A Conversation With ... Brian Weimer

A Plus Payroll was founded in 1997. What does the company do?
We are a full-service payroll service bureau. We do payroll outsourcing for small- to medium-size companies. We do basic payroll processing and direct-deposit, and tax processing in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. We help with garnishments and tax credits. We offer time and attendance software, (human resources) information software, pay-as-you-go workers’ compensation and background checks, 401(k) remittance services, new-hire reporting, and basically anything that goes with payroll. We have nine employees.

Are most of your services Web-based?
Our software is Web-based, and all of our clients have access to their employee information 24-7. They can pull reports at any time, make employee changes or work on payroll any time, wherever they are, as long as they have Internet access. We do as much or as little of the data entry or file maintenance as the client wants. A lot of clients would just as soon enter (information) direct into the software than to write it down and fax it over or e-mail it. We give them that capability, and if that’s how they use our services, we become their support staff. … We’ll do training with them, on-site or online, to make sure they understand how to use our software. The cost is the same no matter how they use our services or our software … based on number of employees in the payroll. We do unlimited training, unlimited custom report writing, all included in the base cost. Our goal is really just to make sure that each company’s payroll process is as simple and streamlined and automated as possible.

What is your client demographic?
Springfield drives the demographic of our clients (and) has mainly a small-business population. Most of our clients are under 100 employees, but we do have clients with more than 2,000 employees, so we cover the whole range. Whether you have one employee or 1,000 employees, it’s still payroll … so we’re able to cover a wide range of industries.

What are some payroll challenges for small businesses?
When you’re a small company, having the capital to keep someone with payroll expertise on staff doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And small companies that are attempting to do payroll themselves may struggle a little bit keeping up with payroll laws, which have been changing constantly in the last three or four years. Outsourcing (provides) a way to have that expertise available (and) provides security as far as tax payment processing.

What are some payroll changes business owners need to be watching for?
The state unemployment fund has been borrowing from the federal government, and there’s been interest assessments being passed down to employers from the state of Missouri. On the federal side, the IRS keeps playing with the tax rates (and) they’re probably going to be doing something again next year. The IRS is looking at having employers report the amount of insurance they pay for employees on their W-2s. Who knows what else they might do? It’s a full-time job keeping up with Congress’ plans for what employers need to report, because that’s the easiest way for the IRS to get information on a large demographic group of people.

Based on your payroll-size payment structure, have you seen many layoffs among your clients?
That’s hard to say. I don’t check employee counts year-to-year by employer, but overall, it does look like some of our average check counts have gone down a little bit. The nice thing is that we’ve had very few clients actually go out of business during the recession. Most of them have been hanging on.

Do you have only the office in Springfield? What are your plans for growth?
Our home office is here in Springfield, but we do have a sales presence in Kansas City and one in San Antonio. We’re going to see how it goes in these three markets, and if that goes well, we’ll probably happily add more.
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