Sometimes the absence of a problem is just the absence of a review

“We’ve never had a problem with it.” That sentence makes my payroll ears perk up. Do you mean there’s not a problem, or do mean you haven’t looked?

“We’ve never reconciled it.”

“We’ve never tested it.”

“We’ve never questioned how it was configured.”

“It’s always worked this way.”

I know the dream is perfection and that magical push of a button where everything just works, but payroll has a funny way of becoming a quiet ticking bomb. Risk can sit in the background for years while payroll keeps running and everything “looking fine.”

Until one day, someone comes in who knows where to look. Someone like me.

That’s when “we’ve never had a problem” can suddenly become “Why didn’t I see this before?”

Sometimes the absence of a problem is simply the absence of a review.