September 8, 1999 Web posted at: 2:03 p.m. EDT (1803 GMT) by Dan Caterinicchia

From...

(IDG) -- A California World Wide Web workflow company has received a state labor law ruling that will enable its customers to deliver an entirely paperless payroll to employees.

The company, Pleasanton, Calif.-based ProBusiness Inc., had pushed for a clarification of a state law that required paper backups to be issued on all electronic payroll payments.

The company asked state Sen. Richard Rainey and Assemblywoman Lynn Leach for help when the California Department of Industrial Relations issued a requirement that employees receive paper-based copies of payroll checks.

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"Our customers were interested in the online service, so we contacted state Sen. Richard Rainey and our assemblywoman, Lynn Leach, and they agreed with us and sent a letter to the department asking them to reconsider," said Andrew McDevitt, government relations liaison at ProBusiness.

The paperless process is environmentally friendly, cost-efficient and secure, McDevitt said. Employees can access paycheck information online from anywhere with a user identification and password, and they can view data for the past three years of paycheck actions.

"A key thing was giving employees access to the last three years of payroll data," said Bob Taylor, a spokesman for Rainey. "ProBusiness was ready to move forward, and they made it happen."

The paperless system also cuts costs on paper, ink and postage, McDevitt said.

ProBusiness is a Web-based employee administrative services company which lists Paramount Pictures and Autodesk Inc. among its California customers.

"We're pleased with the state's reversal and think it shows that they are really embracing technology," McDevitt said, adding that he hopes other states follow California's lead. "The future challenges will involve other existing laws that were written prior to all the technology we have now. Those will have to be reconsidered."