Kris Armstrong has been a beam of radiant light at the OCCAPA for the past five years. She not only nailed it as our newly elected secretary this year, but she is also our exceptional and amazing Webinar Director.  Kris worked very hard in laying the groundwork for the OCCAPA meetings to be safe and healthy by spearheading the project of setting up our monthly meetings into virtual webinar meetings.  Kris’ drive and determination and the love for all things payroll and payroll education made her the perfect candidate for this! She researched and collaborated with the national APA.  She also did the Zoom research, and set up and did the user testing, and implementation.  She also found the time to set up our webinar survey.  Please join us in congratulating Kris for doing such an exceptional job, and also welcoming her into her new role.

Kris has been in the Payroll Industry for 12 years and was previously OCCAPA’s Educational Director for 4 years.  She has been with the California Payroll Conference for the last 3 years and currently is their Chair for Marketing and Communications.  She is a Senior Payroll Consultant for Paytech.

She would like to offer the following tips or advice to all Payroll Professionals:

• Figure out the cadence and what helps the departments that are surrounding payroll can really help your payroll career.
• Know the closing schedule.
• Know when new hire orientation is taking place.
• We do not do payroll in a vacuum. Be in constant communication with both accounting and HR, these relationships are invaluable.
• Also, get a screenshot program and document EVERYTHING…you may have a perfectly good reason for adjusting an employee’s OT, PTO, expense payment but six months, a year, two years from now you will not remember it and what seemed like a small adjustment at the time can be a turning point in a lawsuit.
• Get and keep proof of all actions you take. You will be protecting your company and your reputation.
• Last but not least, learn technology, it is not going away! Excel/ Macros/VBA can be your very best friend in payroll.

We offer her all the love and support in the world! We are happy to answer any questions that arise about our chapter and our webinars, but in the meantime, simply continue to enjoy all of the amazing things that the OCCAPA has to offer.

Remy Jay CPP,  OCCAPA Webmaster