Entrepreneurs CFOThe first offer letter

A hire feels like growth, and it is a weekly cash exit. We put the wage on the ninety-day line before you send the letter, including the taxes the company will owe on top of the offer. If the thin week arrives before the new person can contribute, you should see that week while the letter is still a draft.

The letter itself is yours. We do not write your culture into it. We care that the number on the letter matches the number in the payroll setup and the number on the cash line. Three copies of one wage is the standard. A fourth number, remembered differently, is how the first month goes sideways.

If you are not ready to hire, the page still helps. Many founders are really asking whether they are allowed to stop doing everything. The closed months answer that more honestly than a busy week does. Sometimes the answer is not yet, and we will say not yet.

When the letter is real, we set payroll up on a full service provider that you run. You stay the employer. You approve the hours, you approve the run, and the provider pays. Hours, the run, and the tax deposits stay with you and with that provider. We map the wage, the draws, and the job so the books can receive the stub without a translation argument.

Setup is a sitting, not a subscription to us. We stay long enough to see one run land in the books correctly. After that, the provider's calendar is the calendar. If something on the stub does not match the month, we say so at the close. Your login stays yours. After that one sitting, Friday's run stays on your provider.

A notice that asks for payroll records gets a document reply from the file. An examination is outside this scope. You should hear that before the first hire, not after a letter arrives. The disclosures page holds the longer version, and this page holds the practical one.

The first full month with a new person should still close the same way. Bank, bills, the new wage, your own pay, the tax drafts. The statements gain a line. They should not gain thirty pages. You should be able to point at the cost of the hire next to the margin of the work you hoped they would carry.

If the work they carry is not the work you priced, the line will say so within a month. That is early enough to change the offer, the price, or the role. Waiting for a year-end surprise is how a good person and a thin offer get blamed on each other. The monthly line keeps those apart.

Bring the draft letter, or just the wage you have in mind and the week you hope they start. We will tell you whether the ninety-day line can hold it, and whether the books are closed enough to trust that answer.