Carla Marsh runs Accurate Pay Systems, a payroll and HR company out of Sterling Heights, Michigan. She's been on payroll since her second job out of college, and she built a company around fixing the problems other providers leave behind.

She wasn't a CPA, so it took a year and a half and a letter from her own accountant just to get the IRS credentials to process payroll herself.

Based on that grit alone, she's built an all-female team of eight, spread across three states, with a Google Meet every morning and a wine tasting on the calendar too. And she still shows up to CPA firms with donuts, because that's what built her client base in the first place.

Here’s what Matt and Carla covered on this episode:

→ Why business owners get blindsided by unemployment and tax notices

→ Buying out a business partner and learning payroll operations from scratch

→ Getting called out by her own staff, and changing because of it

→ How pay-as-you-go workers comp actually works

→ Running an all-female team across three time zones

Thank you to Carla for making the time to sit down and tell this story. We appreciate you coming and sharing your time!

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and meet Carla Marsh, the "Payroll Wizard"

02:19 The payroll mistakes that blindside small business owners

02:48 Three business partners, one buyout, and learning payroll from scratch

07:37 The staff pushback that changed how she leads

11:12 Pay-as-you-go workers comp, explained

12:58 An all-female team spread across three states

16:06 Where AI fits and where it doesn't

17:19 The campground kid who became the "number two" sales rep who failed

17:59 Donuts, coffee, and the CPA strategy that built the business

21:22 What's next for Accurate Pay Systems

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