Payroll Manager
Career information and advice on being a Payroll Manager

A Payroll Manager is responsible for all Payroll functions within a business and usually reports directly to the Human Resources Director and sometimes also to the Financial Director.

The responsibilities of a Payroll Manager include being responsible for managing all Payroll Staff, plus developing all processes necessary to manage the optimum functioning of all Payroll processing and objectives. This falls into the accounting sector.

A large part of the job's scope requires fantastic interpersonal skills as the Payroll Manager is expected to manage Internal Auditors as well as external relationships with Auditors and governmental agencies.

A Payroll Manager spends a large amount of time planning, co-ordinating and implementation of the functions of the Payroll Department.

Your Functions May include

As a Payroll Manager, your day-to-day functions could include the management and development of the Payroll Team including training, motivation and recruitment.

You would be expected to authorise Payroll Payments weekly, monthly or yearly, depending on what is appropriate for bonuses, overtime and any other Payroll-related payments.

Planning and executing the tax year-end, as well as planning and managing employee tax proactively would be a high priority. For example income tax for employees and Employees' National Insurance contributions are examples of the first kind of Payroll Tax, while Employers' National Insurance contributions are an example of the second kind of Payroll tax.

A Payroll Manager would need to comply with internal company codes and procedures, as well as national and international laws and codes of practice. This means that you would need to keep abreast of law changes, tax directives and other information relating to Payroll by doing research, obtaining updates and gathering information through appropriate channels such as Payroll Institutions and Regulatory Bodies.

To implement your companies’ specific Payroll Requirements you would be expected to develop and oversee bespoke IT solutions.

A major part of managing a Payroll system is to implement salary reviews to ensure industry-comparative rates are met, as well as fine tuning benefits, incentives and salary packages that are market-related and structured for the best tax breaks. This could include conducting salary surveys or tasking an independent organisation to do this for you.

As the Payroll Manager, you would also be expected to train and increase staff skills to provide consistently high standards.