Revolutionizing Child Support Management with Sheri Atwood

Jamie M. Lima is joined by Sheri Atwood to delve into SupportPay, a platform designed to streamline child support payments. They discuss the features of SupportPay and its role in planning for future expenses, as well as its impact on court order compliance and potential workplace benefits. The conversation also covers future developments, including AI integration, and offers best practices for managing child support payments. Additionally, they address handling financial complexities in modern families.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Alright.

(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of broke up,not broken.
I'm your host, Jamie Lima and founder ofAllegiant Divorce Solutions, where we help
people prepare for, navigate, and recoverfinancially from divorce.
This podcast is your one stop shop formastering your life and your finances
throughout the entire divorce process.
In today's episode, we're excited to haveSherry Atwood, the founder of SupportPay, and a

(00:22):
visionary entrepreneur who turned her personalexperiences into a pioneering service with us.
Sherry is a child of a bitter divorce who alsowent through her own divorce and then created
support pay when her search for a better way toexchange and communicate about child support
payments with her ex husband proved fruitless.
I have some experience with that.
What Sherry found was that people who have beenthrough or are going through divorce were being

(00:47):
ignored in the workplace, so she started tooffer support pay as a workplace benefit in
02/2022 and has already seen some amazingresults.
While divorcees and co parents are usually someof the most loyal workers, there aren't many
tools given by employers to help reduce stressand make their lives easier.
Support pay is on a mission to change all ofthis.
So buckle up, get ready, and grab your beverageof choice, whatever that is, mine is coffee

(01:12):
this morning.
And let's get ready for this amazingconversation.
Sherry, so glad to have you with us here today.
Thank you for having me.
Oh, man.
It's gonna be amazing.
I I have a lot of questions for you.
Some of them, they're selfish questions for myown my own edification.
But it sounds like we have some pretty similarexperiences ourselves personally.
I would I was a, you know, product of a divorcemyself.

(01:34):
It wasn't bitter.
It was a they did pretty good job when I wasseven or eight years old, but I had that
experience when I was I was relatively young.
And then, of course, going through it as anadult.
So maybe share a little bit about that.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So mine was kind of the opposite.
So my parents had absolute bitter divorce.
Mhmm.
So when I faced my own divorce with my exhusband, we swore it would be amicable because

(01:55):
I never wanted to put my daughter through whatwe went through.
And, actually, we're both executives in SiliconValley, and my entire divorce cost $500.
We paid $2.50 filing fees and $2.50 to afinancial adviser to review how I split up our
assets and debt and couldn't have got moreamicable.
But what no one talked about was life after thedivorce.

(02:16):
Right?
So even if you're able, whether it'scontentious or not and or amicable, then all of
a sudden, all the professionals leave.
And how do you share and track and manage andsplit all these expenses, calendars, payments,
etcetera, and deal with disputes?
So I was looking for a solution.
Was shocked there was nothing out there, sodecided to, quit Silicon Valley and start

(02:37):
support pay.
It's incredible.
You took the leap.
You took the leap.
We're gonna have to talk offline because I havesome thoughts on some software that I'd like to
eventually develop, but, and you seem to be thethe right person for this, but that'll we'll
take that offline.
So you're you're divorced.
I mean, I don't hear very many $500 divorcesthese days.
Even as a mediator, I mean, the I think thebest I've seen so far is, you know, probably

(03:00):
750 or 800 or whatever it is, but that wasthat's pretty incredible.
Yeah.
And, again, we were had multiple houses, cars,boat, a daughter, right, in Silicon Valley, but
it just showed, like and I knew.
Right?
Fighting over money is just no matter whatfamily situation you're in.
It causes so much rift, and the people thatsuffer are the kids.

(03:22):
So, really, support pays on a mission to endfamily fights over money.
It's incredible.
So let's talk a little bit about the software.
How, like, how does it work?
What it like, who has access to it?
Can can the general public just gain access toit, or is it do you have to do it through your
employer?
What's what's up?
Yes.
We're available both direct to consumer, so youcan on the web and mobile.
You can go download it now, or we offer it asan employee benefit where employers are

(03:46):
actually giving it to their employees.
You can use it alone or you what most valuableis with another family member, your ex, a step
parent, your kids, a grandparents, etcetera.
And what we do is you simply add an expense.
If you have a receipt, you take a picture.
It scans it.
It auto calculates how much each person owes.

(04:07):
We send the notifications.
That person can log in, review the item.
If they agree with it, they can make a, or senda payment.
If but if they don't agree with it, they canactually dispute it right in our app.
Helping them deal with these disputes, we doall calendaring, all communications, all tasks,
family photos and videos, and then all isstored as a certified record that can be used

(04:30):
for court or tax purposes or just transparencyeven filing taxes at the end of the year.
Amazing.
Amazing.
I was very surprised nothing like that existed.
But then again, in the divorce space, therethere there there's a lot that is lacking out
there.
Some of the software we use, I'm like, wow.
This interface is terrible.
What what what do you what do you find for forlisteners that are out there that are maybe

(04:53):
going through, you know, some of thesedecisions they have to make right now?
Like, they're they're we help a lot of peoplethat are in the throes of divorce, right, smack
dab in the middle of it.
And, you know, there are concerns about who isgonna handle, you know, extracurricular
activities and how are we gonna manage thoseand how are we gonna come into an agreement on
it?
I mean, I I know this is kind of outside thescope of the the software though, but, like, I

(05:13):
guess, your own experience, maybe some of thetrends that you see with the software, what are
some of the things people need to be thinkingabout or or maybe some best tips and tricks
that that people can can start, you know, maybeeven make part of their own divorce, before
they even come to agreement, maybe make it partof the final agreement.
What I that is the actual biggest issue.
Right?
So most experts are focused on current assets,current things, and you're not thinking about

(05:38):
all these things in the future.
And we have this unique insight of the types ofexpenses, the biggest areas of dispute.
I'll give you an example.
I divorced my, ex husband before my daughterturned one.
She's now in college.
I never even thought to put in the divorce,hey.
You'll split college expenses.
Right?
And luckily, he didn't argue about it, and Ialways covered most of her expenses.

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But there's all these things that you don't getinto the details.
In fact, if you go to supportpay.com, weactually have a full worksheet that breaks
things down.
Thinking about school, what does that mean?
Public school or private school?
Babysitting, is that day care?
Is that a nanny?
Is that after school care?
Summer camps, who's paying for vacations?
Even things like that no one are thinkingabout, like, when your child goes to a birthday

(06:22):
party and you have to buy this present, right,who does that?
Or you're splitting medical, dental, vision.
Well, another issue I ran into was my I paidfor the glasses and my daughter broke them with
my ex husband.
We never discussed that.
So do I have to pay to replace those things?
And so it's helping not only if they've alreadybeen through a divorce.

(06:45):
Right?
Helping them to manage these things and do itand dispute it in a constructive way, but even
providing you as the financial advisors or yourclients even a kind of checklist of things to
think about and come to an agreement on earlyon and get that into the agreement, which
reduces all of a lot of the disputes later on.

(07:07):
%.
I if you're listening, I want you to rewindthis.
Do the people rewind these days?
There wasn't isn't that the old cassette tape?
Remember we're rewinding cassette tapes?
I knew.
But you hit the thirty second back.
Yeah.
Go back go back thirty seconds.
Hit that a couple times and then listen tolisten to what Sherry said again because what
you're driving home, Sherry, is the point thatI try to make with so many of our clients and

(07:31):
and prospective clients and the listeners that,you know, in in all across social media is that
when you're going through the when you're whenyou're starting to go through the exercise of
man jotting down your budget, you're in indivorce.
You know this.
Yep.
Especially because we we both got divorced inthe state of California.
Every time you communicate with the courthouse,whether it's through mediation or whether it's

(07:54):
through a hearing that you have or whetheryou're going there for the final time for the
judge to tell you that you're divorced, theywanna see all of your financial affidavits.
They wanna know how much you have coming in,how much you have going out, what you've saved
so far, what liabilities you have, incomeexpenses, assets, liabilities.
Right?
And so many people on the budgeting componentof this, they they fill out these in

(08:16):
California, it's called the FL one fifty.
Right?
They were you drop down all of your income andexpenses.
And so many people are like, well, you know,our mortgage is $3,000.
It's like, well, that's fine, but your mortgageis not gonna be your mortgage jointly anymore.
Right?
Now you need to start putting your thinking capon and think about what the future you is gonna
look like, what those expenses are gonna belike.

(08:38):
To your point, like, so many people forgetabout college and extracurricular activities
and the birthday gifts, the braces, all ofthose things.
The car, car insurance.
What do you do when little Johnny wraps the cararound, you know, a tree or something because
that that's a little morbid.
Let's not go that far.
You know?
Like, when when there's a little parking lotfender bender.

(09:00):
Right?
Like, what what do you do then?
Because it's guaranteed to happen.
Every kid I've ever known has a little littleboo boo every once in while with their vehicle.
Right?
You've gotta cover those expenses.
So what you're driving home for me, which I'msuper appreciative of is you wanna start
thinking about your future expenses, not yourexpenses today.
Absolutely.
And what we have too is you can even use oursoftware to actually even track your current

(09:24):
expenses.
You get anything in our software can be markedas private.
So you'll have a a a picture of it.
But now for those income and declarationstatements like the f l one fifty, right, you
file it once and then you're supposed to updateit.
You can have it there.
You can have those receipts and be able to giveit to you, the financial adviser, to look for
it.
So it just makes your life easier.
It makes the judge's life easier.

(09:46):
It's organized.
Right?
And then the biggest thing, planning whileyou're going through that divorce.
And then what we found is that those who areusing support pay are 90% more likely to
exchange, payments.
The reason is that transparency.
As I've known and everybody knows, everybodyknows kids are expensive, but the biggest

(10:07):
complaint is I don't believe the money's goingto my kid.
And by simply having a receipt and showing, oh,yeah.
Shoes really are a hundred and $50 these days.
It actually is size twelve or size eight.
Having that transparency immediately, right,increases likelihood of payment, but also gives
us a way to store if there are disputes.

(10:29):
You could even be documenting that in our app.
It goes back and forth, and then it can beprinted out to hand it back to you as a
financial adviser.
Say, hey.
Help us work through these issues.
Or these are the things that we're dealing withnow.
What should we looking at in the future?
So we we just provide that data, right, inorder to work with your attorney, your media,
your financial adviser, the courts, and theneven afterwards being able to get help on some

(10:54):
of these issues that you aren't able to workthrough yourself.
Do you do you find that people are less likelyto or I should say more likely to follow the
orders that they've been given by the courts toto follow along since there is that level of
transparency and and frankly accountability?
Absolutely.

(11:14):
And that's the biggest thing is that it's well,fine.
I'm like oh, you know, I'll give you a perfectexample.
For me, it was tracking in a spreadsheet.
Right?
I don't believe it costs that much.
Here's the expense.
Right?
Oh, here's the receipt.
Hey.
Did you get it?
Arguing over text message.
Are you gonna send me the money?
Going to check my bank account.
Going back.
I was an executive, single mom, traveling theglobe.
It was so stressful and time consuming that itit didn't make sense.

(11:38):
But then I also felt like I wasn't holding himaccountable because a lot of times, he wasn't
even giving the money that he he should havebeen.
Right?
And so this just took all the emotion out ofit, which is not logical.
Right?
It's very transparent.
And the other thing that we do that is uniquethat no one else does is you can upload a bill.
So say it's for childcare or soccer, and itwill split that expense between the two

(12:01):
parents, and each person can actually sendtheir payment directly to the third party.
So you don't have to wait for a reimbursement.
That's cool.
You can it's joint billing.
So you're not waiting for a reimbursement, andyou can then see, oh, look.
Johnny has a, orthodontist appointment.
Let me check if my ex made that payment beforeI walked through the door.

(12:22):
Right?
I can't force him to support me.
I can't force him to pay, but you would beprepared.
Like, go call him.
Right?
I've I've already paid my payment.
Mhmm.
I I love it.
Love it.
Let's talk a little bit about the you know,this as a workplace benefit.
Right?
And and because I'm sure there's a lot ofpeople out there that, you know, maybe run
their own businesses or whether it be a smallmom and pop shop or, you know, they they're

(12:45):
responsible for 200, three hundred, threethousand employees.
I would venture I already know the answer tothis, but it's it sounds like a pretty
incredible benefit to be offered to ouremployees that and you're right.
I mean, you've you you we we talked about thiskind of in the lead up.
And and in your bio, there's there's such adrag on productivity in in the workplace given

(13:06):
divorce.
I know I wasn't all that productive Yep.
When I was going through my divorce.
It was a very challenging because you're tryingto be so many things to so many people and
you've got this the weight of this divorcehanging on you and weighing you down, having a
benefit like this, which doesn't sound likeit's all that expensive either for companies to
in in implement, must be a game changer.

(13:26):
And it is.
And the first thing is my biggest frustrationis even today, the word divorce in the
workplace is still taboo.
Right?
I joke.
I can identify as anything.
Right?
But god forbid, you're a single or divorcedparent.
Yeah.
So I don't we don't wanna talk about it.
But single and divorced parents, coparent,stepparents are the best employees.

(13:48):
They're the least likely to leave.
Right?
They need their job.
They know how to stand and handle multiplestressful situations and multitasking, yet they
get the least amount of benefits.
And so what we offer is employers starting at99¢ an employee, right, to give this to their
employees to use it.
It, decreases the time spent by over 83% everyweek, reduces absenteeism by more than 30%,

(14:14):
notably reduces health care claims because thetop two causes of stress are money and family.
Right?
And it can be launched at an employer in lessthan thirty minutes.
My background is cybersecurity.
It admits every single security requirement,and we've passed it.
Right?
And so it's not a big lift on HR.
And we're seeing average of 25% utilization inthe first year.

(14:37):
And I'll point out for employers even more is,yes, I started this as a single or divorced
mom.
I then faced the exact same issue when I had toI was supporting my mother with my siblings.
Right?
I faced the exact same issue when my siblingscouldn't afford to pay their bills, and they
needed money from me, and I needed to trackthem paying me back or show me where the money

(14:59):
was going.
So it is for any family member in modern,right, that wants to end family fights or money
over money.
That's where support pay comes in.
We are pioneering modern family finances.
Really thinking of the family.
It's not personal finance.
It's family finances.
Yeah.
So there's there's multiple uses for this.
This is Absolutely.

(15:19):
Yes.
What what has been the feedback from theemployers at this point?
The feedback has been amazing.
Again, the average voluntary benefit getsbetween 35% utilization.
35%.
Right?
Well, it's just let's say that let's let's talkabout this.
So you're telling me, like, the things like, Idon't know, like, health club memberships and

(15:42):
all these ancillary fringe benefits for
these care, back
and child
care caregiving platform.
Three to 5%?
Three to 5%.
Financial wellness that gives education,budgeting apps.
The average is between 35% of employees use it.
Again, so number one, right, is theutilization.

(16:03):
Number two, we report back directly the impactthat is on their employees SupportPay is having
on their employees, allowing them to calculatedirectly productivity savings.
But the biggest thing and we have I have thisamazing story.
If you go to supportpay.com, you can watch thispersonal story, of a woman who's an employee at
one of our, clients.

(16:23):
And the biggest thing was the impact.
And Mhmm.
The SVP of, benefits at, at Hearst Media wherewe are deployed said she never received so much
feedback from employees that said thank you.
Thank you for recognizing us as a segment.
You recognize everything else, but you don'trecognize single and divorced parents, which

(16:45):
led to loyalty, right, employee satisfaction,reduction in turnover, which is a big thing.
And so there's so many ancillary benefits.
And I I encourage people, if you're the bestplace to work for working parents, don't forget
about single and divorced step parents.
Right?
Blended families and co parents.
Yeah.
I know.
It's like I can get I can bring my supporthorse on an airplane these days to to stifle my

(17:10):
anxiety flying in the friendly skies, but Ican't get support from my employer when I'm
going through a divorce.
But as I I think this is this is a total gamechanger.
And you're right.
I mean, they I remember going through my owndivorce and, you know, I I try to take
advantage of as many benefits that I could, youknow, like the employee.
I forget what the acronym for it is, but theyou know, like, where you can talk to a
therapist and you can get, you know, this, andthe other, but there was nothing like this.

(17:33):
You know?
And we used Yeah.
We we use some there was some software,TalkingParents, I think it was, to for the
communication component of this, but nothingthat that touches on the financial.
So what are what are the future goals and and,like, maybe future future iterations of this?
Where where are thinking gonna be taking this?
So it's really around solving all of the how dowe streamline and solve family fights over

(17:56):
money?
So expanding our payment options, one.
Right?
And the big thing that we're focusing on rightnow is shared visibility into accounts.
Let me give you an example.
And I'm sure you know this, and some of yourlisteners may or may not, but let's think of
college savings accounts.
While you open that for the benefit of yourchild, right, there's one owner, and you can't

(18:18):
see what's going on in that account.
You can't tell if that person removed themoney, changed the beneficiary, etcetera,
etcetera.
Right?
So us being able you could come into supportpay and actually see the balance of that
college savings no matter who the owner is orwhether you have a joint checking account.
Right?
And it's hard to get both, especially withfinancial services or even pensions and

(18:40):
retirements that you're supposed to split longterm.
Being able to come into support and have thatvisibility, again, ending those conflicts,
seeing where it goes.
We're automating the ability to import evenexpenses directly from your bank or your credit
card, and then we're also working on crossborder payments.
So this isn't just a US problem.
We're actually being used in 70 countries todayby over a hundred and, 70,000 users on our

(19:06):
platform, and we've managed over $800,000,000in expenses.
Right?
So, again, continuing to iterate that.
And then finally, being able to deliverempathetic parental support on the fly.
Right?
So, hey.
Example.
And we we have this in beta right now testingis like, hey.
My ex husband wants to buy my son a Nerf gun,and he's five.

(19:31):
Is that a good idea?
Right?
Or, hey.
I wanna put my kid in summer camp, but my, exwife says that the kid should stay home during,
or I don't wanna start preschool, but should I?
Kind of these things that are thesedisagreements that it's hard enough to do it
when you actually love each other and livetogether.
But how do you learn from the disputes that weare seeing to help parents along the way as

(19:54):
well and caregivers?
And and how how are you is that is a thirdparty involved in that or is this a leveraging
AI?
Like, what how are how are you how are youdoing all that?
Exactly.
It's leveraging AI.
It's giving insights from the the discussionsthat are happening right within our app as well
as best practices from, you know, across theboard of experts in parent parenting, family,

(20:18):
mental health, financial wellness, and pullingin that expertise.
And then what we do is we also then linkdirectly to and help you find a resource.
So, again, we only do the data part.
We wanna feed that data back.
So if you do have disputes, at some point,you're not gonna be able to solve it.
We have the data so you can go to your export.
So being able to refer and creating thatcommunity, That's the big thing.

(20:40):
And the other part to mention here is that withone account, you can access all your different
family structures.
So in my example, I with one login, I can seemy account with my ex husband from my daughter.
I can also see my account with my siblings frommy mother.
And then now my daughter who's in college isusing it to actually ask for money by getting
reimbursed.

(21:01):
So show me how much your groceries actuallycost.
Right?
And I'll give you the money.
So she's even using it, right, to manage theseexpenses during college.
You talk about a good budgeting lesson for herto learn.
Right?
Absolutely.
What
are what are some of the yeah, I I was I wasthinking about this as you were you were

(21:21):
talking about it just a moment ago.
The, you know, the the the the biggest do's anddon'ts that you're seeing, you know, like,
don't do this, don't do that.
Like, what are what are some of things that youwould we share with our listeners in in that
area?
I think it would be number one, the biggestdon't is not tracking this.

(21:41):
So whether you are paying through support payor you're doing it manually, you have got to
keep records if you've made a payment and ifyou've received a payment.
You could do it manually like most people aredoing it.
Right?
You can use support pay that automates it, butyou need a history to protect yourself.
As I always say, you can have the most amicabledivorce, and you're one marriage away from it

(22:03):
not being amicable.
Example, everything's great till the new wifecomes in.
It's like, wait.
You're giving her how much?
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Or the new husband comes in and goes, he's onlypaying that much?
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Mhmm.
Right?
So as families evolve, being able to have arecord of it and understanding this isn't you

(22:24):
somebody you know, if you if you're asked toprovide or if you do provide a receipt, it's
not because they're, you know, trying tomicromanage you.
It's having that transparency gets you paid,right, and does it quickly, and they're more
likely to pay.
In the same way at work, you have an expensereport, you submit receipts, you get
reimbursed.
Right?
So providing that proof.

(22:45):
And then the other part is, you know, ourbiggest issue is that one parent will use it.
And just because that person recommends it, theother parent says, no.
I'm not gonna use it.
Right?
So getting it in your child support order,getting it into your visitation.
Again, we do all the calendaring custody, allthe messaging, everything TalkingParents does,

(23:05):
everything our Family Wizard does, but also allthe finances, which is really the cause of
fights across the board.
So getting it in or agreeing early, right, thatyou'll use a tool, whether it's support pay,
there's nothing else out there like us, butsomething to make your life easier and more
streamlined and end the fights.
Yeah.

(23:25):
End the fights.
Any any any questions that I should have askedor anything that we didn't cover today that you
wanna share with our listeners?
No.
I just think, again, our it's a huge area thatno one's talking about.
Everybody talks about personal finance.
But in today's, right, modern families andthey're spanning households and bank accounts
and everything, really, what can you do, right,to end those fights, end that conflict, provide

(23:49):
transparency and and accountability?
And I also encourage people if you go tosupport pay, you can contact me directly or my
support team.
If there's a feature you want, literally, meand 98% of my employees are directly impacted
by this.
So we are building this, right, to help people,to help actually help people and make a
difference.
So if there's things that you want or you need,if you wish we did, please contact us, and we

(24:14):
will definitely get it on the road map.
I love that you're open to the feedback likethat.
Yep.
Incredible.
Incredible.
Well, thank you so much, Sherry, for forjoining me today and sharing the inspiring
story behind support pay and, more importantly,its impact on co parents and and workplaces in
general.
For listeners who are interested in learningmore about support pay or wish to consider it

(24:36):
as a workplace benefit, please visit supportpay's website and follow Sherry on LinkedIn for
latest updates.
We're gonna put all of the links in the shownotes.
So if you're driving, don't worry about goingback to their, you know, earlier parts of this.
We're we've we've got you.
Remember, if you're navigating financialcomplexities or personal challenges post
divorce or while you're going through it,Allegiant Divorce Solutions is here to help.
Visit allegiantds.com for more resources andexpert advice.

(25:00):
And don't forget to subscribe to our podcastfor more insightful discussions just like this.
Till next time.
We'll see you again.
Thank you.