Getting Back to Business With GNSA


Katharina Fink, left, and Vanessa Dickey of GNSA connect in the South Portland office.

Brand Story – There’s been almost no end to the administrative headaches businesses have faced over the past 18 months.

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Handling the ever-changing landscape related to COVID-19 alone could be a full-time job for many HR staff members. Great Northern Staff Administrators, or GNSA, is based in Portland and it’s their job to help streamline these tasks, so that you can get back to the business of your business.

“COVID impacted every aspect of most businesses’ finances, and the impact of it changed daily,” says Katharina Fink, president of GNSA, which provides best-in-class payroll, HR and workforce management solutions in all 50 states. “Companies have really struggled to keep up with compliance and administration during the pandemic.”

PPP loans; tax implications; incorporating, tracking, and reporting new policies … all of that took a toll on the energy and focus of Oregon’s businesses. Over the past year, many businesses found themselves in the untenable position of having to cut staff and then not being able to bring them back or hire new employees for various reasons. That left businesses with minimal time or resources to process payroll or oversee benefits changes, for instance.

“Our strength is taking that burden of payroll taxes, compliance, filings and all of that,” Fink says. “We’re not just consultants — we can take it off your hands to ensure that everything is correct and timely. You don’t have to navigate all of this on your own.”

GNSA doesn’t just provide services; they provide technology as well. They provide one platform, PeoplePro, available on any device, that unifies all of its solutions across the entire employee lifecycle, including recruiting and onboarding, performance reviews, scheduling and time off management.

IT4A4600GNSA client services team members discussing client setup and onboarding

Fink expects policies to continue to shift into 2022. “Certainly for the first few months of the year things are going to remain uncertain,” she says. But beyond that, one big change that’s on the immediate HR administration radar is the employee retention credit, which was initially approved by the U.S. Senate to end January 1, and could now potentially be retired three months early if the infrastructure bill passes. The credit was part of the CARES Act, which encouraged businesses to keep employees on their payroll while experiencing year-over-year revenue losses. Now, companies may have to navigate how much credit they got and pay back any credits they shouldn’t have taken. “That could be a struggle for a lot of companies,” Fink says.

Managing these pieces of administrative work could easily take up a business owner’s entire day. Since you likely didn’t open your business to spend your time focusing on things like taxes and sick leave, get back to the business of running your business, and have peace of mind that everything is being taken care of properly. GNSA works with any type of business, of any size, but they have a particular expertise in the nonprofit world, restaurants and hospitality and the medical and healthcare industries.

“We provide solutions to help take care of it all for the companies that we work with, and we will continue to do so,” says Fink. “It’s helped our clients be able to do what they set out to do, and actually focus on getting their business through these daily challenges and be successful down the road.”

Learn more at www.gnsadmin.com

 


Brand stories are paid content articles that allow Oregon Business advertisers to share news about their organizations and engage with readers on business and public policy issues.  The stories are produced in house by the Oregon Business marketing department. For more information, contact associate publisher Courtney Kutzman.