Always-on payroll audit

The payroll second pair of eyes your year-end project is missing.

Tallyward watches every pay run against federal and state obligations — catching 941 drift, SUI rate changes, minimum-wage shifts, and W-2 reconciliation returns the same business day they appear, not the January you file them.

Sits alongside ADP, Workday, Rippling, Paychex — never replaces them. SOC 2 in flight.

States with 2026 min-wage update

20+

IRS audit hours · FY25

+12 %

Avg. drift to file-day

≤ 0.25 %

Live watch · PAY-2026-Q4
v2025.4

RUN · 10-31-2026 · 184 EE

941 federal withholding — matches PUB 15-T v2025.4

PA W-2-R · 11-02-2026 · EE 1142

Local EIT table drift $252.00

CA MIN-WAGE · 2026-01-01 · 38 / 92 EE

$0.19 / hr floor shortfall projected

NJ SUI · 2026 · rate-class 4D

Rate 0.4250 % applied to all NJ EE

CAMT signal · FY26 R&D stub

Payroll-adjacent accrual flagged for review

last scan · 12s ago continuous

What Tallyward watches

Three obligations. One inbox. Same business day.

  • 941 drift detection

    Quarter-to-quarter federal withholding drift caught the same business day — before Q4, before filing.

  • State SUI rate changes

    New employer rate, rate-class reassignment, and benefit-charge-driven adjustments, in real time.

  • W-2 reconciliation

    W-2 / W-2c / W-2-R returns (e.g. PA W-2-R) surfaced the day the state issues them.

How it watches

One agent. Four checks. Every pay run.

Tallyward runs the same four-step reconciliation on every pay output — the work incumbents book for January — so the yearend project never begins.

  1. STEP 01

    Ingest every pay run

    Reads each payroll export — pay runs, void/reissue adjustments, off-cycle bonuses — as it lands. No nightly batch, no January-only reconciliation window.

  2. STEP 02

    Reconcile against obligations

    Cross-checks every line against federal 941 / W-2 thresholds, the live state SUI rate, the state minimum wage in force on the check date, and any open reconciliation return (PA W-2-R, W-2c, 941-X).

  3. STEP 03

    Flag drift the moment it appears

    A 0.25 % variance in a state withholding table, a minimum-wage delta, or a returned W-2 surfaces the same business day — not at year-end. Plain-language note; no raw stack dump.

  4. STEP 04

    Hand back a clean filing package

    By the time you file, every exception has either been resolved or is documented with the audit trail. Amended returns stay a last resort, not the default.

Run the watcher

Drop your payroll export and a 941 line-2 baseline.

Single-file ingest · auto-detected columns · red/amber findings in plain language.

Open the watcher

Coverage

Built for the obligations, not the brochure.

The IRS is leaning in. State SUI schedules changed 62 times in 2025. Twenty-plus states reset minimum wages in 2024–2025. Tallyward watches the published sources, not the last handbook revision — the right obligation, on the right check date.

Federal 941 reconciliation

Quarter-to-quarter federal withholding drift caught at the line, not the deadline.

W-2 / W-2-R returns

Reconciliation returns such as PA W-2-R surfaced the day the state issues them.

State SUI rate changes

New employer rate, rate-class reassignment, and benefit-charge-driven adjustments in real time.

State minimum-wage shifts

20+ state updates a year — Tallyward applies the rate in force on each check date, not the rate from the last handbook revision.

Withholding-table drift

Tax-table version mismatches between payroll and the published state schedule.

CAMT exposure signal

IRA corporate alternative minimum tax can pivot a payroll-adjacent accrual; Tallyward flags the dependency so finance sees it early.

Watch log · sample

What lands in your inbox the day it happens.

Every entry carries the source rate, the rate in force, the affected employees, and the dollar impact — audit-ready, not just alerted.

PA W-2-R return received
Today · 09:14
Critical

Reconciliation return W-2-R references employee 1142 (gross $84,200). Local EIT withheld at 0.75 % vs. published 1.05 % for the locality. Drift: $252.00.

CA minimum-wage floor change
Yesterday · 17:02
Warn

Effective 2026-01-01, CA floor rises to $16.90 / hr. Employees 38 and 92 currently paid $16.75 → 0.19 USD / hr shortfall on the Apr 1 pay run.

941 Q3 withholding drift
2 days ago
Critical

Federal income tax withheld on Q3 pay runs totals $142,308 vs. computed $144,016 (PUB 15-T v2025.3). Variance $1,708 → review before Q4 filing.

NJ SUI rate change
3 days ago
Info

Employer rate moved from 0.3825 % to 0.4250 % for 2026 (rate notice received). Resolved by re-keying on the next payroll register.

Form W-2c batch pending
Last week
Warn

Six corrected W-2s queued for SSA submission; two reference employees in CO (state withholding table mismatch suspected).

All clean
Last week
Info

No open exceptions across federal 941, W-2, or the seven active state obligations. Next scheduled audit: end of business Friday.

Pricing

The lower end of the compliance stack.

The $40–$100 per-employee-per-month range already covers most of what HR teams are paying for. Tallyward is built to sit at the lower end of that band — additive to your existing payroll spend, not on top of it.

Starter
under 250 employees
$40/ employee / mo
  • Up to 7 state jurisdictions
  • Federal 941 + W-2 reconciliation
  • Daily watch log, monthly summary
  • Email escalation on critical drift
Get notified
Most picked
Standard
250 – 2,500 employees
$65/ employee / mo
  • Unlimited state jurisdictions
  • CAMT exposure signal
  • SUI rate-class + benefit-charge tracking
  • Audit-ready exports (CSV, PDF)
  • Shared inbox + role-based routing
Get notified
Multi-entity
2,500+ employees, multi-entity
$100/ employee / mo
  • Everything in Standard
  • Per-entity ledgers + consolidated view
  • Dedicated reconciliation analyst
  • Annual-filing readiness review
Get notified

Headcount is averaged monthly; you never pay for a seasonal peak. Get notified when pricing opens for multi-year commitments and non-profit tiers.

FAQ

The questions HR and finance ask first.

Incumbent platforms batch-reconcile pay runs against tax filings at year-end; the work happens once and only surfaces a problem at filing time. Tallyward watches every pay run the moment it lands and compares it against federal and state obligations continuously — including the minimum-wage adjustments in force on the specific check date. It is built to flag drift, not just catch it on the deadline.

Closing note

The year-end audit project should not exist.

Tallyward watches the obligations so your team can keep filing the work they already do. Join the waitlist and we'll let you know the moment a seat opens.

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