What Season 17 Taught Us About Payroll’s Future

[00:00:00] Welcome back, folks. It's another episode of It's About Payroll. Episode 211. Season 18, I believe. Or no, we're doing, we're in 18, but we're doing season 17 review. And before we get into anything, how are you doing today, sir?

[00:00:20] Good. Glad for another day. Another opportunity, man. Just to be good, great, whatever it is. And just, you know, just paying it forward, bro. You know, I realize, you know, I realize like, you know, just to get a little personal here, like, you know, we all go through things and we're all experiencing our own pressures in life for the best from a family standpoint, financial standpoint, work relationship.

[00:00:50] There might be different things going on at the same time. You know what I'm saying? At the end. Yep. Yep. Yep. We have to choose to still do the right things, still, you know, be a good person and pay it forward for others. Right. And, you know, and I think once we do that, we'll encourage ourselves a little bit, you know, because sometimes, you know, we do need some lifting up ourselves.

[00:01:13] But I found for me that when I encourage someone else or when I help someone else, it kind of lifts me up a little bit as well. You know what I'm saying? It kind of fuels me to, you know, so I just encourage listeners to, to just continue to be, you know, good and great. And, you know, just, you know, as you, as you put others first, you know, I pray that, you know, you'll, you'll be able to get poured back into and find your, find your outlets and everything, you know?

[00:01:43] Yeah. Yeah. You said something interesting. You said you have to be, and that's the thing. Not everybody is, right? Not everybody wants to be good or better person. And I was just selling my wife. Like, I'm, I'm still amazed by that it's Oaks still, you know, choose to be spoon fed things that they could go get themselves. Right.

[00:02:11] And that, but that makes a difference. I learned a long time ago. There are three types of people. Those who make things happen. Those who watch things happen. And those who wonder what happened. So it's, you know, you never know what bucket you're in. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that's just a testament to your character. You want to be a good, you are uplifted by helping folks.

[00:02:40] And that's what drives you and you're generous in that manner. Cause it's like, it fuels you. Right. I mean, thank you for that. I appreciate it, man. Everybody is definitely, and I'm sure the listeners and watchers will appreciate it. Cause we're all always going through something. Right. There's like that real cool post out there. We're all going through different levels, different devils and dah, dah, dah. It's all like, it's like a very poetically written. I forget, I forget how it is, but it's, it's, you know, it's a good one.

[00:03:10] All right, man. You got any payroll news? Share with us before we get into the season and review? No, just wanted to, you know, give, cause I'm in the middle of a tax cleanup project for a company that I'm working with right now. And, um, just wanted to, you know, for those of you that may not have the experience with the tech tax cleanup or maybe not necessarily doing more beyond the tax setup.

[00:03:37] I would say just, you know, much to the, uh, to the motto that Brian created trust, but verify, right. Just honestly, you know, you have to check the payroll providers that service you. Right. And, you know, recently found out that, you know, I asked the question and are mentioned the project to one of the reps that, you know, for the company, the payroll provider that we, that we, we have currently. And their response was like, Oh yeah.

[00:04:06] There's a known issue for late submittals and filings on taxes. It's happening with underprivance and stuff like that. So when I heard that, I was just like, that was like, you know, it made me feel, you know, disheartened, but also upset, you know, cause that's unacceptable because that impacts. You know, the company and with fees and, you know, all those interests penalties and stuff like that.

[00:04:31] So I encourage you, you know, I guess this is more of a financial fitness thing, right? Like, like I encourage you to triple check everything, right? And if you have access to the specific agencies online, um, or if it's not in your purview and someone else has access, make sure they're triple checking those things because sometimes the, if the payroll provider that you have doesn't get the notices, the agencies will actually have the notices online.

[00:05:02] You know, you don't see the outstanding balances and stuff like that. So you'd be able to log in and catch those things and be like, okay, well, I know that payroll provider app, this payroll provider that we use says that they filed. And I see the report there. I see the nine 41 there, but this agent, I see the state, the state filing there, but on the actual state site is saying that it's missing. Why is it, why is it not working? So that will help you alleviate some headaches and stuff like that.

[00:05:31] So I'm, you know, just want to encourage folks with that. Yes, man. Yes. And thank you for doing that. If any, if any of the students of the last cohort are listening, you know, I, I stress the trust, but verify, which is not mine, by the way that, you know, I didn't call. Yeah. I, I, I took it from the ether. Sure.

[00:05:54] Um, but cause I talked about this ad nauseam throughout the course and we talk about it all the time. You're confirming it now in real practice that you have to trust or verify that. Yeah. It's great that the vendors have the, you know, are doing it for us, but we have to check and we should build in my, you know, we have to build these checks and balances, especially when there's an identified issue.

[00:06:21] And I did look up the vendor and they kind of have a third party that does the tax service. And I learned that from another big payroll vendor out there, they don't always do it in house. They subcontracted to other companies that are doing the taxes for their clients through the, right? So now it's, it adds that layer of delay because you're moving into your vendor, your vendors moving into a third party. That third party has got to move it to the applicable agencies.

[00:06:51] And what do we always say? The more times than not, the more hands that are in the pot, the more chance there is to fumble or less of them slip through the cracks or whatever. Right. You know, so. Yep. At each change of hands is an audit opportunity. Right. So now, right. So it's, what a great way to start the show. Cause it's, it's, it's about payroll. It's not all about payroll.

[00:07:21] This is the pet peeve of mine. Switching gears here. I don't know if you've ever noticed this for you. Like if, if anybody says, oh yeah, well, a host, a show. It's all about payroll. It's all about payroll. It's like, it's all about payroll. Right now. You know, I'm not, I don't get offended because yes, me, you're going to find it. Hopefully, you know, we might need to go get that SEO going. It's all about payroll as well. Right. But it's about payroll is the name of the show.

[00:07:49] There's no all in the title that they folks added in there because I guess that's all we talk about, which is true. And it's, it's like the title and the explanation all in one, but yeah. Not to drag this on, but like I, when you were speaking, right. Like, you know, like sometimes I have a vivid imagination and you know, like it go out there and stuff, but as you were saying, like when there's. I think everybody knows from the show. Yeah. Go ahead.

[00:08:15] When there's a change of hands, like when, when you're passing things along, you know, and it changes hands. Right. I, I, I envision like us trying to pass like water to our hands and you, you trying to cup your hands like this, like this cup it and scoop it over instead of using the right tools, which is an audit as a tool, you know, or whatever, and then using the cup to scoop it up and there'll be less weight wasting. Right. You know what I'm saying?

[00:08:44] So that's kind of what I envision. I hope that makes sense. I like it. I like it. No, I like it. You gotta, you gotta, yeah. Yeah. That's great. You could definitely take that into learning visual. Like if people need to, especially get new to payroll. Right. And it's like, well, what are they saying? You know, what do they even mean? That's a good one. I like that. All right. I do have a couple of things all around AI. As we continue this AI. Jerry, how can I say? Revolution.

[00:09:15] Evolution. It's now impacting how payroll is getting done. Speaking of taxes, there's a company out there called symmetry that does payroll taxes exclusively. It sounds like, or they're just. La la la. Let me symmetry is the name of the company. The company launches an MCP server for its payroll tax engine. Either way, they're unleashing agentic pay agentic AI in their payroll tax engine.

[00:09:43] And, oh, I've seen that logo before. Okay. And this is marking the, you know, I don't know if it's first, I would imagine there's others, but one of the first companies that are doing more than just a chat bot in payroll with AI. They're unleashing AI in its tax calculations.

[00:10:08] And it's a great article about what it's, what it's doing and how it's impacting the tax portion of it, which I think is a great place for it to start because the tax piece is very. It's, it's, it's mathematical. It's just it's calculations, right? It's just it's calculations, right? That's the place where it's truly a calculation. Very black and white, very logic, formulaic, you know? So, and so that's one thing with them.

[00:10:35] And then Gusto is doing something with text to process payroll using AI. So that's another one. And then personally, I just use the voice feature with chat GPT and the, the word judgment kept recurring in my conversations. I think we, we even spoke about it. It was, it was last couple of shows.

[00:11:04] I was like, oh, I don't think judgment has a place in payroll. And then I'm like, all right, voice chat, you know, define the word judgment. And in the definition, it does say like a court ruling, very definitive fact. Fact was in the, in the definite. And I was like, oh wait, so maybe it does have a place in payroll, the word judgment, because it's fact driven. It's fact, you know?

[00:11:28] So, and I was like, so I challenged the voice and I said, well, I'm having trouble understanding how it applies to payroll. And, you know, me, I just, I had a conversation with chat about the word judgment and how it applied to payroll. And, you know, where it got me to was, because it said, it tried to use worker classification as an example. And I was like, well, worker classification is very definitive. Well, how would that be a judgment call? And give me another example.

[00:11:57] And it said, all right, well, it's a bonus was given at that, you know, whatever point somebody was getting a bonus. You have to, you have to determine whether it's discretionary, non-discretionary, because it's going to impact regular rate of pay. So now this is where chat history comes into play because our chat history is deep in federal law with regular rate of pay, overtime tips, the calculations, what goes into that regular rate of pay, what's excluded.

[00:12:28] And, you know, it was saying like, you know, is it, is it in this, and that's the qualifier for the bonus. If it's discretionary, then it's not included in the regular rate of pay. If it's not discretionary, if it's a mandatory bonus, it is included in the regular rate of pay. And I went on to say, well, what about company policy and handbook?

[00:12:54] And they were like, you know, the handbook doesn't cover every edge case that comes up in payroll. So it's left to your judgment as a payroll person to document the facts, how you made the call and share it with colleagues to get, you know, buy in and confirmation and apply it and move on. And I was like, oh, okay, you know, I was like, wow.

[00:13:23] And it was like, it was a little bit of a mind blower because I was like, holy cow, I just had a freaking payroll conversation with child GPT. Yeah. So and we've been saying that in the last few episodes that or and definitely in conversations that we've had either on or offline, that.

[00:13:45] I think that AI is a place where payroll or payroll is a is a place where AI can absolutely flourish because it's. A lot of it is compliance, it's logic, it's it's back driven, there's quality like I get there's some judgment that needs. Now I understand that there's a judgment piece which will keep us as payroll pilots involved. But AI can do a lot of this stuff.

[00:14:14] Without us struggling through some of the manual things that we have to struggle through as you're going through now in your project, as I'm going through now with reconciliations, having to pull a few different reports together to figure out things. In the cohort, I show folks how to use Claude to validate two different reports and it worked right. It needed a lot more to Shayla Druin's point, right?

[00:14:42] It needed a lot more testing and redoing and validating. But it worked like at a glance and a quick check. It was like, oh, this works. I just gave I gave Claude two reports. No PII, by the way. I gave it two reports and said, hey, compare these columns and data and tell me if this is there. Yeah. Few minutes of it gave me a new report. With a new column with feedback and eat for each row.

[00:15:10] And I was like, oh, shizzle. Like it's doing it already. Right. So we are now seeing the moment where pay AI is impacting payroll beyond a simple chat bot. Yeah. It is pushing it forward. Wow. In that sense. So we're yeah, man, we're witnessing history in the technology and the evolution of payroll. So it's amazing. Thanks, man. Woo.

[00:15:42] So we got season 17 in review. Get us going on this on this. Let's get into it. So if you had to sum up season 17 in three words, what would they be? Three words. You know, that doesn't have to be three, but. Oh, no, I like I like the challenge. I got it. The evolution. Okay. It's four words.

[00:16:11] The evolution of payroll. If you count. You know, the or we can drop the evolution of payroll. Right. What about you? I think about the. The. Each episode that we did and the guests and. You know, I came up with another acronym. You know, I love my acronyms, bro. So just give me, give me some grace here. You know, I came up with the acronym fit. Fearless. Fearless. Okay. Hackful tenacity. And.

[00:16:41] I think that some of the people. That we spoke to. They're definitely being fearless. And they, they implied that it's good for others. Yeah. In payroll or other industries to be fearless. And that will help them be. Impactful. And to be tenacious. Right. Yes. You know, another word for tenacious is, is to be able to. Persevere having. Sturped had that stuff being stubborn when it comes to like seeing, seeing everything through, you know what I'm saying? I like that. And so I think that's what it would be for me.

[00:17:11] So what's one thing from the season that kind of stuck out to you? That's a good one. If I'm being honest now, I gotta give it up to John and Tammy. Payroll like a boss. You know, it really stuck out for me because.

[00:17:34] As we also published this year, the first, by the way, to publish this year as American authors that wrote a payroll book that wasn't a textbook. And then John and Tammy, I believe were the second. I watched. Them. And it looks like we were watching each other and fans of each other as you know, Tammy had said on the show. She was looking for us at the last payroll Congress, which was really flattering. Right.

[00:18:04] We get this like humbling, foul. I was like, oh my God. Amazing. That reminds me. That's where I want to send books to as well. Cause we owe Tammy one. And it was just that. Yeah. Just kind of being part of that whole. Book movement publisher. I have them. Oh, I got them right there. You know, payroll like a boss behind me. And now there's a bunch of books have been published in payroll. Now, satisfy Freddy's though. I don't know if you know, there's like a satisfy Freddy's there. Yeah. Yeah. Everything is fly. He's just there.

[00:18:33] He was iconic for me growing up right in my time. It was, it was, he was the voice of hip hop. So any who, yeah, that one doubt that's what it was for me that stuck out and, and, you know, rightfully so let off the whole season proper light. And then every, I mean, every show that we had a guest was great. You know, what about you? Yeah. Every show was great that we had with or without the guests.

[00:18:56] I think that was so when we talked to Jim O'Connor about benefit systems and how he said it was broken, you know, in America. And so that was like, for him to say that, I was just like, Ooh, okay. That's an interesting take. Oh yeah. It's bold. Yeah. That stuck out to me. Yep. All right. You want to go? It's. You know, I was just going to say with Jim, it's like, it's the untold truth.

[00:19:25] It's the unspoken truth to be like, we all say it. But then some circles, we get scared to say it because it's like, well, wait, with payroll, how can we say benefits is broken? Because not, not the part that connects to payroll. That's not the part that's broken. It's the other part that is, you know, although it could be broken in payroll, but that's a different conversation. Oh, so yeah. You know, what else? Let's see.

[00:19:56] I like this one. John and Tammy talked about leading with confidence and payroll. What's one piece of advice from that episode you actually tried to apply? If you remember. I think it is just. What I took from it, because I know, I think Tammy talked about like, when you're bringing up like compliance issues to like people and it's kind of kind of brush you off. Or whatever. It's just like. From that, I learned not to be disheartened. Right. Like, and you, you said it in your own way. Right.

[00:20:26] Squeaky will gets the oil. Right. It's not a new, it's not a new term or new saying, but something you've always said, the squeaky will gets the oil. So continue to voice things, continue to like. Ring up alerts and say, Hey, I want you to notice this and notice this is a trick that I learned from you. When we, when we first started working together was that, you know, if you can quantify something and put dollars on it and like, Oh, this is actually costing you this much.

[00:20:55] This is actually costing you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more and penalties and interest and things like that. Then that may cause people's antennas to stand up or, you know, alert their spidey senses. Like, Oh my gosh. Like, Oh my gosh. Like we need to get that rectified as soon as possible. So I think for me, that's kind of one of the things that I've, I've tried, I've applied it before, but just kind of re-energized to continue that, you know? Of course. How about you?

[00:21:24] I like that. No doubt. No doubt. I'll be honest. I don't, I don't remember. I remember it now that you said it, what they were talking about. And I remember Tammy's like frustration as she was, you know, as she had talked about being at different jobs. And then John like reached out to her and was like, Hey, you want to change that narrative? Yeah. You know? And I think that's what helped them really kind of birth the idea of payroll, like a boss. And it's something that we teach as well.

[00:21:53] We talk about it's, it's, you know, what it makes me think of is yes, we have to speak up. We have to document, but you can't be so righteous that you create tension because unless you own the company. It's not really our place is our place to raise the red flag, document the issue, bring it to the stakeholders, let them make the decision.

[00:22:20] Give our, we can give our suggestion to have, you know, if you have that voice in your company to say, Hey, I, this is the right thing to do or what I would do or what should be done. Sure. That's, you definitely should also give the solution, but you can't get mad to your point. Right. And like you said, it kind of, you know, gave you some understanding of it. Like when they don't listen and it ain't personal, you know, it's not our company or it is.

[00:22:46] And then we make a different decision, but if it's not your company, then what are you going to do? That's true. You know what I mean? Good point. You know, as a, as a, as, as a independent outside vendor consultant. Now kind of put it in the contract to let clients know that I'm going to let you know what compliance is, but the call is on you.

[00:23:13] So they can't come back to me and be like, Hey, you never said, or you didn't, you know, we're paying you to do payroll. How come you didn't do it right? I, because I raised the red flag in the email. I told you what to do. And you didn't give me the green light to do it. I get it, man. So does that. You know what I mean? I mean, and it's in the, it's in my contract to like, Hey, I really, you, I am released of this burden of compliance. I will absolutely flag it for you.

[00:23:40] But what you'll learn if you do business in the startup space is that they have a high tolerance for not being compliant. And that's not a shh or call out to them. It's just is what it is. And I get it. You know, you, you want, when you're, once you're a part of it, you, you get it more and it's, you know, but when you come from enterprise level training from us, from our training, right.

[00:24:07] Not being compliant is just like so uncomfortable. So yeah. What else? I think the next one is going to be, to be the payroll career arc episode. You know, we kind of mapped out what the payroll career could look like for a lot of us. And, uh, you know, there were stages that we talked about the entry level, the middle, the waiting period and the next level. Right.

[00:24:35] And, you know, were there any of those stages that we talked about that surprised you or that you wished you heard about earlier in your own? Career path. It's a good one. I think that, I think that because we still, we are still, I mean, maybe, maybe with all the payroll books now, there's probably more of a defined path. We definitely define it in our book, right?

[00:25:02] For payroll folks of what that path could look like. I think that is the only thing that I didn't get in early in my career is that it actually was a path and that there was growth opportunity. And this is, this is how you saw the path. And these are the titles that you should be looking to grow into as you, and what is your path?

[00:25:27] And, you know, yeah, just getting info on it in general early in my career would have been great. What about you? Like, you know, agree with you on that. You know, you know, I think if you had told me in my first five years coming out of the military and working like, you know, for PEO, I think I was making like, when I got out of the military, I think I was making like 12 bucks an hour processing payroll.

[00:25:54] Like, yeah, you know, just, you know, almost like 30 years ago, you know, and that, and that, and that's what I was making. Right. And it was just like, it was just like, like, it was, it was challenging, frustrating at the points because I was just like, man, I need to be able to take care of myself, my family. So I think it was like the waiting period for me that stood out.

[00:26:22] Right. And it's just like, like work, having the work ethic, having, you know, like teaching myself the challenges that you faced, you know, and I share some of those things that I faced from a corporate standpoint, like challenges and hurdles and obstacles, people, you know, whatever it might be.

[00:26:41] And, you know, like thinking to myself, like, can, can I get past this level or will the opportunity ever come for me to be able to go to the next level? Right. And, and I don't know if everybody's experiences have been like that or what, or what time their waiting period came for them. Cause sometimes people, you know, everybody's path is different, right? You may have gone from entry to middle and then to higher level instantly.

[00:27:11] And then your waiting period came, you know, or whatever. So like for me, it was entry level and middle and, you know, and then. It's a good one. Where do you, where do you plateau at? Yeah. And then I hit that middle level and I was just like, you know, I know I have the knowledge and I just needed to be given an opportunity, you know, to, to learn and grow and give you a chance. Right.

[00:27:34] And so I think I would like to have encouraged myself, my younger self to say, Hey, stick in there. You can find success in this career path. Yeah. Because there were plenty of times when I thought about, you know what, maybe payroll is not for me, but because, you know, you know, I want to be able to take care of myself and my family. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That common challenge. I would imagine. No doubt.

[00:28:03] Wow. So the next episode was with Andy Valentine, international global payroll. Yeah. Is there any moments with him that you were like, Oh wow. Uh huh. Cause we always had like, we kind of seem to always have them. But so like, what was something that stuck out that he was like, Oh snap. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:21] I think that with Andy, I think that, you know, when he broke down how, wrote down why international payments fail and they could be delayed. Same. Like, oh my God. Like, Oh yeah.

[00:28:42] That was like the biggest a-ha moment for me, but because of the timing and you know, everything that goes into that effects, risk, compliance checks, all those different things. You know what I'm saying? So I think, I think that was like the biggest a-ha moment for me.

[00:28:59] Like, and for what it did for me is help me understand better how crypto cuts through all of that. Oh, what do you mean? What do you mean? That's why some folks like crypto, cause cryptocurrency, you don't need to go through any of that. You just switch wallets. You just on the blockchain, moving those, moving those coins or tokens back and forth.

[00:29:28] There's no red tape in moving crypto. Yeah. It's as easy as sending an email. You're just sending crypto. As far as I understand, you're just moving. If I want to send you some crypto right now, we're on the same platform. Just send it over. Done. There's no red tape. It's instant, right? Yeah. Done. Whereas he went through all of the red tape and kind of pointed out those.

[00:29:56] That is the same for me, for my, you know, moment. Like what I remember from that conversation is that learning about all those things, compliance and risks and all that, they get, it's all about moving money back and forth. You could, I could say, I give folks an easy example. If we're in the U S and you're processing a Canadian payroll, you need an extra day to process that payroll because it needs to cross a border. Yeah.

[00:30:25] You're moving digital information across the border, but because it represents fiat currency, it creates bureaucracy and red tape. So very, yeah, very, very eye opening for that. I think we talked about Jim's already. Jim O'Connor fixing America's broken benefits system. Was there anything? What else? AI. I mean, was there anything about that, that you, that you, that stuck out to you?

[00:30:56] No, the same thing we talked about, like the fact that he was just like, it's broken. I feel like he started the conversation with that. Right. Like he was like, his benefits is broken in America. And we were like, I was like, what the hell? He gave it a degreed. He gave it a degreed. You know what I'm saying? So yes, yes, yes. So that's, that's the thing that stuck out. And we have those conversations, but I don't think anybody's been as bold as he has. He was in that episode to stay and just be like, yo, I'm saying what everybody's thinking. Yeah. Basically. Right. Okay.

[00:31:25] So that's what it was for me. What about you saying? Right. I think like for me, one of the, one of the things that I think, you know, he and Melissa, you know, Walker from sounder, you know, they both kind of harped on asking the employees. What they need and what they want, and that more employers would benefit from that if they ask the employees what they need. Right. So. Yeah. Yes.

[00:31:56] Episode two Oh seven back to AI again. Hey, I was coming for payroll, but not how you think, you know, anything stuck out there? Um, I think that, you know, it, AI has created like an urgency in the industry. And, you know, we realized that it is currently an actively transforming things in the industry, but we recently taught, I don't, I think it was you and I, that had the conversation about

[00:32:24] how all these companies are now saying like, it, it's kind of coming back to bite them in the butt. Because it's, it's, what did you say? It's not the return is not what they thought it was going to be. There's no, they're, they're now, now they're at a point in this AI evolution that they're. Looking at the return on investment, the ROI on AI, if we use an acronym as we like, right.

[00:32:53] Um, ROI, ROI, ROI, I don't know. And companies are looking at the, they're like, how much did we spend on this? Oh, to, to, to that point, I just heard a new one. This like yesterday where major companies are now moving away from. It's ropic open AI, the, the, the big boys in the U S AI market.

[00:33:20] And they're going to, Oh, China over speeds. Alibaba's product. I didn't even know they had a frigging AI. Alibaba has a product and there's another one deep seek. I believe it is that it's good. It's good enough. And it's a lot cheaper. Right? So the way they compared it was like, they don't need the Ferrari of AI. They're good with a Honda.

[00:33:47] So it makes you think like, and again, we're at that point where they're, they're really evaluating the ROI on it because they rushed into it. And you just mentioned that again, online, offline. I don't know, but you mentioned it. Like people were just like, you just said, we were rushing into trying to apply AI. I don't even know what they're doing. You know what I mean? And it's like, okay, but now what am I doing with it? I got AI where I'm gonna do it.

[00:34:14] You know, and to the episode with Shayla. She's actually teaching people how to implement payroll AI. And again, just where we are in this evolution of things is, is really crazy. Cause we're even past the point from where we talked about in that episode. Like, you know, we only four or five episodes down and it's already evolved in a, in a big way.

[00:34:43] And it's going to continue to make those jumps in evolution of it. I think folks now the, the, my advice to pay rollers is to be intentional on how you're applying it. To Shayla's point, test, retest and test some more, right? Give yourself a testing period before you're implementing any of these tools because, you know, and then what she, what was it?

[00:35:13] She said that like the AI is not going to take the liability for your error using it. Right. You can't say, right. You can't say, oh, well, this is Claude's pool. No, no, no, no, no, no. I asked you for the report. I asked you for the calculation. I asked you for the compliance. I didn't ask. I got full of myself and make an error. Could do bad all by myself. I'm asking you as a payroll professional, what the answer is. And I guess, right. And that's the lesson I'm learning.

[00:35:41] That's where the judgment comes in to say, okay, I'm going to use this tool to get an answer. But how do I know if this answer is right? You have to take an extra time, right. To, which we mentioned this before, right. Even without AI, put AI to the side, just look at the internet. Like, right. If you Google something, like you can't look at. Yep. Don't look at the first answer. Exactly. Here's the first link. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like. Cause they paid to be there. Right.

[00:36:10] You have to really, really make sure you're getting things from a credible source. Yes. Yeah. It's essentially doing the same thing for you just a little bit quicker. And you just want to verify aggregating the data. Verify where it's putting the source information from. So. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a, thank you for saying that you have to verify the source info. And guess what? If you're looking at federal, if you search the federal compliance, then it's got to come

[00:36:37] from the IRS, the federal government or social security. FLSA. There's only. But three or four sources that payroll law could come from at the federal level. If it's at the state level, it needs to come from that state website. You know what I mean? I just did something the other day with. I'm using both of them now. We both use both AIs now, but I did something with one of them and, and it said, oh, this

[00:37:03] is from a law firm or something like that. And I was like, okay, great. Get me the go check this against when I told you in the first place, the state websites and it's saying like that, but you know, that's in my head. And I'm like, it's hallucinating on me because I needed to. And that's a great example of a hallucination. I said, go get it from the state websites. It's still get, it got me state information from a law firm website. And I was like, great, good job.

[00:37:31] Now confirm it against the state websites. And right. So you gotta like force it to do the right thing and check it against itself. And then still go make sure that Lake is actually bringing you to the right place. Exactly. All right. Yeah. We can talk about that. Yeah. Let's wrap it up. Last one day. Um, it's the true crime episode, which is one of the favorite. We haven't done in a minute. Always fun.

[00:37:59] So I look to see if there was any updates. There hasn't been yet. Oh, you did. She's still waiting to be sent sentence because the case is still going on. The amount, I know we said 1.5 million, but they're saying it's between 1.5 and 2.4 million dollars that she allegedly stole during the period. Oh my gosh. Do you remember how she was doing it? Cause that's always a good. She inflated her salary.

[00:38:29] Yeah. She, so let me look really quick. She, she, she. Oh, cause it was like a small business, right? It was like only a few employees, lack of oversight. It all points back always to the same kind of control issues. Right? Like we laugh, but I think that's why we laugh because it's always the same fricking reason. She was making, you know, authorized purchases on the company credit card. Uh, and then she was paying. And inflated her shit. Yeah. I'm sorry.

[00:38:58] It paid bonuses like up to 25 K at a time. And oh my good. Yes. I remember that 25 K. Yes. And that crazy. Like, and no, yes. And I remember, like we said somebody needed yes. And it was a small, so it was only like a few people. She doing it for the old, the owner was trusting and wasn't looking at it. Yeah. And that's where I was blaming, like not blaming, but I was saying that the outside CPA should

[00:39:27] have called something out. Like, Hey, your payroll just went up by $25,000. And who knows why? Like, this is why various reports are important, you know? And that is also where AI is impacting payroll and helping out with various reports, a bunch of different. And look, I don't know how long she was in payroll either. Right. She's in, she was in her forties, like maybe a little bit younger than me.

[00:39:51] So if she was a payroll manager at the payroll manager level, it means she probably wasn't, has been in payroll for a minute. Potentially. Maybe. Maybe. Because with those small companies, you never know. It could have been somebody's aunt that was doing something related and was like, Hey, how come you can, can, can come go, come run payroll for me. Or she definitely wore another hat because it's a small company. You're not just doing payroll. Right. You're, you're wearing multiple hats.

[00:40:20] So she might've already been just the office, not just, but an office manager or whatever, something else. And she ran payroll. That's true. Right. So who knows, who knows to your point, we don't know how long she was doing, doing the tasks. Right. And like, yeah, yeah, no, those true crime ones are always fun, man. And they always point back to the same problems. Right. And I am, I'm, I'm obliged to, I'm compelled to share.

[00:40:50] Like wall pointed out. It's always 18 to 24 months that these schemes run. And at the end of the day, it's lack of oversight or greed. Yep. It always is man. Or both or, and, or both. So, you know, um, is there anything that you want to share like season 18 or any advice you want to leave off with?

[00:41:21] Yeah, of course. You know, we're on every platform podcast can be, we're on YouTube. We're not good on YouTube. But we're not good on YouTube. We post the YouTube, but we don't work with the YouTube as well as we should, but it's there. You can go watch it. And, you know, tell a friend to tell a friend, share, subscribe, like, engage around LinkedIn, on social media. We'd love to get feedback. Look out for the next cohort of the certified payroll technician.

[00:41:50] We are teaching new people. Hey, put it down. We're teaching new people to payroll, how to do payroll in the, a payroll system as well as talking to his doggy. Good thing mine don't make a noise right now. But yeah, we, we're teaching people how to do payroll in a payroll system. Folks, if you, if you know, if you like, if you need to grow, come join us on the next cohort. It's in October. The link is on our social. Yeah. We, we, we, we, we teach. Yeah. CPT.

[00:42:20] We're teaching. We're growing. If you, if you know anybody that needs to learn payroll, let us know. We'll teach them. You know, one-on-one, whatever we got to do, uh, payroll training. And tell a friend to tell a friend, you know, as, as, as AI grows into payroll, we're going to shift to training folks on things. Cause guess what, you don't, you're not going to need as many people anymore. Now you need leaders. And even with. Yes. Experts.

[00:42:47] Even with AI, you're still going to know the things to look for. You're still going to have to learn how to prompt it to look for certain things. Right? Cause you can't just. You know how. Yeah. I can go on AI right now and say, Hey, teach me. Teach me. Well, no, no, no, no, no. I can tell it to tell, do something. Hey audit my payroll.

[00:43:13] If you look for like it based on his limited knowledge, it can maybe find certain things, but like it to be intricate with the details. Look at. Look at. Look at LOA. Look at, you know, statuses. Yes. Terminated with pay active without pay. Find all these different nuances. Anyone. If there's a holiday, there's anyone who only has eight hours of holiday and no other earnings on their check. Different levels of things. You're going to have to teach it to look for it.

[00:43:42] And as it learns, then maybe it will start doing that automatically. But you, at first you're going to have to prompt it the right way. Look, I'll give you a perfect real life example right now. It was just helping a client do audit the payroll and found some hourly folks that were getting paid, but had not punched in. No hours on the time clock, but had money in the batch.

[00:44:11] The, the, the leader I was working with was like, how'd you find this? And I was like, oh, I felt like saying, ah, magic, but it wasn't right. I needed to be transparent to leave this leader and power to think. It as a payroll audit. The issue had already been established that hourly folks were getting paid without having time on their clocks. Why?

[00:44:39] We thought we solved for it already, but here it goes popping up again in the payroll. And the answer to your point, if I gave AI one report, it wouldn't have found it. If I gave it two reports, it still would not have found it. Had to give it a third and I would have had to point it to look at something specific. Yes. Yes.

[00:45:07] You have to, yes, you have to give it directions. You just can't leave it a will and nail it to it. At the end of the directions. No matter how amicable it is. Now, but okay. I'm glad you said that. The amazing part is you may not have to tell it again next time. Yes. Yes. Right. If you're building a gentic AI, maybe it doesn't need, you don't need to ask again. Now you just drop it in there.

[00:45:35] You still need to verify the data because. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. It can get, it can get 99% of it right. And then you some information for one or two. And you'd be like, Oh, you know, I adjusted this person because I said that they were wrong. You find out their rate is actually right. And you just went out checking everything. You went ahead and just made the change. Yeah. So you still, you still gonna have to be a pilot. Amazing. All right, man.

[00:46:05] Let me get this quick. Yes. All right, bro. Yeah. We, yeah. Next time. Look, we, we, we got a, we got, well, there's always more to talk about. We'll talk about it next time. More to come, come check us out next week. As we continue the AI conversation and payroll, as AI continues to push payroll to the next frontier. We love you folks. Till the next time. Peace.