Guides
Reference guides, by topic
Each guide answers one question about PEO and ASO arrangements, benefits, compliance, consolidation or HCM. They sit beneath the firm’s two practices, PEO / ASO Advisory and HCM | Workforce Management Advisory.
The PEO / ASO decision
What is a PEO? →
What a professional employer organization actually is, what co-employment changes, and what it leaves exactly where it was.
What is an ASO? →
What an administrative services organization does, what it deliberately does not do, and when it beats a PEO.
PEO vs ASO: which model fits? →
The difference is structural, not a matter of service level — and it is decided upstream of price.
PEO or EOR: which do we need? →
Two arrangements that sound similar, solve different problems, and are expensive to swap.
What does co-employment actually mean? →
Who holds which obligation when two entities employ the same person — and the parts that never transfer.
Is a PEO worth it for your company? →
A decision framework for mid-sized employers: what a PEO changes, when it tends to fit, when it does not, and what to ask before you sign.
Broker or advisor: how does the way they are paid change the advice? →
How the person advising you gets paid, what it costs you, and what it tilts.
Our PEO renewal jumped. What now? →
What drives a PEO renewal increase, what is negotiable, and how to tell a market movement from a bad arrangement.
How do we exit a PEO without breaking payroll? →
What leaving actually requires, the wage-base question that carries a real dollar figure, and how to sequence it.
What should you look for in a PEO client service agreement? →
What federal law requires a certified PEO’s contract to say, which clauses to ask about before signing, and what we could not confirm.
How are PEOs regulated in Florida? →
Florida licenses PEOs as employee leasing companies. What the state regulator says, how to check a license, and what we could not confirm.
PEO for government contractors →
What changes for a federal or state contractor when a PEO becomes co-employer: wage determinations, fringe credit, certified payroll and successors.
What are the HR outsourcing options? →
In-house, ASO, PEO, BPO and fractional support — the full set, and what each is actually for.
PEO for manufacturers: what to weigh →
What a manufacturer with 50 to 700 employees should weigh about a PEO, an ASO or staying direct: workers’ comp, multi-site payroll, union and shift issues.
Cost and benefits
How much does a PEO cost? →
What a PEO costs and why no neutral price list exists: how fees are structured, sourced benefit and cost data, and an invoice checklist.
What does an HCM platform cost? →
License, implementation, and the line items that do not appear on the quote.
Is our benefits program actually competitive? →
How to tell, what to compare against, and why cost per employee answers the wrong question.
How do we stop absorbing a double-digit benefits renewal? →
Why renewals arrive as a number rather than a conversation, and where the leverage actually is.
Self-funded or fully insured: which suits us? →
What each funding arrangement actually does with your claims risk, and the level-funded option between them.
Level-funded health plans →
What a level-funded health plan is, how stop-loss sits behind it, how it differs from fully insured and self-funded, and what to ask before you sign.
How does stop-loss insurance work for a self-funded health plan? →
Specific and aggregate coverage, attachment points, incurred and paid contract periods, lasers, claim timing and renewal, from regulator sources, and what we could not confirm.
What happens to your experience mod if a construction company joins a PEO? →
How the NCCI experience modifier is built, what an ownership change does to it, Florida construction-industry and officer-exemption basics, the monopolistic-state caveat, and what we could not confirm.
Section 125, HSA and FSA guide →
How a Section 125 cafeteria plan, an HSA and a health FSA work for an employer: the written plan, election changes, testing, HDHP rules and the stated limits.
401(k) requirements for employers →
What an employer sponsoring a 401(k) must know: fiduciary duties, coverage and ADP/ACP testing, stated 2026 limits, SECURE 2.0 rules and deposit timing.
How is workers’ compensation actually rated? →
Class codes, experience modifiers, and what changes when coverage moves into a PEO pool.
Compliance and registration
How do we register to employ in a new state? →
The sequence, the lead times, and the order that avoids a first payroll with nowhere to file.
State employer registration checklist →
Which state agency registers employers for withholding and unemployment insurance, with each agency’s own page, stated timing and the date we read it.
What changes when you employ across state lines? →
The obligations that attach the moment one person works in a new state — and the order to handle them in.
What makes multi-state payroll hard? →
Where multi-state payroll goes wrong, what it costs, and the operational habits that prevent it.
Where does wage-and-hour exposure actually sit? →
Classification, overtime calculation, and the records that decide a claim — the three places the money is.
Which liabilities transfer to a PEO, and which never do? →
A clause-level answer to the question most often waved away in a sales conversation.
What does a DOL or EEOC audit ask for? →
The records that decide the outcome, and why they cannot be assembled afterwards.
ACA employer mandate guide: 50+ FTEs →
Who counts as an applicable large employer, how FTE counting works, and what the IRS says about offers, affordability and Forms 1094-C and 1095-C.
ERISA and Form 5500 for employers →
What an employer sponsoring health or welfare benefit plans must furnish and file under ERISA: plan document, SPD, SBC, Form 5500 timing, small-plan rules.
EEOC obligations as headcount grows →
Which federal anti-discrimination duties begin at 15 and 20 employees, who files the EEO-1 report, how long records are kept and what happens after a charge.
FLSA exemption classification checklist →
A plain-language checklist for reviewing whether roles are correctly classified exempt or non-exempt under the FLSA: salary, duties, overtime and records.
New hire compliance checklist →
The federal paperwork and reporting sequence for a new hire: Form I-9, Form W-4, state new-hire reporting, E-Verify and posters, each tied to its source.
FMLA obligations for growing employers →
What the FMLA regulations say an employer must do once it reaches 50 employees: coverage, eligibility, notices, benefits, restoration and records.
COBRA obligations for employers →
What federal law says an employer with 20 or more employees must do under COBRA: who is covered, qualifying events, notice deadlines, election and payment windows.
Payroll tax deposits and filing →
How federal payroll tax deposits and filings work for an employer: monthly or semiweekly schedules, the $100,000 rule, Forms 941, 940 and W-2, and penalties.
Contractor vs. employee classification →
How federal sources frame worker classification for employers: the FLSA economic-reality factors, the IRS control categories, SS-8, and a self-audit table.
Consolidation and M&A
Merging payrolls after an acquisition →
What the IRS and state pages say about successor employers, wage-base carryover, W-2 reporting and EINs when you consolidate payroll after buying a business.
Should we consolidate our HR systems? →
How stacks fragment, whether to unify what you have or replace it, and where the cost actually hides.
Consolidate the stack we have, or replace it? →
Two different projects with different risk profiles, routinely conflated.
What does workforce diligence look at? →
What surfaces when a buyer examines your people infrastructure, and what to fix before it does.
How do we grow past 500 without adding HR staff? →
What breaks as headcount doubles, and which fixes actually buy capacity.
Should a PE portfolio standardise workforce infrastructure? →
Standardise across the portfolio or let each company run its own — both are defensible, and the wrong one is expensive.
HCM and workforce management
What is human capital management? →
What HCM software covers end to end, and which parts a mid-market employer actually uses.
What is workforce management? →
Time, attendance, scheduling and labor cost — the layer that decides whether payroll is right the first time.
HCM vs HRIS vs HRMS: what is the difference? →
Three category labels that vendors use interchangeably, what each originally meant, and why the distinction matters less than the one nobody makes.
What should we actually evaluate in an HCM platform? →
The criteria that predict whether an implementation succeeds — none of which a feature grid or a scripted demo will surface.
What is HCM implementation readiness? →
The work that happens before contracts are signed — and the reason mid-market implementations slip.
What goes wrong during an HCM migration? →
The failure modes, when each one surfaces, and what actually prevents them.
Why do HCM and HRIS implementations fail, and what is the evidence? →
What can and cannot be verified about HCM implementation failure rates, and the five readiness failures that explain most slipped go-lives.
How do we stop entering the same data twice? →
Where duplicate entry comes from, which integrations are worth building, and who owns a broken feed.
How do we get labor cost visibility we can act on? →
Why most HR reporting changes nothing, and what a useful version looks like.
Where do HR hours actually disappear? →
Onboarding, mid-lifecycle change and offboarding — where the time goes and where the risk concentrates.
