About the Author: Jon Portanova

Role: Marketing Director, Paper Trails

Certifications: HubSpot Inbound Marketing, HubSpot Digital Marketing

Specialties: SEO fundamentals, inbound strategy, content marketing

Industry Experience: Marketing, hospitality & restaurant management

jon portanova

Clear, practical guidance is only valuable if it reflects how businesses actually operate.

About Jon

Jon Portanova is the Marketing Director at Paper Trails, where he leads content strategy, digital marketing initiatives, and brand storytelling focused on educating small and mid-sized businesses. His work centers on making complex topics—like payroll compliance, HR best practices, and digital visibility—clear, practical, and easy to understand.

Jon holds multiple HubSpot certifications, including inbound and digital marketing, and brings hands-on experience in SEO fundamentals, content optimization, and performance analytics. He takes a data-informed approach to content, ensuring that educational resources are both helpful to readers and discoverable by the people who need them most.

Before moving into marketing, Jon spent several years as a general manager in the restaurant industry. That experience gave him firsthand insight into the realities of running a small business—hiring and retaining employees, managing schedules, navigating compliance requirements, and balancing operational demands. Today, that background shapes his approach to marketing and content: grounded, practical, and focused on supporting business owners with guidance they can actually use.

 

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Popular Content by Jon
payroll taxes

Payroll taxes can be confusing for business owners, especially when state and federal rules overlap. This guide breaks down what employers are responsible for paying, withholding, and reporting.

 

maine employer

Maine employers face a wide range of state and federal requirements, from wage laws to employee protections. This guide breaks down what businesses need to know to stay compliant and confident.

 

Most Recent Payroll & HR Blog Posts

When year-end is approaching, business owners must ensure that they are reporting any fringe benefits correctly on employee W-2s for tax purposes....

If you’re a small business owner, chances are you’ve asked (or been asked), "How long is maternity leave?"

If your business has employees—or are thinking about hiring—there’s a good chance you’ve wondered about the distinction between part-time and...

More About Paper Trails

Paper Trails Story

Paper Trails was founded in 2004 to relieve small businesses’ financial preparation headaches and to allow you to work smarter no matter your size. While human resource management and payroll can be stressful, we are here to help run your business and to give you the time to do what you want to do – work your business!

We are a local small business without an 800 number that consists of a team of fun and local experts purveying convenient, high tech, compliant services. We live, work and party right here in the southern Maine community, so when a question or need arises, we are right around the corner!

From running payroll, to human resource and compliance services, Paper Trails allows you to handle the work, while we handle the paperwork.

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Our Mission

Paper Trails offers intuitive, trusted, bespoke and forward-thinking payroll, human resources and compliance services to the backbone of Maine and beyond, which are our small and mid-sized businesses.

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Our Vision

The business world is rapidly evolving. We are designed to always be looking around the next corner for future business challenges and offer solutions and insight to our clients who have built and support our local communities.

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Our Common Purpose

We empower employers to build a business and workforce for today, tomorrow and beyond.

You handle the work. We’ll handle the paperwork.

We’ll stay in the weeds to manage your payroll, Human Resources, and compliance needs.

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