Episode #052 Love It Or Hate It, Payroll Is Here To Stay

Why you can benefit from solid payroll skills

It’s that ONE THING we all love to hate! Whether you love it, or hate it. If you're a bookkeeper, there's not really anyway around providing this service. So how can we reduce our stress about payroll?

In this informative episode, Amy outlines 4 main areas bookkeepers can brush up their payroll skills.

Key Message: “You don't need to KNOW everything to be an EXPERT if you have support, communication skills, processes and are willing to learn.”

Podcast Info

Episode: #052

Series: General

Host: Amy Hooke

Guest speaker: None

Topic: Brushing Up On Payroll Skills

Useful links
Read transcript

Amy Hooke: Good morning everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining me again. Happy 2020. Had to think for a second. What year is it? It's 2020 and this is the first episode for the year and I have an exciting topic for you today, which is all about payroll. So for all you payroll lovers listening in now or those who absolutely hate payroll, you're going to actually love this.

So what's the deal with payroll? Why is it so hard? Why is it the word on everybody's lips for being the bookkeeping tasks that we all love to hate? Payroll is an area of bookkeeping where it really does cause stress for people. So, those of you who are currently providing or thinking about providing or wanting to provide a payroll service for Australian small businesses, you'll definitely be interested to listen today. And so you know, I want to encourage you guys that… Payroll. Yes, payroll is a difficult area, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as we think it is.

So yes, it's highly complex. But I think there are ways and means of getting assistance with payroll and ways that we can support one another in growing in our payroll journey. After all, how possible is it to run a bookkeeping business without payroll? Now, you know, I've worked with lots of bookkeepers and we've all had the discussions about could I offer a bookkeeping service with no payroll? And the problem is as soon as you get a client coming to you wanting payroll, if you say to them, “I can do your bookkeeping but not your payroll,” there's a pretty good chance that they'll go somewhere else because they probably want everything done under the same roof. And there will be bookkeepers out there who are willing to do it.

So that's why we need to get our head around payroll and we need to actually learn what it is that's actually causing us to hate payroll so much. And so look, I'm not promising that I'm going to make you fall in love with payroll, but I do think that I can help you to hate it a little bit less. And the why that I'm going to do that is I'm just going to talk a little bit about some of the things that we actually struggle with in payroll so that you know what the specific things are. And then also I'm going to share with you just some bits and pieces about what I have heard from other bookkeepers about what they love and what they hate, which I think will encourage you because I want you to know that when it comes to payroll, you are not in this alone.

I think that's the hardest thing about all of this. It's very easy to feel like we don't have the support that we need. And when we don't feel that we have the support that we need, that's when it can feel really difficult. So I'm just going to give a little disclaimer here. I'm no payroll expert. In fact, I'm one of those bookkeepers that's just like, “Oh my gosh, payroll. Do I really have to do this?” And I'll often joke with clients or even on the podcast that you know, I prefer just to do the bookkeeping. I don't necessarily enjoy doing payroll, but I do want to be able to offer it to my clients as a service.

And so for me, I found myself in a position where I was saying and repeating the same things that I've heard other bookkeepers saying without actually validating if what I was believing was correct. And so although I'm not saying, “Hey, I've discovered the pirate is actually easier than I thought it was,” I'm not saying that at all. But what I've discovered in my journey is that it doesn't have to be as difficult as we make it out to be. And there's a couple of things that we can do to help with that.

So for those of you who are already members of the Savvy Bookkeeper Facebook group, I'll also let you know I have changed the name of the group to “I Love Bookkeeping.” And in brackets “The Savvy Bookkeeper” so you still know that it's us. And I'll talk to you a little bit in a further episode about why I've decided to change the name. And I'll also let you know that I have started another Facebook group where we can just keep our payroll questions in there. So it's called, “I Love Payroll.” So if you want to join that you can go to Facebook.com/groups/PayrollAustralia. And I'm going to just tell you, this is another one of my ideas that I started off the cuff and the reason that I started this group is the exact reason that I'm going to talk to you about today on this episode.

So please jump into that group because this is going to be a group where it's just flat out support for payroll. But we do have some group guidelines in terms of the type of interaction that we want in this group. So this is not… Obviously you guys know that Savvy is part of my business, like the Savvy Facebook group. But this group is purely a group that's just for you guys to learn about payroll and a little like a distraction free zone.

Obviously in the Savvy group, we post lots of helpful tips and ideas and different things that you can engage with and questions and that kind of thing. And we've kept the group free from technical bookkeeping questions because we want the group to be a place where you can get help on your business. And look, there's lots of other groups out there where you can go and get help with your bookkeeping questions. But when it comes to payroll, I just thought, you know, we need a community space where we're able to actually talk to each other about payroll. And so that's I've started this group. It's called “I Love Payroll [Payroll Providers Australia]” and now I'm going to talk to you about the reason why I decided to start this group and the need that I saw in our community. And I really hope you learn a lot today and that you also get a lot out of being a member of the group.

So one of the things that has really come up in this process of deciding to start this group and talking to lots of you guys is really just around the reasons why we find payroll so difficult. So one of the things is that we want to encourage our clients to get compliant. This is a big thing that I'm seeing that's coming across in all of the communication that I've had with other bookkeepers and just everything that I've seen. The conversations that are going on out there in our community.

I believe that a large percentage of bookkeepers want to encourage their clients to be compliant, to get compliant, and to stay compliant. And I think a lot of our frustration with payroll comes from wanting to encourage the clients, but having clients that just don't want to do the right thing and they don't… And so it's got me thinking that, you know, look, I'm not putting completely the blame back on us saying that it's our fault that they don't want to get compliant. There's always going to be clients that don't want to get compliant for whatever reason. But I think that if we learn to communicate better with the clients, we can actually encourage them onto the journey of getting compliant and helping them stay compliant without getting that pushback.

And I think for some clients, it is going to be a case of, “Look, you know, if you're not wanting to do the right thing, I cannot continue to work with you.” But there'll be other clients who you really should persist with and it just might take a bit of time. So I guess you have to keep in mind that when you bring to an attention of a client that their payroll is not compliant, it could be a shock for them. So you know, you're going to get all sorts of reactions. You're going to get people that say, “Oh my gosh, I didn't know that that was wrong, but I really want to get it right. Can you help me get on the right path?” And they're like a dream client.

And then you've got the ones that say that they want to get compliant, but then they kind of resist what you're trying to do. Then you've got the ones that just like… They're resistant. I think these clients, I think you've got this sort of selection of clients who they are afraid. Maybe they're very stressed about money and they're looking at, “Oh gosh, like what's the financial impact of this and can we just sweep it under the carpet?” Because I'd rather not deal with it. And then you've got the ones that are just like, they have no intention of ever getting compliant and they'll try and get away with what they can. And it's our job to discern the difference between these types of clients.

So you know, to be able to tell the difference between, I guess those last three categories of clients. Obviously the ones that are ready to get compliant and happy to make the changes, that's all good. But the other three… So you've got the ones that say they want to change and the say that they will change, but then they don't actually change. You've got the ones that say they don't want to change, but deep down they actually do want to change. They just need a little bit of encouragement, maybe a little bit of patience, and also they probably need to get their act together financially so that they can get things right.

I think as bookkeepers… Because we have a very compliance perspective and also because we're under the pressure of “If I don't get this client's payroll right, I'm going to be held liable.” And so that is a scary thing and that's a sentiment that is in our community at the moment that we're held accountable for our client's actions. Now, just because that is true, it doesn't mean that we have to freak out right on the spot and then go all guns blazing in getting the clients to become compliant on the spot.

We're in a journey with that client and you know, we need to uncover the different types. So you've got the client that says they want to change but doesn't really want to change. You've got the client that says they don't want to change but they really want to change. And then you've got the ones that say they don't want to change and they don't want to change and they won't change. And then you've got those lovely ones that do want to change and they will change and they'll do it quickly and they'll get their stuff sorted.

So once we work out the difference between… We need to work out which one we're dealing with and then we know the actions to take from there. Now do I have the answer as to how to make that discernment? Well I think that's another episode. So I'm probably just going to keep moving forward because I want to stay on track with this topic today. So I'll set a reminder for myself to go more deeply into that. I will be able to give you some pointers on how I would personally discern between those and give you some ideas on how you can manage that. But for today, I just want to talk a little bit more about some of the high level issues that are affecting us and causing us to be stressed about payroll.

So it's really around navigating difficult conversations with clients. And I think that by equipping ourselves with the conversational skills, the people skills, and the communication skills, as well as the facts and the actual factual information that we can give to clients. Making sure that we're prepared and we're not caught off guard and that we're able to give a response to the client that we need to give.

So that's bringing me to my next point, which is really just what I mentioned before. It's all about bookkeepers being held accountable. And obviously you will hear this being talked about in the community a lot. You know, people say “All bookkeepers are now accountable.” Like, okay, yes, that is true. But no, it's also in a way not true. And so the way that it is true is yes, bookkeepers can be held accountable.

If a business owner doesn't do the right thing and they're ripping off their employees or whatever it is, they're not paying their entitlements. And there is a situation that happens where the bookkeeper can be held accountable because the business owner is not doing the right thing and the bookkeeper doesn't say anything.

So with the operative word being, “saying anything”. Look, feel free to come to me if I'm wrong. If there are examples out there where the bookkeeper documented in writing their conversations that they have with the client, then I'm happy to be proven wrong. But I'm going to assume that these cases where the bookkeepers are held accountable is where they say nothing. And that's where we should not do that. Because you know, the worst thing we can do is, you know, be fearful of the client and the response or risk fear of losing the client. And as a result, not say anything. This is a really bad mistake. This is where you're putting yourself in a risky position.

Whereas if you can say to the client, “Look, this is what I've discovered and this is what it's going to cost you, or this is what's involved in getting fixed,” and you say, “This is what I recommend you should do.” So you give them your recommendation and you put it in writing. So you put it in writing, you can have the conversation with them if you prefer that, but make sure you follow up with an email and put it in writing. Once you've put that in writing, you're starting to protect yourself. Now from there, the client may respond that they don't want to do anything about it. And then from there it's your professional duty to say, “Well look, I've given you the information and if you decide not to go ahead, you're actually non-compliant with your payroll and you're actually putting your business at risk.” And you can list a few different things that can happen to them as a result.

And then you'd leave it with them. From that point onwards, if you're wanting to say, you know, if you're thinking to yourself, “I just don't feel comfortable working for this client,” it could be the case that they're one of those ones that just doesn't want to change. Or it could be one of those ones that are saying… I mean if they're the ones that say they do want to change, then you won't know for a little while because you've got that time lapse between, you know, them saying they want to change and then starting to notice, hey, they're not actually doing anything about it. And so, from there you're basically going to have to decide for yourself what you feel comfortable with.

And this comes into more of an ethical issue. And I love this actually. It was a colleague of mine, Penny, who you probably all know in the community, anyway. She's a bookkeeper. And there was a few things that I was talking to her about feeling comfortable with and she pointed out to me that it's an ethical issue. And I thought, “Oh, that's actually really interesting.” Different people have different levels of what they're comfortable to tolerate. And so that's really up to us to decide.

Just because we decide, “Look, I'm going to actually tolerate this client,” it doesn't mean we're being unethical. So being unethical is, or sorry… Being non-compliant is where you just let the client go ahead with it and you tell them that it's fine or you just say nothing. Whereas you might think to yourself, “Look, I actually feel comfortable now, now that I've notified the client if they want to do it, that's up to them.” They've been warned, they've been given the information and from there you know you're, you're actually protecting yourself. You've got something documented. And from there it's just a peace of mind thing.

If you really feel, “I don't have a peace of mind keeping working with this particular client,” then by all means you can end the engagement. But if you think to yourself, “Is this just my personal conscience, like trying to beat me up?” Because of your own sort of internal ethical code, you know, you can actually make a decision based on that. You can say, “Oh well look, you know, I've given them the warning, that's it.” Or you might say, “Look, I've warned them but I just don't feel comfortable and I want to stop.” And either way is actually fine.

I'm not going to judge anyone who decides to keep working with a client. There's been situations where I personally haven't felt comfortable, but in my first time around running the business, I would have pulled the pin a lot quicker because I was scared. And this time around, you know, for me I think, you know, I have to put myself in the client's shoes and think what are they going through? Why would someone do this? Why would someone put their business at risk? Are they just a complete narcissist or psychopath who doesn't want to care for their clients? Or are they genuinely worried about money? Now I know some of you will probably come back to me and say, “It doesn't matter. They're not to use, you know, the ATO as a bank,” and things like that. And look, that's all fine. I'm not saying that's a good idea for clients to not pay the entitlements because of their cashflow issues.

But the reality of being in business is cashflow issues happen like come up for all sorts of reasons. And our job as bookkeepers is to help clients to navigate these tricky situations. And to look for ways that we can actually assist. And if that could be giving them a bit of a grace period to come around to being willing to make the changes, then I'm all for that. I am totally all for giving people grace because I can see the grace that's been given to me so many times. I've had so many different chances in life on various issues. And I think we all have on some level and you know, I think we all enjoy it when people are patient with us and they don't breathe down our necks and they give us time to change because I think it's about changing the mindset of the business owner.

And you know, we talk about changing mindsets and stuff like that. You tell me one person that really actually wants to change their mindset? We don't. We talk about, “Oh you know, have a different mindset about things,” but changing your mind about something is hard. We don't just wake up tomorrow and change our mind about something. Usually it takes something to go wrong or something scary to happen or some kind of repercussion or some kind of inspiration comes along. Maybe someone comes into our life and is really, you know, different or it gives us a new perspective on things. So if we can be that person for them, if we can be patient with them but also come in and inspire them and talk to them about the benefits of paying their staff correctly, you know, we have the opportunity to make a change there.

The reality is… Sorry, take a breath Amy. I mean the reality is, you know, Australian small business owners are under a lot of pressure. I can send you guys some stats. I'll send you this report. There was a report done in 2019 which keeps all the small business stats and it analyses a period from 2013 to 2016 and makes a comparison of the situation for small business owners. And this report made me feel really sad. I was actually looking for some stats to back up that statistic that gets thrown around like there's no tomorrow that 60% of businesses will be out of business in the next three years.

So firstly I discovered that that statistics actually not correct. It's actually a much lower percentage surprisingly, but for sole traders without staff, the success rate or the survival rate is actually quite high. Whereas once you get into the one to four employees, the survival rate drops and then in that five to 10 employee period that that's when they're at risk. Because I guess they're under a lot of pressure and you know, small business owners actually don't make a lot of profit.

I'll send you this report. I'll put the link in the thing. I want you to have a look at this report, have a bit of a read of it and just get… I don't know, just wrap your head and your heart around the situation for small business owners and have a think about how you can contribute to solving some of these problems. You know, when you think about it, small business owners are the… They employ a massive amount of people. So you know, all of us are small business owners and we give people jobs. So you know, I find it funny that the people who are creating so much of the employment in Australia are struggling with their payroll probably because of cashflow reasons. Either that or lack of education. So either of those things, you know, we can contribute to helping that situation. So I really encourage you to read that report. I'll post it in the Facebook group as well, but yeah, I'll chuck the link in there and have a look at that report. I'd love to know what you think of it.

So the next bit. The next thing that's really annoying about payroll is that we're always looking for ways to streamline and automate processes for ourselves and for our clients. And there's lots of different softwares out there and different solutions to help you to make payroll a bit of a less painful process. So being able to streamline your own internal processes for processing your client's payroll can make a real big difference. So I don't know if you've heard me say this before, but I definitely have thought about it. I don't know if I've ever said it out loud.

You know, obviously you've probably heard me say that an expert bookkeeper has 10000 hours of experience. Not just a bookkeeper. Anyone who's an expert has 10000 hours of experience in their profession. That's what makes someone a professional. What did I say? A professional. An expert. An expert. That's the one. I think that's from that Malcolm Gladwell book. I can't even think of the name of it right now. What's it called? Anyway, you know what I'm talking about? He's the one that wrote the book called Tipping Point and a few other books. Anyway couple of cool books by this author. Maybe I'll post the link to that as well. I can't remember what the book's called, but I'll see if I can find it. And he talks about the 10000 hours that makes you into an expert.

And so I have mentioned that before. And so basically if you don't feel like an expert… Like if you've done over 10000 hours and you don't feel like an expert, which is very, very common in life. I mean I've got, I don't know how many hours bookkeeping I would have, but it's a lot more than five years. Like I'd say 20… I won't count like the first five years because that was sort of in my teens working part-time. But let's say 20 years. So I'm an expert times four, 40000 hours of experience and many of you listening will have the same amount of experience, yet you feel like you don't know what you're talking about sometimes. I definitely feel like that I'm like, do I even know what I'm talking about? And so for us, you know, as professionals, as experts, we need to have good processes for processing our client work.

And not only that, but you know, I think the other thing, aside from hours. You might have someone who's like a really fast learner, so they could be considered or at the same level of an expert within a shorter period of time. Like it doesn't have to be the 10000 hours. That's kind of a rule of thumb. But I would say to know if you're an expert… An expert is someone who knows how to check their own work and find their own mistakes.

So, you know, some of us will be listening and under supervision and that kind of thing. You'll reach a point where you become confident that you don't need someone to check your work. The thing is when we don't check our own work, we still need to have a way to check our own work because… Well I prefer to check my own work before, you know, some accountant picks up the file and you know, tells the client how incompetent I am for missing, you know, one thing.

And so basically I think, one of the skills that you'll learn as an expert is to be able to reconcile the balance sheet. And I'll probably do another episode on this or maybe… I probably should even do a webinar or something. Reconciling the balance sheet is the skill of an expert. Reconciling the balance sheet means you don't just reconcile the bank accounts or the credit cards or the loans, but you actually reconcile every account.

And how that ties into payroll is the biggest culprits for rescue jobs issues is going to be your GST accounts and your PAYG and your superannuation. So your payroll… Like anything to do with the best, pretty much. So your payroll is an area that needs to be reconciled every month and every quarter. And if you have processes in place for being able to do that, and if you have payroll checklists for your staff, you're just going to make it a whole lot less painful and you're going to be able to streamline those processes and reduce some of that pain of actually getting things done with a less amount of stress.

So the more templates and processes and checklists that you can have around payroll, it's just going to make it so much easier for you and your clients. If you've got a way of onboarding your clients' new employees, or if you've got a way of checking the weekly payroll off to make sure the tasks have been done or if you've got a nice checklist for end of month or end of quarter or end of financial year to make sure everything's been allocated correctly. If you've got a checklist for making sure that the payroll is set up correctly when you do a new paid health check or something like that, then you know it's going to be so much better. I think that the stress from payroll…` Not all of it, some of it comes from the risk. Some of it comes from the frustration of trying to get clients compliance and having those awkward conversations. And some of it actually comes from a lack of preparation or organisation or processes on our behalf. So that's another way that we can, you know, start to reduce the stress that payroll has on us.

And you know, also understanding what the different payroll softwares out there do. You might be looking for different solutions on how to process the payroll, that your client's staff can manage and submit their time sheets. You might have something for scheduling rosters and things like that. So there's all these different solutions out there. But through being able to connect with one another, we can actually, you know, share our tips and ideas on the different software solutions available. We can talk about our processes. You know, we can talk about those difficult conversations and how to encourage the clients. We can talk about a situation where we might feel that we're at risk.

So there's all these different things that we can do once we come together in community and we're not alone in the whole process. So I think, yeah. What have we covered now? We've covered, conversational skills I guess was the first one, or discernment, recognition skills, seeing which client is which. Which kind of client you're dealing with, looking at your processes, streamlining, checklists, and things like that. And then you've got… I guess the other one is education. You know, I think when we're not feeling confident, I believe that a lack of confidence nearly always ties into a lack of competence. And I'm not saying that we're all incompetent, but there could be an area… If you're feeling nervous, perhaps there's an area where you just need to do a little bit of study. And this is where it all kicked in for me.

I started thinking to myself, “Oh, I keep repeating myself with these whole payroll's so hard”, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then I thought, “Well, you know, maybe I need to actually brush up my skills.” Like I think I've been probably… I didn't do payroll since the start of my career. I started out in an accounting firm. I actually started earlier than that in my dad's business. And I actually remember the accountant… I remember payroll day and I remember the accountant would lock themselves away in the office all day and this whole day I'd see him hunched over his computer and you weren't even allowed to go to the door. I remember that. And I remember when the new person took over from the payroll. He was still there, but she took over from the payroll. And I remember she did the same thing. I remember her locking herself in the office, hunching herself over the computer. I remember just from back then, payroll must be this really stressful, horrible thing that makes people hunch over their computers and lock themselves away in the office.

And then for 10 years I worked in an accounting firm and we just didn't do payroll. We did financial statements and tax returns for companies. So the payroll had already been sorted. That said, this is where I learned my skill of reconciling the payroll and making sure that was all correct. So we did that aspect of it, but we didn't do the processing, didn't have to deal with the clients about it. So that was all good.

And then, yeah, I guess about 10 years ago, which was when I started getting more into the bookkeeping side of things within the accounting firm. Maybe… What year is it? Oh my gosh, it's 2020. I started… It was… Oh my gosh, 2002 that's when I first would have started working for bookkeeping clients within the accounting firm. So I would have been doing the occasional payroll by that stage.

So let's just say last 10 years I've been doing like a fair lot of payrolls and then earlier in that period. So the point that I'm getting to, for those of you who are waiting for me to get to the point… Is that I have a lot of payroll experience, but yet I don't feel like an expert. In fact, I feel like I suck at payroll. So that's why I thought I'm going to actually do some training. So I've just started to do a little bit of brushing up and studying on… Just around like the Fair Work stuff. And so I'm not going to keep this a secret because you guys have to know about this, but I don't know if you know, but Fair Work has all these courses and so I highly recommend just jump on the Fair Work website.

Like they're pretty basic and there are those courses where they let anyone pass. It's more educational. Their courses don't really teach you payroll skills. They teach you how to navigate the Fair Work website and I think that's a big issue. We're always talking about all of these different things that are so complex. But I think if we understand how to look on the Fair Work website, we'll be able to start to find the answers we need. There'll be always times when we need to engage a HR professional where we need to get Fair Work onto the situation and just not deal with it. But these courses on the Fair Work website will help you to be able to tell the difference between those jobs and they'll give you suggestions on how you can actually communicate with clients. It's really interactive and I was actually really impressed.

In fact, here's a tip for you. I'm going to actually make it a requirement for my clients. Anyone who engages me for payroll, I'm going to make it part of my onboarding process that the client must complete certain Fair Work courses. So there's some courses on there that are for providers and if some who if a business owners, so jump on the Fair Work website. I'll put a link in for that as well so you can just click on it and go straight there. But I recommend that you sort yourself out, get some certificates happening in there. You can put the certificates on your website just to make yourself look fancy and if you want to do what I'm doing and incorporate that in your onboarding process, then you know some of those difficult conversations won't need to be had because Fair Work can tell them directly and so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can just go to Fair Work website and get them to do the courses. So good luck with that.

I know some of you are probably thinking, “Yeah, right. My clients aren't going to do a course,” but if you make it compulsory, if you say, “Look, I'm not going to work with you.” For new clients, I'm saying. With existing ones you might have a bit of a wrestle ahead. Either that or you could just put your foot down and say, “This is part of it.” I don't know. It'll be up to you. You'll make your own decision about that. And so basically I really want to invite you to jump in this group, Facebook.com/groups/PayrollAustralia. And yeah, jump in the group, join the conversation. And just quickly before we go, I'm just going to wrap up on some of the common things that I've heard people saying to me about payroll.

So when I first started the group, I actually had two questions there. What do you love about payroll and what do you hate? And I have now changed the questions just to make people pay attention to the group rules, which hopefully you'll like the group rules. When you join, you'll see them. I've been a little bit humorous in my rules, but also a little bit strict. Like I've set the group with a high standard of expectations from the way that you're going to become a payroll expert in that group. And so we're not going to be the slackers. We're not going to expect everyone to do the work for us, but we're going to come together and we're going to learn and we're going to do things properly in this group. So basically here we go.

So some of the common things that people were saying that they hated about payroll, aside from, “Everything.” So some… a lot of people wrote everything. They hate everything. Some of them said that they hate getting employers to pay super to contractors. A lot of people said the complexity. That was a word that showed up a lot. A lot of people were talking about the ridiculously difficult awards and all the variations. Rate changes that happen during the year. Unscrupulous employers that try and underpay or don't want to pay any entitlements. Some just said very little and prefer to outsource like they just don't want anything to do with it, which is also, you know, an option if you want a white label service, I don't know. Casual and over time, terminations, ever changing rules. Employers grumbling about the minimum wage and all that kind of thing.

So yeah, that's just a few examples of the things that people said they hate. So if you've been thinking to yourself that you hate payroll and you've been having some of those thoughts yourself, I just want to let you know that these are the feelings and sentiments of the people in the group. Some of the things that you know… The other question was what do you love? And some people just said, “Can't think of anything,” or “Nothing,” but a lot of other people said they love getting it right. They love helping small businesses. They love it when they're able to help clients with their questions. And they love it when the client respects them and implements their answers. They like working with the software and all the different technology and once it's set up correctly, just managing it is actually quite easy.

And yeah, others said they only like it if it's a small amount of employees, which is fine. And yeah, some people were just really stoked when it reconciles. So high five when it reconciles. Happy dance. And so yeah, I just thought by sharing that with you, you'll know… Look, there are people out there that actually do love payroll. There all things to love about payroll. But also if you feeling like, “I just hate payroll right now,” then you're not alone and these are the kind of people that you'll expect to find in the group.

So just before I go, I'm actually just going to really quick, just share with you the group rules because I want you to know that this… Obviously you'll see them. Oh, maybe I'll just let you see that when you join the group. Yeah, maybe I will. I'll just, I think I'll just leave it for now. You don't want to hear me read a list of rules.

But jump in the group and there's seven rules and they're all, they're sort of a little bit humorous in the way that I've communicated with them, but they calling us to a higher level of expertise and productivity. And also, you know, encouraging us to hold our level of integrity and be professional and you know, also to think about the way that we communicate in groups, which as you know from some of my past episodes, I am very passionate about the way that we communicate with each other and the type of culture that we're breeding in our Facebook groups. So please join the I Love Payroll Providers Australia group.

It's actually I heart Payroll. I might change that so it's easy to Google search or search it on the Facebook thing, but whatever. If you type in Payroll Providers Australia in the search bar on Facebook, you'll find the group. Otherwise go to Facebook.com/groups/PayrollAustralia. I'll put the link in the thingy as well. And yeah, let's get heading towards that path of loving payroll more and hating it less. And it's going to be an awesome year for payroll and just feel it. All right, so anyway, have an amazing week and see you next week. I won't see you, but you'll hear me. I'll catch up with you then. Goodbye and have an awesome day. Bye.