Try calling almost any large service provider today and you already know the drill: a phone tree that never quite offers the option you need, a chatbot that loops the same three canned answers, and if you’re lucky, a “support ticket” that gets a reply in three to five business days. Somewhere along the way, “customer service” became a euphemism for “figure it out yourself.”
Payroll is one of the worst places for this to happen. It’s not a purchase you can shrug off if something goes wrong — it’s your employees’ rent, groceries, and car payments. When a paycheck is late, or a tax filing is wrong, “please hold” is not an acceptable answer.
That’s the gap Action Payroll was built to fill.
A Company That Still Picks Up the Phone
Action Payroll Services has been processing payroll for small and mid-size businesses across Maine and Connecticut since 1995, when founder Michael J. Maunsell, a CPA, started the company to bring real accounting expertise to a service too many businesses were outsourcing blindly. Decades later, it’s still owned and operated by the Maunsell family, with a staff of CPAs and accountants who actually know your business by name.
That matters more than it sounds. When you call a national payroll conglomerate, you’re routed to whichever rep is next in the queue, reciting from a script, with no history of your account and no stake in your outcome. When you call Action Payroll, you’re talking to someone who has processed your payroll before, understands your business’s quirks, and can actually fix the problem on the spot.
Why Smaller Often Means Better
There’s a persistent myth that bigger providers must be more capable. In payroll, the opposite is often true. Large national payroll companies build their margins on scale and self-service — automating away the humans wherever possible. Smaller, regional firms like Action Payroll build their reputation on the relationship instead.
That translates into some real, practical advantages:
You keep control of your own money. Many big payroll companies deposit your funds into their own accounts before disbursing paychecks, quietly earning interest on your payroll in the meantime. Action Payroll writes your paychecks directly from your account, so your money stays yours — along with any interest it earns — right up until it’s paid out.
Lower costs, without the hidden fees. Running a lean, regional operation means Action Payroll can offer fully electronic, customized payroll processing at a fraction of what national providers charge, without nickel-and-diming clients on add-on fees.
A dedicated team, not a call center. Every client works with the same small group of people over time. That continuity means faster answers, fewer repeated explanations, and a much lower chance that a simple question turns into a multi-day back-and-forth.
Accuracy that comes from experience, not just software. Because the team is made up of working accountants, Action Payroll doesn’t just run the numbers through a program and hope for the best. They understand the tax rules, compliance requirements, and reporting obligations behind every payroll run.
The Real Cost of “Self-Service”
It’s worth pausing on why this matters beyond convenience. When payroll goes wrong — a missed filing deadline, an incorrect withholding, a paycheck that doesn’t land on time — the fallout isn’t abstract. It’s a business owner fielding angry calls from employees, or worse, a penalty notice from the IRS. In those moments, an automated support portal or an overseas call center reading from a troubleshooting script isn’t going to cut it. You need someone who picks up the phone, already understands your account, and can move quickly.
That kind of service isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s genuinely rare. And for the businesses that have it, it’s often the reason they never go looking for another payroll provider again.
Running a Business Shouldn’t Feel This Lonely
Outsourcing payroll is supposed to free up your time and take a weight off your shoulders — not add a new source of stress every time something needs attention. In a market where “customer service” increasingly means navigating a maze designed to keep you from talking to an actual person, Action Payroll has kept doing something almost old-fashioned: treating clients like people, not ticket numbers.
For business owners in Maine and Connecticut who are tired of choosing between expensive service and impersonal service, that combination — accuracy, affordability, and someone who actually knows your name — might be the most underrated feature a payroll provider can offer.