Bryan Dear’s Blog

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 – 1882

I’m not sure where my house key is and that’s because we don’t lock our doors. I mean really, what would a thief take? Our TV? Our furniture? They could take the laptop, but even there we don’t keep much personal information on it and we certainly don’t keep passwords on a file in our computer. If someone did break into our house, we would at least have the option to start changing account information to prevent loss of data or money from falling into the wrong hands.

It’s a different set of rules for the cyber world. You may not realize your identity has been stolen. It’s a much quieter theft. The theft can occur from somewhere you have no control over.  It can be scary to realize how much information is available in the electronic world that concerns you. And there you sit comfortably at home or at the office thinking that all is safe and secure when in reality the stuff is about to hit the fan.

So what are you to do? Drop out of society? Do you move all of your electronic data to paper and create a tremendous amount of inconvenience for yourself while still making yourself vulnerable to a different kind of theft from paper? I doubt it. What follows is a game plan for your life when it comes to data protection.

You are entitled to a free credit report from one of the three credit agencies once a year (beware of the free credit report agencies that want you to sign up for a paying service). You may go order this free service by going to www.annualcreditreport.com

Review your report carefully for accuracy noting any activity from creditors that you did not initiate.

You may place a “Fraud Alert” on your credit report by calling any one of the following agencies – a call with one will place the alert with all three agencies. The number is: Equifax – 800-525-6285 / Experian 888-397-3742 / TransUnion 800-680-7289

We here at The Payroll Department, Inc. deal with incredibly sensitive information. From a thief’s perspective, we are a gold mine. We do everything we can to keep your data confidential including multiple firewalls, strong passwords, data encrpytion as well as many dual controls in the office. And still, we are vulnerable. Recently, our software vendor, Paychoice, was attacked and our online clients were provided with a phishing email noting they needed to update their software. If you have one iota of doubt about whether something is from us, contact us. We would not ask you to download something from an email without contacting you by phone, fax or written notice.

I don’t sleep well when I think our data could be hacked. It’s an amazing world full of grace, but evil lurks there too.

We’ll protect from evil – we’ll love the grace – and we’ll keep our data safe.

Sincerely,

Bryan Dear

www.payrolldept.biz

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749 – 1832

When you run a payroll every two weeks, you can reliably compute twenty six payrolls a year (26 x 2 = 52 weeks). If you pay salaried employees on this bi-weekly schedule, you may have taken the annual salary (e.g. $52,000 and divided by the 26 weeks for a bi-weekly salary of $2,000 per payroll). This is all fine and good for most years.

However, every so often there are twenty seven payrolls because three hundred sixty five days divided by fifty two leaves a remainder of one day. Leap year enters into the equation so really it’s only every eleven years or so that twenty seven bi-weekly payrolls will occur in your payroll calendar.

Do you pay the salaried person for the “extra” payroll ? In the first example, you could pay your salary person the additional $2,000 and proceed as normal. Many employers, however, believe they have contracted with their salaried employee an annual salary or a monthly salary. The reasoning goes that the fact that there happens to be an additional payroll should have no bearing on their annual or monthly salary.

If you choose to forgo paying your salaried employees, you’ll want to be very clear in your communications with them including providing them with plenty of notice so they can plan their finances accordingly. Look ahead in the calendar.

January 1, 2010 falls on a Friday. Depending upon your bi-weekly pay schedule, next year might be the 27 payroll year. Or if you move January 1,2010 to December 31, 2009, you may have 27 payrolls this year (2009).

Take a peek at your calendar for this year and the next. If you see twenty seven payrolls, you’ll have a head start on whichever way you proceed.

Cheers,

Bryan Dear

www.payrolldept.biz