Payroll Administrator
Hire a Remote Payroll Administrator
Payroll errors cost time, trust, and money. Hire a remote payroll administrator who runs clean payroll cycles, keeps records audit-ready, and stays on top of deadlines.
You get help with:
- Payroll processing that runs on time
- Clean employee pay data and payroll reports
- Compliance support for filings, deductions, and year-end tasks
What a Payroll Administrator Does
A payroll administrator runs your payroll process end-to-end. They calculate pay, apply deductions, maintain employee records, and keep payroll documentation organized.
They also coordinate with your Bookkeeper or finance lead so payroll journals, reimbursements, and accruals match your books.
The Problems This Role Solves
If any of these sound familiar, you need dedicated payroll support:
- You fix timesheets and payroll changes at the last minute
- You chase approvals and still miss cutoffs
- You rework payroll because the data lives in too many places
- You worry about filings, deadlines, or deduction accuracy
- You struggle with contractors, commissions, overtime, or multiple pay schedules
Core Responsibilities
Your payroll administrator can own the recurring work that makes payroll predictable:
- Run weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payroll cycles
- Maintain employee pay data, tax details, and banking information
- Track PTO, sick leave, overtime, and timesheets
- Manage deductions like retirement, medical, garnishments, and benefits
- Prepare payroll reports for finance, audits, and cash planning
- Resolve payroll questions and correct discrepancies fast
- Support year-end workflows like W-2 and 1099 preparation
- Keep a clean payroll calendar with deadlines and approval steps
Technical Skills and Tools
We match for your workflow and your stack, so you avoid retraining and reduce handover risk.
Payroll and HR systems
- ADP, Gusto, Rippling, Paychex
- QuickBooks Payroll, QuickBooks Online, Xero
- Sage, BambooHR, Deel (for contractor and global workflows)
Workflow and control skills
- Payroll calendars and cutoff management
- Deduction setup and reconciliation support
- Timesheet validation and approval routing
- Payroll journal support for bookkeeping alignment
- Secure document handling and access control
Compliance and Accuracy Tasks
Payroll compliance changes by country and state. Strong payroll support stays consistent: document the rules, run checklists, and keep evidence.
Your payroll administrator can support:
- Tax withholding setup and ongoing updates
- Payroll documentation for audits and internal reviews
- Filing coordination with your accountant or payroll provider
- Multi-location payroll coordination and pay schedule management
- Contractor pay workflows and 1099 data hygiene
Who Benefits Most From Hiring a Payroll Administrator
This role fits best when payroll touches multiple people, pay types, or locations:
- SMBs that need reliable payroll without adding headcount
- Startups that want payroll discipline early
- E-commerce teams with shift work, bonuses, and variable schedules
- Agencies with contractors and mixed pay structures
- Healthcare, professional services, and fast-growing teams
How We Hire and Launch
Step 1: Define the workflow
You tell us your payroll cadence, tools, pay types, approvals, and deadlines. We convert that into a Role Scorecard.
Role Scorecard (what we lock in before we recruit):
- Pay cycle: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly
- Pay types: hourly, salary, commission, bonus, overtime
- People scope: headcount, locations, contractors
- Systems: payroll tool, time tracking, HRIS, accounting
- Controls: approvals, cutoff times, exception handling
- Outputs: reports, payroll journals, audit files, year-end tasks
Step 2: Match and shortlist
We source and screen candidates for payroll processing, tool experience, and detail discipline. You interview a shortlist.
Step 3: Launch with a clean handover
We help you transition from your current process to a dedicated payroll owner without breaking payroll.
A simple transition plan that works:
- Map your current payroll cycle and cutoffs
- Build a payroll checklist for each pay run
- Run one parallel payroll cycle for quality control
- Hand over ownership once the cycle runs clean
If you want payroll that runs on time and stays clean, book a call and tell us what system you use.
Book a call to hire a Payroll Administrator
Frequently Asked Questions
The role of a payroll administrator is to run payroll cycles, maintain accurate pay data, apply payroll deductions, generate payroll reports, and ensure compliance with payroll deadlines.
A great payroll administrator uses structured checklists, identifies payroll exceptions early, protects sensitive payroll data, and maintains a strict payroll calendar to meet deadlines.
The difference between a payroll specialist and a payroll administrator is that a payroll administrator manages daily payroll operations, while a payroll specialist handles complex payroll exceptions, compliance issues, and system-level changes.
Payroll outsourcing is offered with a dedicated payroll administrator who manages payroll workflows using the client’s tools and processes. At the same time, tax filings remain the responsibility of the client’s accountant or payroll provider.
A payroll administrator can manage multi-location payroll by using documented processes, separate pay schedules, defined approval workflows, and a consistent payroll calendar across all locations.
Payroll data is protected for remote workers through role-based access, least-privilege permissions, secure file storage, and administrator compliance with access rules and audit trail policies.