Written by Tara Morgan Schinkel, CPA – Accounting Systems Lead & CFO, Stewart Technologies
In my last article I talked about Stewart Tech’s payroll process, my challenges with controlling this process, and the steps taken to automate and then delegate the payroll pieces that I could. Even a year after I made this move, I was still doing the actual payroll. As many entrepreneurs/CFOs/controllers can attest, payroll is the one function that you must perform flawlessly, and it is the hardest to delegate internally. Making a mistake on an employee’s paycheck is the number one way to lose trust and respect with an employee. Letting fellow team members know what each other is paid can create internal problems and strife.
As a result, it was one of the areas that was hardest to let go of. One of my goals for Stewart Tech in 2024 and 2025 is to make the company self-managing. What does this mean? Self-managing means the entrepreneur can walk away from the daily functions of the firm to focus on whatever requires our focus at that time. This could be going to a conference for a week, learning something new, strategic planning, or taking a vacation where you aren’t working at all. The concept of a self-managing firm and having true “off “ periods came from the book 10X is Easier than 2X by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan.
When our business partner Don retired back in 2017, I stepped into his role as CFO and controller of Stewart Tech. This meant I was responsible for all things financial – including payroll. Even though our payroll is semi-monthly, it never fails to fall in the middle of vacation. Now – the beauty of the ability to work from anywhere is that I have done payroll in some of the most beautiful places in the world – the Alps in France, the Adirondack mountains in New York, Deep Creek Lake in Maryland, and the lovely beaches of Outer Banks, North Carolina. However, with this responsibility comes a lot of extra stress and worries too. Everywhere we go on vacation has to have good Wi-Fi or some form of internet connection – which for some of the remote places we’ve vacationed – was a challenge. If there were ever concerns about this, I chose to do payroll early to ensure the team got paid on time, or we literally would not pick that location for vacation (which made me very unpopular with my family at times).
What this cost me was my peace of mind over the years. Knowing that I had the responsibility of submitting payroll while on vacation didn’t really allow for the true mental break that one needs, and having to worry about what might happen if there was no internet made it even more difficult. Worrying about all of this – while on vacation – took me away from precious time with my family.
This year I was blessed to go on a trip to Coronado, California, to visit family I hadn’t seen in over a year. I decided it was time to let payroll go.
Prior to heading out on vacation, I recorded a series of videos in Loom on all the steps needed to complete payroll from start to finish and sent them over to Leigha, my virtual assistant. Leigha took the videos, wrote up a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for this process, and from there completed payroll without me. All I had to do was simply log on to review her work and confirm that all the information was accurate before having her submit. The win for me during this delegation was that, for the first time in seven plus years, I did not have to worry about completing payroll while on vacation. It was a huge relief to have that major stressor off of me.
It’s never too late to strive for a better, less stressful life. Delegating work to others at your company does not make you a lazy or uninvolved owner or boss. For years, I thought it was my obligation as an owner/entrepreneur to be working all the time, even while on vacation. However, over time, I realized that not having these mental breaks was costing me more in the long run. My purpose for writing this article is to hopefully help you see how easy it is to fall into the same habit, but also how important it is to break the cycle and fight for the mental break you so richly deserve.
Stewart Tech CFO and Accounting Systems Lead Tara Schinkel shares her journey of “Less Doing, More Living,” and how optimization, automation, and delegation continue to transform her business and her life. This is the seventh blog in the series and is a continuation of how Stewart Tech automated and delegated their payroll process, thus gaining freedom from the process. You can read blog #6 here.
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If you’re looking to automate, optimize, or streamline your accounting and ERP processes, visit the Demos and Overviews section of our website to see how Sage can better serve your accounting needs. Looking for more information? Consider scheduling a Sage consultation call with one of Stewart Tech’s Sage certified consultants.
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