Chapter 16 - THE FULL AUDITThe company-wide payroll audit took four months.
Results were uncomfortable.
No second David-scale theft ring.
Good.
But hundreds of smaller errors.
Missed overtime.
Incorrect tip allocations.
Uniform deductions.
Off-the-clock closing work.
Breaks automatically deducted even when workers stayed active.
Total remediation:
$1.9 million.
Vincent stared.
“Across how many employees?”
Seven hundred and forty-three.
Some owed $40.
Some $8,000.
Small errors multiplied by years and people.
Vincent hated the number because there was no villain large enough to explain it.
Software.
Manager training.
Pressure.
Carelessness.
Legacy policies.
Human mistakes.
Some misconduct.
Mostly systems.
Vincent could fire David.
He could not fire arithmetic.
So he rebuilt payroll controls.
Independent audits quarterly.
Time-edit notifications.
Employee confirmation.
No automatic meal deductions without attestation.
Tip transparency.
Direct complaint route.
Boring.
Expensive.
Effective.
That was what responsible power looked like most days.
Not seven men at a table.
May you like
Spreadsheets.
Vincent found that humbling.
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