How a 40-Tech Shop Eliminated Manual Payroll Review

Most home service companies don’t realize how fragile their payroll process is until something breaks.

Monkey Wrench, a 40-technician shop in California, was doing what a lot of growing companies do… rebuilding payroll every week.

They had an outstanding pay program that combines commission incentives with hourly, but ServiceTitan’s limits made it very hard for them to run payroll.

Yossi (owner) and Kevin (GM) represent the premium standard when it comes to operators in this industry that know how to healthily scale a business, and they turned to our team at Volca to remove this payroll issue from their plate.

What “Payroll” Actually Meant

Before Volca, here’s what Fridays looked like:

• Export reports from ServiceTitan

• Dump everything into Excel

• Manually adjust the numbers

• Rebuild commissions from scratch

• Go job by job

• Verify materials

• Check subcontractors

• Account for finance fees

• Recalculate labor

In Kevin Carvajal’s words:

“We were literally going job for job, finding the material that was entered, finding the subcontractors that were used, their finance fees, their labor…”

Kevin Carvajal, GM Monkey Wrench

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That’s not payroll.

That’s a weekly audit

You don’t just get mistakes, you get disputes, second-guessing, and payroll days that seem to never end.

The Breaking Point

They didn’t need a better spreadsheet.

They needed the entire data-entry layer gone.

So Volca automated it.

What Changed

After implementing Volca, Kevin said:

“Volca removed the entire data entry piece for us and saves me hours every week. I don’t worry about it anymore.”

Kevin Carvajal, GM Monkey Wrench

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That’s the shift.

No more re-keying numbers.
No more invoice-by-invoice review.
No more rebuilding commission math just to make payroll balance.

Instead:

• Automated invoice ingestion

• Automated commission calculations

• Structured payroll output

• The same clean process every single week

What once took hours was now 10 minutes or less of review a week.

The Impact

Today, they calculate commissions for the entire sales and service team with a click.

No Excel rebuild.
No manual invoice review.
No “wait… are these numbers right?”

Just payroll that works.

The Real Lesson

Monkey Wrench did what the best scalers in this industry do.

They didn’t hire more back-office staff.

They didn’t build a less complicated pay structure that made work easier for the back-office but pay worse for the guys in the field.

They used AI to automate the engine behind payroll.

That’s what scaling actually looks like.

There is a reason that Yossi and Kevin are constantly looked to as industry experts and why they are known across the country.

When it comes to scaling a business, they do it right!
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If payroll still depends on someone manually stitching reports together and hoping it balances…

It might be time to upgrade the infrastructure.

Thank you to Yossi, Kevin, and the entire Monkey Wrench team. You guys have been awesome to work with as our partnership continues to positively impact the development of Volca and that positivity spreads to others as we continue to build the future of payroll in home services.

If you’re curious how other 30–50 tech shops are handling performance pay, happy to compare notes.