Lynda ArtesaniLegal Accountant and Data Migration Specialist at The Proper Trust

The Offboarding Mistake That Costs You Money #legalaccounting #lawfirms #bookkeeping

20 Apr 2026 · 0 min

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0:27

In this brief segment from a legal‑accounting focused video, the speakers warn that firms often lose money during employee off‑boarding by failing to promptly deactivate benefits and stop salary payments. Speaker A explains that if a departing employee’s 401(k) plan, health insurance, or other benefits (e.g., Anthem health coverage) are not turned off quickly, the provider will continue billing the firm, and recovering those charges later is a nightmare. Speaker B adds that continuing to pay a former employee’s salary creates a direct cash‑flow drain. Together they highlight two immediate, actionable steps—shut down benefits and halt payroll—to avoid unnecessary expenses and cash‑flow problems.

If you have a 401 plan and they have health insurance and all these different benefits, you need to turn those off sooner than later because Anthem is going to keep billing your insurance until you turn it off. And then if you try to get money back, that's just a nightmare in itself. Number 2—
If they're on salary and you're just going to keep getting paid even though they left, that's a lot of lost money, cash flow. If you're worried about cash flow, I'm sorry, ding ding, that's the problem right there.