Whitehall Payroll Company May Have New Name, But Service, Quality Still the Same

Everyone looks forward to payday, but did you ever think about the back-end of the process, like who is making sure that you get paid on time and correctly?

If your place of employment uses a payroll service to see that its employees are paid, or if it uses a time clock or any number of other human resources services, there's a good chance that Payroll Solutions is the one responsible for your live check or direct deposit.

As of Tuesday, Sept. 6, Payroll Solutions, a national provider of workforce-management solutions providing integrated payroll, human resources, and time- and labor-management sources, will be known as

The -founded company is headquarted on White Hampton Lane along Weyman Road in the and has 45 employees in Whitehall and 20 more at its Huntington Beach, CA, location. Sentric processes more than 2 million paychecks annually.

Longtime friends Mike Maggs and David Lewis, who attended Duquesne University together, founded Sentric as Payroll Solutions in 1994. As president and executive vice president, respectively, the two decided that their mission would be to provide high-tech payroll solutions and excellent service with a client-centered approach.

Flash forward to the present day, where, despite their growth, their mission hasn't changed. Sentric's rebranding effort came as company officials, who knew the company's potential and the high quality services that it offered, realized that it was time to hit the national stage. The industry was changing and evolving, and that meant that Payroll Solutions had to step out into the spotlight.

“Our problem was that we had a national presence but not national recognition,” Maggs said.

“People know our name, but some of our own clients didn't totally know what we did,” Lewis said.

National recognition may be the least of some companies' problems in today's economic climate, but for Payroll Solutions, it was enough of an issue that it turned to a national marketing agency to help it elevate its game.

That isn't to say that its products and services weren't already being used by clients everywhere. Sentric has more than 2,500 clients country-wide, and its local big hitters include the Pirates and the Tribune-Review.

The rebranding didn't happen overnight. It took months and months of planning and pitching ideas back and forth, something that was strange for a homegrown company whose employees had a hand in its day-to-day marketing and communications operations.

On Tuesday, the technology-rich company launched its new brand and overhauled its website. The two questions that Sentric is getting now: “Were you bought out?” and “Are you accepting new clients?” The answers: no and yes, respectively.

With the scale of its services, Sentric could expand anywhere. So, why stay in Pittsburgh?

"We're a very community-oriented company,” Maggs said. “Our call to action is really getting our clients the best service.

"We have the best product in the industry; let's tell everyone about it.”

For more information on Sentric's services, visit its website at www.sentric.net or call 412-884-7600.