Some traditional firms think that the payroll business is outside of their paradigm. But consider this: not so far ago, accountants provided all of the services that their clients needed, including payroll preparation.

Even accountants who competed with each other were considered somewhat unethical. Then some extremely enterprising business people had came, who viewed the government’s interfering creation of more and more complicated payroll tax laws as a way to profits. These business people then intended to eliminate the only competition they had – accountants!

Stepping out of the past and into the present day, these energetic, bright business people have implemented their ideas into the “Big Two” companies in the payroll business: ADP and Paychex.

ADP and Paychex, and their followers, have persuaded us with apparently logical and reasonable arguments that we shouldn’t be in the payroll business. In the meantime, their payroll businesses keep growing. The Big Two’s performance shows a 30 percent growth rate each year, over the last five years. It mainly happens because we keep giving them the majority of their clients for payroll check writing. ADP convinced us, firm by firm, that we are too valuable to our clients to be doing “that kind of work.”