Paper Trails

09/28/2026

🌍 One remote employee in New Hampshire can change your payroll tax obligations. Most owners find that out after the fact.

Hiring across state lines got normal fast. The compliance underneath it did not get simpler. Registration, withholding, wage and hour rules, labor postings, benefit eligibility — each one follows the employee, not your office.

Join us Tuesday, October 20 at 2:00 PM ET for Managing a Distributed Workforce, a free session built for small business owners and HR pros.

What we'll cover:
✅ Payroll tax rules, wage laws, and labor posting requirements across states
✅ How to navigate leave policies, benefit eligibility, and reporting
✅ Strategies as your remote or hybrid workforce expands

If you've got even one employee working outside Maine, this one's for you.

📅 Tuesday, October 20 | 2:00 PM ET
🔗 Register free: https://hubs.la/Q04yqnq30

Can't make it live? Register anyway and we'll send you the recording.

09/25/2026

⏱️ HR in a Hurry: Remind your team what they've already got

Quick win for today: send your team a quick refresher on the benefits and perks they may have forgotten they have.

Here's the funny thing about benefits: people sign up during enrollment, then completely forget half of what's included. 😅 The EAP nobody remembers exists. The telehealth option that would've saved a $200 urgent care trip. The discount program, the wellness perk, the thing buried on page 6 of the packet.

They're paying for it (or you are)—and it's only valuable if people actually use it.

A simple mid-year nudge works wonders:
✅ Pick 2–3 underused benefits worth re-highlighting
✅ Explain in one plain sentence what each one does and how to access it
✅ Send it somewhere people will actually see it

You're not rolling out anything new—you're just helping your team get full value from what's already there. That's a genuine win that costs you almost nothing.

Want to make sure your team is actually getting value from their benefits? That's a conversation worth having. Let's talk. 👇

09/22/2026

Most small business owners that do not offer a wide array of benefits do so for several reasons. The numbers didn't work. The paperwork looked like a second job. The idea went back on the shelf. Usually they want to but it just doesn't make sense.

We're now able to offer the isolved Voluntary Benefits Center, powered by Corestream, to clients who fit. It's worth understanding what it actually is:
✅ Employees browse optional coverage and discounts inside the isolved account they already use
✅ They pay only for what they choose, through payroll deduction
✅ It costs the employer nothing to turn on or maintain
✅ Corestream's licensed reps handle every plan and coverage question directly, so it never lands on you

Picture a fourteen person business in Maine. The owner can't afford to absorb a health plan but one employee's daughter needs braces and another just adopted a dog. Dental and pet coverage at group rates were never on the table before. Now they are.

What's kept you from offering benefits so far? Cost, complexity, or just not knowing where to start?

Full breakdown here 👉 https://hubs.la/Q04tQjBZ0

Contact us to learn more.

09/21/2026

📌 Maine's minimum wage goes to $15.70 on January 1.

The Department of Labor announced the 2027 rate on September 18, up 60 cents from $15.10.

What changes:
→ Minimum wage: $15.10 → $15.70
→ Service employee direct wage: $7.55 → $7.85
→ Monthly tips to qualify as a service employee: $191 → $199
→ Overtime exemption salary threshold: $905.79 per week, or $47,101.08 a year

If you have salaried staff between the old threshold and the new one, they become overtime-eligible January 1 unless their salary moves.

You have three months. That's enough to do it deliberately instead of scrambling.

09/16/2026

⏱️ HR in a Hurry: The post-summer HR reset

Quick win for today: now that the summer chaos is winding down, take 15 minutes for a quick HR "reset."

Summer has a way of leaving loose ends—seasonal hires rolling off, coverage juggled on the fly, paperwork that got a "we'll deal with it in September." Well… it's September. 👀

Here's your light cleanup list:
✅ Seasonal staff wrapped up? Make sure their offboarding is actually done—final pay, access shut off, paperwork filed.
✅ Any summer hires you're keeping? Confirm they're properly set up for the long haul.
✅ Coverage gaps that popped up? Jot down what you'd do differently next summer while it's fresh.

None of this is urgent—which is exactly why it's easy to skip. But tying off summer's loose ends now means you head into the busy fall stretch with a clean slate.

Feeling like summer left a paperwork pile behind? That's the kind of thing we help Maine businesses tidy up. Let's talk. 👇

09/14/2026

Tomorrow at 2pm: Getting the Ferrari Out of First Gear.

Explanation of some of the isolved features you're probably not using — workflow automation, dashboards, employee self-service, and the HR tools already sitting in your account.

Register: https://hubs.la/Q04tKCsT0

09/11/2026

Paper Trails is hiring for a brand new role in our office! Are you having fun playing with AI? Like fixing hard problems? We'd love to chat!!!
https://papertrails.isolvedhire.com/jobs/1862904-355209.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawURFgZwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR4r8hrHpuaX14RVE-kRulrgBmO-3dX7q6bkikLFP6yILQYvsPJZX2_QJG3bhw_aem_FOKQhwLORDkTZrf2dmVrZw

Most payroll jobs are about following the process. This one is about improving it. Paper Trails, a 

09/11/2026

⏱️ HR in a Hurry: Don't let the small stuff simmer 🔥

Quick win for today: if there's a little tension brewing between two people on your team, address it this week—while it's still small.

Here's how workplace conflict usually goes: it starts as a minor annoyance, nobody says anything because "it's not a big deal," and it quietly festers until one day it boils over into something that's a lot harder to fix. 😬 The eye-rolls become a shouting match. The cold shoulder becomes someone quitting.

You don't need to be a trained mediator to get ahead of it:
✅ Notice it early—tension has a way of showing up before anyone says a word
✅ Talk to people individually first, and actually listen
✅ Focus on the specific behavior and impact, not personalities
✅ Get to a clear "here's what we do going forward"

The goal isn't to make everyone best friends. It's a professional, respectful workplace where people can do their jobs.

Conflict is normal. Letting it fester is the actual problem—and catching it early is a skill worth building.

09/09/2026

🎬 NOW SHOWING: THE BOSS — BIRTHDAY EDITION

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "A tour de force." — his mother

"Somehow always knows the answer." — the entire staff

"Has never once said 'let me get back to you' and not gotten back to you." — a client

"Explains payroll tax law like it's a bedtime story. Genuinely." — someone at a partner agency

STARRING: Chris Cluff
DIRECTED BY: Chris Cluff
PRODUCED BY: Chris Cluff

RUNTIME: One more year 🎂
GENRE: Action / Comedy / Occasional Compliance Thriller

Happy birthday to our fearless leader and resident compliance expert. He signs the checks, answers the hard questions, and has never once made anyone feel dumb for asking.

Now go take the afternoon off, Chris. We'll cover it. Probably.

09/08/2026

It's National Payroll Week, and we're taking a minute to brag on the people who make payday happen. 🎉

Payroll is one of those jobs where doing it perfectly means nobody notices. Nobody sends a thank-you email for a direct deposit that hit on time. But mess it up by one hour of overtime? You'll hear about it.

So this week we're saying it out loud: to our team who catch the errors before they become problems, chase down the missing timecard at 3:58 on a Tuesday, and answer "quick question about my W-2" for the hundredth time — thank you.

This year's theme is "Every Paycheck Creates Possibility," and we love that. Because behind every payroll we run is a Maine family covering groceries, a first-time homebuyer, a kid's hockey registration, someone finally taking that vacation.

Not bad for a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet. 💙

To every payroll and HR pro out there this week — we see you.