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by Stephen Parezo

Kelly Leese

August 22, 2005—Not long after her arrival at Fiducial’s Payroll Processing Center (PPC), Kelly Leese indicated that the department would be going through some restructuring to increase its efficiencies. Since that time, the assistant payroll center director noted that strides have been made both in terms of adding qualified staff and making improvements to department procedures.

“Staffing is a big issue,” said Leese. “We’re being selective about who we’re hiring because we do want to give that great customer service with individuals who are qualified to process payroll.”

Additions to the staff include Patrick Pase, a Certified Payroll Professional (CPP), who joined the PPC as tax manager. The native of Houston, TX, has an extensive background in the tax area, having worked with different taxing agencies at the federal, state and local level which is seen as a real plus.

“What he brings is total concentration on tax-related issues so you don’t have someone who’s trying to split their time between payroll issues and tax issues,” she said.

Another recent arrival is payroll processor Latisha Payne whose customer service experience will help her in dealing with clients especially where information gathering is concerned.

Streamlining the process

Leese says that certain changes needed to be made with the way the system works to process payroll since they have to go into each client’s workspace just to get the information, go out to the client and pull client information in. By making needed modifications, reports will now be able to be printed from multiple clients at one time.

“This will save time within the PPC,” she said. “Streamlining the reporting process—that’s part of what we’re trying to do.”

The center has also been working on enhancing the paycheck stub for clients and associates if they’re not already on direct deposit. They’re making sure all the year-to-date information is printed on the check where previously it was not.

A lot of the PPC’s time has been spent researching tax notices and taking care of past issues. Throughout the restructuring process, the department has remained very positive in its approach and has suggested some good ideas such as offering batch filing of taxes so instead of cutting checks, payments can be made electronically.

“This is something we’re working on as a project within our department,” she said. “We’re looking to do this with federal and state government filings.”

It will probably be sometime during the first quarter of 2006 when a batch filing program will be tested and ready to go live.

Gaining Ground

The PPC handles an array of payroll needs including payroll processing, tax filing, tax depositing, direct deposit and multi-cycle payroll processing with additional services, such as pay cards, still in the information gathering stage. At some point, Fiducial will have a paperless PPC.

“We’re expecting in the fourth quarter of 2005 to be processing as many returns electronically as are available at this time,” she said. “That will allow us to save time and also file more quickly for the client as well since it saves the mailing of forms and the processing of states with third quarter filings.”

Later this year the PPC also plans to conduct a client survey so they can find out what small business clients’ needs really are and do what they can to meet those needs.

According to Leese, payroll processing work is very detail oriented and very stressful at times due to all of the deadlines involved such as payroll, direct deposit, taxes and Federal Express. As far as payroll that has to be delivered, Leese says that everyone thinks tax deadlines are the most important ones “but every deadline is just as important as the next.”

While Leese acknowledged that there were several areas in need of attention when she arrived, she made it clear that the PPC is gaining ground.

“We’re making headway,” she said. “We’re bringing on new clients and just added 25 of them in New Jersey. We’re taking the steps to clean up the past issues and move forward ensuring that there aren’t any more. It will get better and that’s what we’re here for.”

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial.

Whatever your small business needs, your Fiducial tax and financial professional can analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate action plan. To locate a Fiducial office nearest you on fiducial.com, see the Zip Code Locator located in the upper right hand corner of the page. Do you have a particular topic that we should be writing about that can help your business? Please send your suggestions to: stephen.parezo@fiducial.com.

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