the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council. Going up to DC, except this year, 5 times a year dealing with them. We just issued our annual report here the other day, uh, having a blast. So it's, it's a, it's a fun gig.

It's a fun gig in a serious business. I mean, you know, it really, when you think about it, payroll is so serious, and if you get it wrong, you're affecting someone's whole entire life. And I think, you know, and nowadays it's even scarier with everything going on. So I'd like to ask you, that's my kind of first question, is, is how many employees does someone need to start to get payroll? And then explain the seriousness of it. Like, if you, if you have someone like me who's horrible with numbers doing your payroll, you could really end up where? In the IRS jail.

Yes. Well, you have to have one. Okay, just one. And if you incorporate or you file as a corporation, as an LLC, you're an employee if you work in a company, and you have to have payroll. If you take it all as distributions, the IRS is going to come in at some point and recategorize that as payroll, tell you all the FICA taxes and withholding taxes you owe, plus penalties and interest. They'll get you, and it's that serious. If you mess it up They will find you. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And there's all kinds of people looking, looking at you all the time. If you're paying people under the table, paying them cash instead of payroll, it takes one disgruntled employee to go down and file for unemployment, and 2 weeks later the auditor's in your office going through stuff. It's that simple. They will catch you.

Is there an— this is going to sound like a little crazy question, but is there an age group that tends to pay people under the table? I've always wondered this. Is it, is it like the older generation that says, well, you know what, I could do it? Or do you see it a lot with the millennials or the new people coming into business?

I'll tell you where I see it most. I see it from people who grew up in a different culture, where taxes are something you cheat on, you avoid, you only pay when you get caught, rather than the voluntary system we have in this country. And then the next place is younger people, entrepreneurs that are just starting out. It's too much effort. It's too much trouble. I'll just pay the guy $20 an hour for the development, or I need somebody for the day, so I'll just pay them $100. And they don't bother. They don't understand that if you hire somebody for one second, they're on payroll and you've got to report it and you've got to file it and you got to pay it. It's not like a 1099 where if it's under $600, you don't have to pay it, you don't have to record it, you don't have to file, you don't have to send it in. You just pay the person, and as long as they're under $600 for the year, you're not required to report it. But with payroll, If you pay them 10 cents, you pay them a penny, actually, you have to, you have to report it, you have to file it, you have to deposit, you have to do W-2s, 941s, 940s, state unemployment, state revenue. You have to have all the numbers, all the filing. You got to do it right. You don't have a choice.

You really do. So now I had a situation where I opened up my dad's 5th Art Gallery and I used the accounting program that is the retail stores often use. and I found out that I didn't check the, like, the Social Security number to really make sure. So even though I was given a Social Security number, I didn't check the number on the card to make sure it matches. How serious is that?

It's not very serious for you. As long as you withheld and paid them under what you thought was the correct Social Security number, the worst that's going to happen is they're going to correct the number and move the account. You're not in— you're not in trouble. They'll come to you and say this number doesn't match and you need to figure out what it is and you go to the employee and if they won't give you the information, well, you may have to terminate them. But you're not in trouble because you've collected it and paid it on the wages that you paid. That's the important thing. Now, if you don't pay it, then you got problems. So the wrong number is not a big deal.

Okay. And then, so does your system also allow for the, uh, the W-2s, the I-9s, and all of that?

Absolutely. These are all things that you have to have to do payroll. When you hire somebody, you need a W-4, and they just changed this year into a whole new form, and it's very— it's not near as easy. It's not near as easy. Yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy, the new form, and it's very complicated, and a lot of people don't know how to use it and won't use it right. Then besides the W-4, you have to have them fill out an I-9. That's to guarantee that they're legally entitled to work in the U.S. So you have to have those, you file those, and then you have to have numbers from the state for your state withholding. And your state unemployment, maybe two different numbers, maybe one. Then you have to have your federal number, and depending on the locale, you may need local numbers. For instance, if you're in Philadelphia, you have to pay withholding tax to the Philadelphia School District. Uh, in Indianapolis, the city of Indianapolis, New York City, Kansas City, Aurora, a bunch of cities and localities if you're in Pennsylvania or Ohio, the local taxes are insane and crazy. Uh, you know, Pennsylvania used to have 52 different, uh, local authorities. They're now down to 4, but it's, it's just not worth trying to do yourself. I, I promise you.

I, I agree with you. I, I have another question for you. So the W-4 or the W-2 that we fill out?

Well, the W-4 is what the employee fills out to say, this is how much you— this is my withholding status, which determines how much you withhold for the employee's paycheck. They determine that, you don't. They tell you how many deductions. It's not the same way as it used to be, how many exemptions, but they tell you what goes into how much you're going to withhold from their check according to the charts that the IRS issues. The idea is that at the end of the year, they shouldn't owe anything and they shouldn't have anything coming back. It's supposed to match up.

It's so confusing though. And I, so I had an opportunity to work for the United States Census because I wanted to, um, knock on doors and do my part. And they, they, that's the first time I really saw the form because I've been a 1099 employee and I'm like, where's the little backup? But I noticed that the whole thing was about like if you have a second job and the— I mean, the whole thing was so confusing to me. I didn't even realize that there was a new form.

Yeah, it went into effect January 1st of this year. We talked with the IRS. IRSAC is not really happy with it. It really doesn't do the job very well. It's very confusing. The trick is to use their online portal that steps you through everything and answers all the questions and basically spits one out at the end. And that's the best way to do it.

Okay, so it would be nice if the United States— actually, the federal government, the US Census— didn't really— that wasn't part of the process.

So it's brand new and people are getting used to it, and a lot of people don't know about the online piece. It's not an online W-4, but it's their explanation, all the answers, and you just, you go through and you check everything off. Do you have a second job? How much money do you make? Do you have more dependents? Is your wife working? Is your husband working? What do they make? What do they withhold? Do you want extra withholding? Uh, you know, do you have retirement? Do you have investments? Do you have a home that has mortgage interest? All these things go in together. To try and make it as exact as possible because they want to collect everything that's due. Believe me, the IRS does, but they really don't want to collect anything extra. I mean, they're not out there to live off of your money. You give it to them, they'll hold on to it for you, but that's not their job. Their job is to collect all the taxes that are due and only the taxes that are due. So that's why they've tried to improve this. It just has a ways to go yet.

So if I was employed— so I'm a contract of independent, I see— but if I was employed with a company, if I worked for Old Navy and I've worked there for 4 years, on January 2nd, did they send me a new W-4 for me to fill out?

No. This is one of the things that we disagreed with. The last time they changed the W-4 form, everybody had to fill out a new one. That was 20 years ago. This time, we as a service bureau and you as an employer have to maintain both the old and the new systems.

Oh, wow.

Until they go away. You can't use the old form anymore, but if they filled out the old form last year or the year before, the year before, whatever, you still have to withhold on that basis and calculate their taxes on that basis. And then if they are new hire this year, you have to use the new W-4 form and the new basis and a new way to do it. So we're having to maintain two systems at the moment. It's not, it's not easy, but this is why you need a GetPayroll.

Like, this is, this is— I mean, if there— if we could just talk about all the checklists, this is a big one right now. And then, so do you also have a system where people can, uh, clock in on their computer or phone?

Absolutely. We have a full set of timekeeping. They can use their phone. They can use their computer. They can use the network. They can use a time clock. They can use cards. They can use magnetic cards. They can use biometrics. Whatever works best for the particular employer, and it varies. I mean, biometric is, is really good I was pitching a biometric clock to a client of mine, and she said, oh, we don't need that, you know, we don't, we don't need that. And I said, Joanne, let's do this. Let's put a little camera up because the clock was in a back corridor, and let's watch the clock for a week and see what happens. At the end of the week, she fired 3 people for buddy punching. They were punching other people in or out. Yeah, fired 3 people. Out of 100. And got a biometric clock, because if you don't monitor that clock, people will cheat if they can. I worked for Colgate-Palmolive.

I'm sorry, I interrupted you. I apologize. Was it because someone was lazy and said, hey Joe, clock me out while you're clocking yourself out?

No, or was it clock me in? Okay, because I'm going to be late. It happens all the time.

Really? Oh my gosh, the biometrics is the way to go.

They estimate that somewhere between 1 and 10% of your payroll is wasted if you don't have a timekeeping system. Wow. When I worked for Colgate-Palmolive just out of the Marine Corps, I was labor before I went to college. The clock was an old manual punch clock like you see in the old movies. But the supervisor was there, and he turned on the clock 5 minutes before the shift started, and 5 minutes after, he unplugged the key and took it with him. If you came in late, you had to get him to turn on the clock so you could punch in. And that's— they had to manage the clock, otherwise you'd have ghost employees and buddy punching all the time.

Wow. Wow. All I remember is I could never get the thing lined up correctly. And I was always yelled at because I had like the sloppiest time cards, because then I kept putting it in. And finally, I think they got rid of the whole system because of me.

Yeah, it's gotten better.

I, I didn't realize that people try to, um— I found when I was, you know, helping with doing like time cards and stuff that employees are very much to the minute. I got in at 7:47, and that's the time I want to be paid from. And, you know, it's difficult having to add up those, you know, the time before and after, and everyone's always so confused. And some companies are like, I don't care if you get there early, you're getting paid for the hours that you're working. How— what is the real, like, rule on that?

You can't do that. If they're working, you have to pay them. If you allow them to come in early and work, not sit around and have a cigarette, But if you let them on the job early, the moment they start working, you got to start paying them. And you have to pay them until they stop working. So with employees, they're very, very precise about the moment they clock in. But you know, they're not near as precise about the moment they clock out. If, you know, that gets delayed 5 or 10 minutes because they have to use the restroom or they have another cigarette or they need something for the lunchroom, You know, they don't come back and say, oh, well, I really quit working 5 minutes earlier. They— that normally doesn't happen. They normally don't let the supervisor know that.

That is so true. I think that this is so important that every company really has to make sure they have a system for logging in and logging out because you don't really want to put that on the employee to have to try to, you know, manage it themselves. Or come up with a time. And I know a lot of— you know who tends to do that a lot? I don't even know why they're not using a payroll system, but unemployment agencies.

Well, unemployment agencies, it's a fact that you have to look for jobs and you have to report that and so on and so forth. But timekeeping is terribly important for most employers. I mean, if you're sitting there at the desk—

these temp-to-hire companies.

Oh, temp-to-hire, yeah. And they do, a lot of them have very sophisticated timekeeping systems. Okay. But again, they're billing the employer for the time. So if the time's a little large, well, they just bill the employer. So they, you know, they're not as concerned about that last minute. The employer who hires them needs to be. And say to the temp company, oh, no, no, no, you got him down from 8 to 5, but he didn't show up until 8:15 and left at 4:45, so I'm not going to pay you for that. Because, you know, his time was 8 to 5, and we're going to bill you for it. If he wasn't there, you're going to have to pay for it anyway. So the employer, if he's using temporary staff, has to keep track of it. He has to set them up on some sort of timekeeping.

And that's just a sheet of paper. What about the old-fashioned sheet of paper?

It works. It, it works, but there's no clock on that paper that is going to guarantee when he signs it that that's the time he signed in or signed out. So if he shows up at 8:05 and puts down 8 AM and signs it, how do you know, right? Okay, so that's why electronic systems or manual punch clocks, anything with the built-in clock that requires them to do something, even it's just swipe a card. Uh, we just put one in for another company. Uh, it's their security card and their payroll card, so they swipe the security system and then they swipe the payroll system as they go by. They do it twice because if they want to run out to the car or they have to go get a guest or something like that, they don't want to be clocking out of the payroll system they just want to clock out of the security system.

So interesting, interesting. All right, now how about this though? So have you ever seen where a salaried employee would clock in and out?

Oh yeah, uh, there's several situations where you need to record salary hours, and then there's certain salary jobs that actually pay overtime. Okay, uh, new, new CPAs working for a a big accounting firm. They pay them overtime over 40 hours. So yeah, and then what comes to mind offhand is you have to report hours for salary people to the state of Oregon and others. You have to, you know, and frankly, most of our clients that are there just report 40 hours a week and don't track the salary people even though they're required to. They just report the 40 because that has to do with certain benefits from the state and so on. You have to work so many hours and you get so many things per hour and this kind of thing. So yeah, there are cases.

Okay, interesting. That helps me. Thank you. This is such a great conversation, by the way. I am— you probably saw my SCORE thing, so I— have you done anything with SCORE?

I'm a SCORE mentor.

You are?

Yes.

I am too. So very lovely. I— so I'm the vice president here for Volusia Flagler And have you done— have you had SCORE presentations?

Yeah, in fact, that's what I signed up for is to do presentations as opposed to the individual mentoring. I do some of that, but really I would much rather do presentations on payroll. So this year it's a little tough with COVID but yeah.

But isn't it more important this year with COVID that because people are now working remotely that they have a system like yours And that makes it much easier to be able to keep track of all your employees throughout the United States or globally.

And you can do your timekeeping remotely from their computer at home. So yeah, the— anything that disperses employees and reduces oversight of management, you need systems to compensate for. Because, you know, if you're 3 guys in an office, you and 2 employees, well, you're there. You see them when they come in. You see them when they leave. You know when they go to lunch. It's not a big deal. But if they're working from home or they're in other states and you multiply that by 100, well, you know, if you don't have systems in place, you're lost.

Yeah. I mean, it just— obviously, you really have to have something like this. All right, I have like— so I want to ask you about COVID-19 and payroll. And the payroll protection— there's not a lot of companies right now that are talking about what to do if your employee has COVID-19. Like, I don't really— I ask a lot of people what their company's policies are, and a lot of people are like, it feels like iffy to them. They're not really sure, you know, if they're able to go into work if they're sick or if they're going to get paid if they're not sick. And I had heard that the payroll protection that it pays 2 weeks if you have an employee that's off for 2 weeks for COVID?

Yes, there are some under the FFRCA. If you have an employee that has to be home for COVID-related circumstances, either they have it, they have to stay home with the kids, with the wife, whatever, you're required to pay them if you're under a 500-person employer. You're required to pay them up to 12 weeks. Now, the government gives you a credit back for that, okay, but you have to pay it out and then you get it back against your 941. We have very few employers that have actually taken advantage of it. Most of them have either laid people off or continue to pay them. We have a lot of people that are working from home Even though the kids are sick, one of my people is out right now. Granddaughter who lives with them, the daycare came down with COVID They're testing the grandbaby. She went and got tested. She's clear at the moment, but she's working from home for 2 weeks. And we're just paying her her full, her full hourly wage while she works from home. So that's what a lot of our clients are doing, is they're just having people work from home even though it's COVID-related. So, and really the COVID number of COVID cases, yeah, we're at what, 12 million COVID cases out of 330 million people. It's a large number of cases, but in terms of if you've got 5 people working for you, you probably don't have a case. If you've got 50, maybe you have one. So, it's, the shutdowns are far more dare for the companies than the actual COVID itself on employees. Because it's, it's still as widespread as it is, it's still a small number compared to the population. And a lot of it, of course, as we know, is older people in nursing homes and so on, and they're, they're not in the workforce. So, you know, when, when the nursing home for 100 people all come down with COVID um, nobody's not working. I mean, the The people at the nursing home are still having to work and take care of them. So that's not the big effect on payroll. The mandated shutdowns is the big thing of having to have people at home. And if they can't work from home, that's where you have a real problem. Then you have to pay them even though they're not working.

OK, so I know someone that that happened to. And their company, they're having a lot of the drivers— the drivers have to be on the road are, are testing positive and they're being quarantined. But let me make sure I understand this. So, so is this across the board for every company that has 500 or less, or they have to be part of something?

It is unless you file for an exemption. Okay, if you can't do it, if it's going to break you to do it, they'll let you off the hook. Okay? Not many companies are doing it. We have probably out of our maybe half of 1% of our clients have actually done it. Okay? It's not that big of a thing for our clientele to do. But yeah, you have to do it and it's 12 weeks. It's basically family medical leave applied to COVID. So if you're sick or the family's sick for COVID, you have to give them FMLA, but you get to take that as a credit against your other taxes.

All right, so you're saying if they can't afford it at the time because they're going to get it at the, the back, but if that day, that time, they can't afford to, then the, then the employee is told that they have to quarantine without getting paid?

Well, they, they don't pay them and they go get their unemployment. Okay, so that's the other step. See, earlier on, uh, until the end of August when you were getting that extra $600 a week from the feds on top of your state unemployment, there are a lot of people who'd rather take the unemployment than work. So fire me, please, so I can go get I can get paid $50,000 a year for not working. It was a farce.

It didn't make sense to me. I said that right away. I'm like, wait a second, nobody's gonna wanna go back to work. We're in Florida, the lowest minimum wage that you could go. So I don't know, it didn't make sense to me. But what bothers me right now is hearing someone say, well, my company, I have to come in. You know, they— I have to go in even if I'm— I've heard where, oh, oh, your, your spouse is positive. Well, you still could come in. You probably don't have it anyways.

That's, that's just— that's not good business. Okay. And I, you know, people who do that, there's all kinds of business people, good, bad, and indifferent. And those people fall into the bad category.

I'm sorry.

They shouldn't be doing that kind of thing. They should be trying to take care of their employees, pay them if they can, get the credit back for it. If not, make sure they get their unemployment, help them with that, whatever it takes. Because you're going to want them to come back at some point in time, and good employees are hard to find, as we all know.

And your reputation too. So I just— I don't want to beat this dead horse, but I want to say that— If you are an employee that needs to take time or your spouse needs to take time and you're concerned about your position, you should ask if they're covered or if you can take it under the FMLA Act.

Absolutely, because it's emergency FMLA and you need to ask about that. They should be paying you 75% under FMLA, 100% under this, but they should be paying you for that period of time you're out because of a direct COVID relation. I mean, the kids are having to be home, so you have to stay home and take care of them because the school shut down from COVID That counts. The spouse is sick from COVID and you have to take care of them. You've got COVID and you have to quarantine. Your town is quarantined. You're told to stay— like early in the year, there was a shutdown. You just— nobody was supposed to work. Unless you were an essential employee, that counted. So all of that comes in, and yeah, you should talk to— if you're an employee and COVID's affecting you like that, you need to talk to your employer. If you're working for a small employer, they should be taking care of you.

You know what, thank you, because this is not a conversation that I'm hearing a lot. And, you know, I'm involved in my local chambers and I'm involved in business. I'm sure I miss meetings. I'm not going to every meeting, but this is not something that I'm reading a lot about. There's not a lot of articles about it. It sounds kind of like a, you know, shh, we're not talking about it. So I really appreciate it, kind of like bringing it to the forefront, because I, I'm just, I, I just have friends and family that I hear the same thing, that, you know, there's, there's a concern, or you have to, you know, we want to see. Oh, I know what the thing is. If you're, if you're, let's just say that I work with someone who tested, uh, My wife worked with someone who tested positive. So now I don't know, and the company will— and it takes me 3 days to actually get a test result back. And the company says, well, you're responsible for that. We don't do anything until we know you're positive.

No, that doesn't— that doesn't— it's not going to— that's not going to fly. You need to talk to your labor department about that, because that's not the way it's supposed to work. And the companies are getting recompense for this. So it's not like they're out the money. So if they take that kind of attitude, you need to take it up with your labor regulators in your state. They should help you with that.

Thank you. This is a big deal, by the way. This is a really big deal. One more question before I let you go. I really— thank you so much. OK, the next question is this one. When I worked for American Cancer Society, which I loved every minute of every second, that I work for ACS, they, when you went on vacation, you truly went on vacation. They kind of like kicked you out of everything. They said, we don't want you, you know, we're not, you're on vacation, you're PTO time. So they were, they would block you from the, now that may be not everyone, so don't get mad at me if I say this and your office didn't do it, but I have seen when people are off that they will limit the access that you have because they want you to enjoy your time. And not be working because they're concerned about you're working when you're not being paid.

That's their privilege. They don't have to give you access to anything at the office if you're on vacation. I'm not sure I agree with that, but I agree with the fact that if you're on vacation, you should be on vacation and turn off your phone and don't plug into your email. You need time to decompress. So I believe in that. But yeah, that's, that's a choice they make. I wish I could do it to myself.

I know when you grow up in business, you tend to— they were surprised with me because I'm always using email. But I, you know, I used to work for Muscular Dystrophy Association, and there was a woman that would come in and she worked for like the larger umbrella nonprofit charities that would give money, and she would always be on a trip and she was always and she had all these times she would go away, but she only went away for like a long weekend. And she got sick and she was out for 2 weeks, and they found out that she was embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I'll never forget, the executive director said to me, we learned a big lesson, Adrienne, that you have to have your employees take a full week off. You have to do it because That's the only way you sometimes can catch if something is going on.

They're absolutely right. I had in one of the nonprofits I was the treasurer at, we had an embezzlement from the executive director. And we had in a— one of our members was the ex-deputy director of the FBI, and he brought in an old friend who was a bank fraud examiner and had done 35 years of bank fraud. And he got her to confess in about 15 minutes. And I talked to him about it, and I said, Dave, you know, talk to me about this. He says nobody ever goes into the bank with the intention of embezzling money. It just happens. The, you know, one day they borrow $10 for lunch and then pay it back. Nobody says anything. They do it again, they do it again, and one day they don't pay it back, and they never get caught. Then they do $20, and then it's $100, and then it goes on and on, and it accelerates, and they're just on this slippery slope, and it goes on for years until they get caught, like your friend, or your acquaintance, excuse me. They get sick, and somebody else gets into the work and goes, what's going on? Or the auditor gets into it, or somebody gets into it. The woman in Illinois that worked for one of the counties that got like $50 million over 30 years, she had a horse farm, you know, and finally she got sick. So yeah, your people need to take vacations.

Yeah, it's so interesting. I love, you know, anything to do with payroll. So even though you sell all the processes, you know so much about payroll and it kind of combines with your knowledge of HR, which to me is really cool. I love that. So there's— it's a nice, like, round, um, round, round way about you, Mr. Reed, to match your round head.

Exactly.

Thank you. You're so— you're so versed in payroll, and I think that's great. So you are, uh, nationwide?

Yes, we're currently— I think we're in 47 states. But we're capable of working in all of them. We've had clients in all of them at one time or another. So yeah, we're nationwide. We, we got into the internet back in the '90s and went nationwide. We're probably one of the smaller of the national firms, but we enjoy it and we work in all the states and deal with them and it's fun. We've got clients all over the place and it makes for an interesting mix.

I said any children, are you— you have children that will be coming into the business?

No, my children went other ways. I married a woman with 5 children.

Nice.

And adopted the 2 babies. The older— the boys were older and didn't choose to be adopted. But my baby's 56. So, you know, she's— and she doesn't like to be reminded of that. And—

oh, why?

Ruth and I were married for 45 years before she passed.

So, you know, sorry.

I claim insanity about marrying a woman with 5 kids, but We had a very good marriage and, you know, lasted longer than most of them do these days. So, you know, it was pretty good. But no, I've got key employees that the company is going to go to in the end.

So I love that. Oh, that is really a beautiful thing to do. A handful. I call 5 children a handful.

Yeah, at a minimum.

How many employees do you have?

We have just over a dozen.

Wow, wow, Michael's a nice young man. I love it. He's, he's very smart with the IT. He— I think that he's very smart. He reads the terms and conditions and knew that, you know, I've been using the app and I tell people just to delete it with the BeLive app. But I like the fact that he was concerned for you, and he should be. So he wasn't just concerned for you, he He's concerned for all of his customers too, all of your clients. I felt like that was his number one concern. So kudos to Mike.

Michael's my videographer and he does all of our videos and commercials and sets up these things and so on and so forth. And he's, he's a very, very talented young man. Uh, we do commercials for our clients.

Wait, what? What do you mean?

We offer for new clients if they sign up for payroll, to do a 30-second video commercial for them. And Michael and Pete are in charge of that. Pete writes the copy, or Michael writes the copy sometimes, and we shoot either live or over video 30-second commercials professionally done for our clients.

Oh, Mr. Reed, that is intense. That is, that is incredible gift to give. And what made you think of that, and when did you think of that?

Well, you can't see it, but we built a studio for our video blogs and so on. And so we have this rather expensive studio sitting here with the equipment, teleprompters, cameras, lights, microphones, all this stuff. And I said, hey, you know, this world of video, you know, maybe some of our clients would like to take advantage of this. You know, it's just sitting here. It doesn't Costs us almost nothing. It costs Michael a couple hours of his time. I pay him for it anyway. So why not offer our clients an add-on service, a value-add that ADP and Paychex aren't offering them?

Wow. Wow. And then, so is that on your YouTube channel too? Do you post them all on your YouTube channel?

We post them, we post them on YouTube as well. So, and we send them out to, we send them out to all our clients as a promo. So here's one of our other clients, helps build the community and hopefully gets them some business. I mean, we've done— we have got a client that does garage floors. We had— we did one for another blogger, podcaster. We did one for her because she didn't have a video commercial. She loves it. She says it's brought her more people than she knows what to do with. So we just do it for people we like and new customers and existing customers. And yeah, a 30-second video commercial in this day and age, you got to have video.

I think it's absolutely— my gosh, it may even be better than a box of imprinted pens, which is what I do, custom logo merchandise. Video, that's— that is really brilliant. That just shows you. Now, did I see a book? You're an author.

This is my most current book. Let's see, The Payroll Book. Okay, uh, it's a guide for small business and startups.

And what's in it? Is it just— I feel like it's gonna be little words.

It's, it's, it's 30 years of experience distilled into 85,000 words.

Holy moly.

It's designed for small businesses, how you start out, what kind of entity you choose, who's an employee, who's a contractor. How do you calculate time? How do you pay them? How do you file? How do you make your deposits? What happens when the IRS makes a mistake and sends you a bill for thousands of dollars that you don't owe? How do you do a handbook? What's a PEO? On and on and on, 85,000 words of what you need to know as a business person about payroll.

That is, you know what, I just want to make a little plug for your book. If you are a parent who has a child, let us say, who wants to be an entrepreneur, I recommend this book. That's important. Like often you think, well, but you know, this is a gift. This is a time now, and you know what, we're all talking about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, and Mr. Reed and I love SCORE. That's really what it's about. So it, oh my gosh, this is great. I'm excited to I'm so excited that we met because, and we have a SCORE relationship together. SCORE's amazing. By the way, with SCORE now, if we have you come back and do a workshop for our SCORE, it is, it's, you know, publicized nationally now.

Good.

I hope you know that. So SCORE Volusia Flagler would like to have you, host you for your presentation, and we would like to do that soon because I think that what we spoke about is very important. And though I'll have it on my own personal— with my personal connections, SCORE is quite different. So if we can maybe talk about that afterwards, I would love to do it unless your local office wants to do it, but we're happy to host you.

My pleasure.

This is great. Thank you so much for your time. I feel like I could talk to you for, for days. You're such a nice man. And tell your daughter I'm 58 and look how young I look.

Bravo!

And my parents were married just about 70 years, and my father lost his wife— my mom passed away just 2 months before their 70th— and he really couldn't understand. He had a hard time, but he worked till the day he was in the hospital. He had 5 art galleries that he owns, a museum, and he was a very hardworking man. And, you know, my mom was the one that played with the money and she understood the money and payroll. And she, you know what, they, they amazingly enough, they, they have the same treasurer for years. But I remember the day that my mom, when they finally got the payroll system. But you know what, forget the big guys, go with a family-owned business, the man that's been doing this for years, who could do a video for you and he may even throw in the book. You ever throw in the book? Does the book—

Yeah, I do. They do me no good sitting in the next office.

That's awesome. You're awesome. You have a nice website too, by the way, GetPayroll. Very nice. So I can't wait. So make sure I get a copy of this recording quickly so I could put it up. And thank you so much. Have a great— Oh, wait, what's happening for Thanksgiving? I just have to hear who's going to be around your table.

Probably a couple of friends. My daughter is going to her in-laws, and they're her in-laws, not mine.

Yeah, my kids are all— I have a 14-year-old. See, at 58, I have a 14-year-old.

So that's— I heard that on one of your broadcasts. It was a surprise at 44. Yeah, surprise, surprise.

I think we're going to do Cornish game hens and call it a day.

I've done that in the past too. Yes.

Thank you so much. Have a great rest of the day and night. And thank you so much for your time today.

My pleasure, Adrian. My pleasure.

Thank you. And tell Mike he's got to press the recording button off.

OK. Michael, you can turn off the recording.

Michael, you're awesome. Hey, you're good looking too, Michael.