How S&L Companies Cut Certified Payroll to Under an Hour a Week

The Challenge

Reporting That Could Not Keep Up

We spoke with Karen Richards, Business Manager and Payroll Administrator at S&L Companies, who explained their prevailing wage challenges. More than a decade ago, S&L Companies was originally running its payroll manually in-house through its accounting software that provided a very simple, standard certified payroll report. 90% of S&L Companies' business requires certified payroll reports.

• Multi-jurisdiction forms: Because S&L had complex prevailing wage reporting needs with projects in various states and municipalities around the country, they had to manually transfer their simple reports to various state-required forms, which took a significant amount of time each week.

• A gap in the payroll transition: As the company transitioned to an outside payroll provider, they also needed to find an outside provider to process their certified payroll reports.

• Constant volume and variability: S&L Companies runs weekly payroll and currently has seven prevailing wage projects. At any given time, they can add multiple new projects. Each job varies in terms of the number of employees - some have up to 30.

One hour a week, seven projects, zero rework. S&L Companies once spent hours every week retyping payroll data into whatever form each state or municipality demanded. Today, they manage certified payroll for seven active prevailing wage projects in under an hour a week, and when a new job opens in a new jurisdiction, the compliant report format is already there waiting. 

Results-Driven Solutions

Rather than helping S&L fill out state forms faster, Points North built a workflow that pulls payroll data straight from Paychex Flex® into compliant reports, removing the manual transfer step altogether. 

• A decade of streamlined workflow: Over the past 10+ years, Points North's solution has improved S&L's business processes and has allowed them a streamlined workflow that is efficient and easy to use. Points North has saved the client significant time spent on certified payroll reporting.

• Automation with manual control: Despite the process now being partially automated, if S&L needs to make quick changes or adjustments, it is easy for her to manually edit her reports on the fly as needed.

• Compliance that keeps pace: S&L is confident in Points North's ability to maintain compliant report formats by consistently adding new and updated reports to support their growing prevailing wage needs, regardless of what new state or city their project is in.

• Five hours back every week: Now it takes S&L's payroll team less than one hour per week to manage certified payroll in Points North's platform, make any adjustments needed, and print out the reports. With up to 30 employees per job, the automation capabilities of Certified Payroll Reporting vs. having to enter everything manually into the actual template, breaking out all the various taxes and deductions, garnishments, etc., save on average 5 hours per week.

Ready to Recover Hours Back?

See how Certified Payroll Reporting connects to the payroll system your team already uses, generates federal, state, and municipal reports in minutes, and removes manual data entry from certified payroll altogether. 

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