Volca Newsletter
Multi-location payroll
how to standardize payroll prep across multiple locations in ServiceTitan
Running one location is hard enough. Running two or three means every payroll problem you have gets multiplied, not just repeated.
But the bigger issue is not the complexity. It's the assumption that comes with it.
Most operators who manage multiple locations believe their pay plans are being carried out the same way everywhere. The plan is the same, the rules are the same, so the output should be the same.
Unfortunately that is almost never true and here is why.
What happens in the field at each location and how your techs interact with ServiceTitan produces vastly different results even when the comp plan on paper is identical.
A tech at one location records a job one way. A tech at another location records the same job type differently. A manager at location A handles a two-tech split one way. The manager at location B handles it differently. Neither is being malicious.
They just don't have a shared standard being enforced by a shared system.
The payroll person making up the difference is often working blind and there is minimal direct visibility into what is happening on the ground at each location day to day.
It’s not a people problem, it’s a structure problem.
And the operator has no easy way to know the discrepancy exists until it surfaced as a dispute.
Tips for getting multi-location payroll right:
Write down every rule, not just the plan. The high-level plan is not enough. Every edge case, every split scenario, every exception needs to be documented in a way that produces the same answer whether the manager is in location A or location B.
Standardize how your techs use ServiceTitan across tenants. The job types, tags, and attributes your techs apply directly affect what gets calculated. If those aren't set up consistently across tenants, you're starting from inconsistent data before payroll even runs.
Give whoever runs payroll visibility into all locations. A payroll manager working from one tenant's reports while being responsible for another location's accuracy is set up to fail. They need to see everything in one place.
Audit for drift regularly. Pull cross-location reports quarterly and look for patterns. If the same job type is producing meaningfully different results across locations, something in the process or setup has drifted.
Appoint one authority. The plan can vary by location but the process for calculating and verifying pay should run through one place. Multiple people interpreting the same plan independently is how you get multiple versions of it.
This is what we solve for our clients. Many of them run multiple locations and manage departments across both. Getting everything into one view, one process, means that the person responsible for payroll is no longer guessing about what is happening at a location they can’t see.
Volca's multi-location pay view brings all your tenants together in one place. One set of rules applied across every location. One report showing you what every tech at every location earned and why. Drift gets caught before it becomes a dispute.
If you're managing multiple tenants and you are not completely certain your plans are being executed the same way at every location, that is worth a conversation.