WageTime is payroll for independently owned and operated Griswold franchise businesses, whichever side of the registry line your state puts you on: full agency payroll for employer-model offices, and W-2 office payroll with 1099 contractors alongside for registry offices.
WageTime is an independent payroll provider serving independently owned and operated Griswold franchise businesses. WageTime is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Griswold International, LLC or the Griswold brand. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Griswold built its early network on the caregiver referral model, then watched federal and state rules redraw it office by office. Whatever mix of contractors and employees your state allows, the pay operations are yours to get right every single week.
Griswold’s own corporate site says it plainly: in some states the offices only refer independently contracted caregivers, in others they employ and supervise them. An owner whose territory sits near a border can end up holding one of each, with two sets of pay rules, two year-end form stacks, and one very confused spreadsheet.
A registry office has no caregiver payroll, but January doesn’t care. Dozens of referred caregivers need 1099s, the coordinators and schedulers who kept the book running need W-2s, and both stacks trace back to the same small office that also had to invoice clients all year.
Federal guidance on caregiver registries draws the line at behavior: match clients and caregivers and you’re a registry; set the pay rate, control the schedule, and you start to look like the employer. That means the way your office handles money and hours is not clerical detail. It’s the evidence.
When a state or a strategy change flips an office to the employer model, the whole caregiver roster needs onboarding, withholding, workers’ comp, minimum wage, and overtime at once. Griswold lived this at brand scale a decade ago, and offices changing states or models still live it one roster at a time.
Franchise trackers put the median Griswold office above $1.6 million in gross revenue, and one tracker calls that the strongest per-unit figure in its senior-care category. However the office is modeled, that is a large book of caregiver weeks: multiple clients, multiple rates, drive time in between, and a payday that arrives every Friday whether the math is done or not.
Run both populations in one WageTime system: the office team on W-2 payroll with every tax filed automatically, and referred caregivers as 1099 contractors alongside in the same run, their payments coded as contractor payments, cleanly separated from wages.
| Person | Paid as | Last payment |
|---|---|---|
| Yvette D.Referred caregiver | 1099-NEC | Fri Oct 23 |
| Gideon R.Referred caregiver | 1099-NEC | Fri Oct 23 |
| Marguerite H.Referred caregiver | 1099-NEC | Fri Oct 16 |
| Carletta M.Care coordinator | W-2 hourly | Fri Oct 23 |
| Ivo S.Office director | W-2 salary | Fri Oct 23 |
Replaces the second bookkeeping file that existed only to keep contractors out of the payroll one.
The whole book onboards at once, and WageTime is built for exactly that wave: bulk invites to the full roster, self-onboarding by phone with e-signatures, electronic I-9s with E-Verify cases, and rates landing effective-dated so the first W-2 run pays correctly.
| Caregiver | Docs signed | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Yvette D.E-Verify case created | 6 of 6 | Ready for payroll |
| Gideon R.I-9 complete | 6 of 6 | Ready for payroll |
| Marguerite H.I-9 Section 2 pending | 4 of 6 | In progress |
| Tomas E.E-Verify case created | 6 of 6 | Ready for payroll |
| Remaining 30 caregiversRolling this week | 24 of 30 signed | On track |
Replaces the folder of paper packets that was supposed to become a payroll by Friday.
A converted office inherits the multi-rate week on day one. WageTime prices it without a spreadsheet: when a caregiver splits the week across clients and rates, the overtime premium is paid on the weighted-average regular rate of everything earned, computed automatically.
Replaces the flat-rate guess that paid hour 41 at whichever number was closest.
Large: trackers relaying the brand’s FY2024 Item 19 report an average of $2,131,036 in gross revenue per office. A book that size is dozens of caregivers paid every week, and WageTime keeps the cadence cheap and the office out of the loop.
| Group | Hours | Gross |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly caregivers49 people | 1,880 | $34,780.00 |
| Overnight blocks5 people | 240 | $4,440.00 |
| Office staff7 people | 280 | $8,820.00 |
Replaces the paystub reprint queue and the Friday afternoon the office lost to it.
WageTime prices in the same spirit as Griswold’s own fee schedule: $50 a month plus $10 per person paid, flat at any frequency. Griswold’s agreement was rewritten with its franchisee association after eighteen months of negotiation, announced jointly in December 2016 with evergreen renewal rights.
Replaces the payroll bill that billed per run, per form, and per question.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoIt depends on the state and the office. Griswold’s corporate site states that in some states its offices only refer independently contracted caregivers, while in other states they employ and supervise them. Florida’s nurse-registry statute, for example, deems referred caregivers independent contractors, while California requires licensed home care organizations to employ theirs. WageTime runs payroll for either model.
Federal guidance (DOL Field Assistance Bulletin 2018-4) says a registry that simply matches clients with caregivers is not an FLSA employer, but one that sets pay rates, hires and fires, or controls schedules can cross into employer status under the economic-reality test. Classification calls belong with your employment counsel. Educational summary, not legal advice.
Where your office pays referred caregivers as independent contractors, those payments run in WageTime as 1099 work alongside the W-2 office payroll, and year-end 1099s are included right next to the W-2s. Whether any given caregiver is properly a contractor is a classification question for your counsel, not a software setting.
The caregiver roster becomes employees, so it onboards as a wave: bulk invitations, self-onboarding with e-signatures from the phone, electronic I-9s with E-Verify cases, and effective-dated rates so the first W-2 run is correct. From that run onward, overtime, minimum wage, and withholding apply, and weighted-average overtime handles multi-rate weeks automatically.
Pouschine Cook Capital Management recapitalized Griswold in December 2012 alongside Stonehenge Partners, and the franchisor entity is Griswold International, LLC. The brand was founded in 1982 by Jean Griswold in suburban Philadelphia, has franchised since 1983, and dropped “Home Care” from its name in a January 2023 rebrand. Every local office is independently owned and operated.
Franchise trackers relaying the 2025 FDD report a royalty of 4 percent of gross receipts with a $100 per week minimum from year three, a marketing fund contribution of the greater of $75 or 0.5 percent, and a $12,000 annual local marketing requirement. Fee terms change; verify against the current FDD.
Trackers relaying the FY2024 Item 19 report average gross revenue of $2,131,036 per office and a median of $1,672,644, and one tracker calls those the highest figures in its senior-care franchise category. The reporting cohort isn’t republished, so treat these as summaries, not offers or earnings promises; verify against the current FDD.
A flat $50 per month for the company plus $10 for each person paid that month, whether the roster is W-2 caregivers, office staff next to 1099 contractors, or both at once. Runs are unlimited at any frequency, taxes file automatically, and year-end W-2s and 1099s are included. No long-term contracts. Migration is full-service, paid, and scoped on the demo.
Registry, employer, or one of each: bring one office’s roster and a real caregiver week. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo company and you’ll see contractors running beside W-2 staff, the conversion onboarding queue, the weighted-average overtime math, and an invoice that reads the same every month.
Book a 20-minute demo