Nick M.
Termination process caused an unexpected payroll run — very costly and stressful
We had a largely positive experience with Poppins until we needed to terminate our nanny, which turned into a costly and extremely frustrating mess. We set our nanny’s last day as December 26 and terminated the employee and account in mid-December. The system later showed the employee as terminated, and we received no termination confirmation email, no checklist, and no clear written explanation of what cancellation actually meant or what additional steps were required to stop payroll. Despite this, a full additional payroll ran in January for a period when no work was performed, resulting in a four-figure payment made in error. Poppins’ explanation was that a one-time pop-up warning appears during termination saying payroll may still run unless another step is taken in a separate “Next Payroll” tab. There was no durable confirmation, no follow-up email, and no way to later verify what had been completed. For a payroll system handling real money, relying on a transient pop-up is simply not sufficient. What made this worse: No termination confirmation email No clear summary of final payroll behavior Conflicting explanations over time We were ultimately asked to claw back money directly from our former nanny Promised timelines for a bank reversal (2–5 business days) were missed with no proactive follow-up To Poppins’ credit, staff were polite and acknowledged the UX issues, but ultimately took no responsibility and offered no employer credit, even though this was clearly a system and communication failure. This was a stressful and disappointing end to what had otherwise been a good service. If you use Poppins, be extremely careful when terminating — do not assume that “terminate employee” or “cancel account” actually stops payroll, and do not expect clear written confirmation. I hope Poppins improves this flow so other families don’t go through the same experience.