Runbook

About Runbook Payroll

Payroll is a promise. Runbook keeps the record.

Payday is the most important recurring promise a small business makes. When it goes right, it is an exhale. When it goes wrong, it is someone's rent. And when a tax agency asks questions — sometimes years later — the difference between a bad week and a bad year is whether you can prove what happened.

Most buyers do not ask for "provable payroll" in those words. They ask why a check changed, why a tax notice arrived, whether a CPA can verify the numbers, or whether a mid-year provider switch will break year-end. Runbook is built for that practical anxiety: when payroll goes wrong, show exactly what happened.

Runbook is being built as provable payroll around a stricter record: each fact carries two dates, each amount keeps its source facts and rule snapshot, and each approved run can produce a sealed proof artifact. The goal is practical payroll with institutional-grade evidence, not a prettier dashboard over mutable numbers.

The fourth generation

Runbook's founder grew up in the house of Carl M. Heintz, CPA, who wrote payroll and tax software from 1985 to 2004. Carl stored tax tables as data, mapped pay categories to the ledger, kept year-to-date amounts beside current pay, and taught practitioners how the rules worked. His son built Runbook before seeing that code; when the files resurfaced, the shared architecture revealed a family tradition: payroll should show its work.

LiveDeterministic engineInteger cents, cited rule snapshots, randomized invariants.
LiveCorrections flowDerived deltas with settled history intact.
LiveQuittance verifierIndependent artifact verification and sealed digest registry.
Product pathLive payroll railsMoney movement, tax deposits, filings, support, and provider reconciliation.

What is available now

Runbook's public surface is currently a synthetic proof demonstration. The proposed Payroll Correctness Review and all live payroll intake are paused while calculation, counsel, contract, and operational readiness mature toward a service that is ready for customers. Full-service payroll remains the product ambition, not a currently available service.

PausedCorrectness Review conceptNo payment or sensitive-document intake.
Public proofSample packetInspectable demo record and verifier path.
Active channelLinkedInCompany updates and payroll proof examples are publishing now.
In developmentFull-service payrollRails, filings, worker portal, benefits, support, and licensing.

Our principles

  • Show the work. Every user-visible number is a projection of engine lineage.
  • Rules are content, not code. Tax parameters live in effective-dated snapshots with citations.
  • Corrections are derived. The ledger is append-only; late facts create recomputed deltas, not patched history.
  • No AI in the calculation path. Agents propose, humans approve, Runbook computes, Quittance proves.
  • Payroll must become operationally complete. Live funds, filings, support, and notice workflows are product obligations, not footnotes.

Where we are

Runbook is in active development, starting with employers and advisors who care about proof, corrections, local taxes, switching providers, and agent-mediated operations. The ambition is full payroll. The discipline is to build every public claim into the ledger before asking anyone to rely on it for payday.