Senior Payroll Specialist

Our client a well know financial services firm is seeking a Senior Payroll specialist in their Raleigh, or Charlotte North Carolina Location!

Responsibilities and Impact:

• Support processing and disbursement of payrolls on time with a high degree of accuracy.
• Plan, coordinate, and assist with payroll across North America and ensure that payroll cycles and deadlines are adhered to by all parties involved in the payroll cycle.
• Focus is on handling payrolls for exempt and non-exempt employees paid on a semi-monthly and weekly basis.
• Responsible for thorough review and analysis, accurate and timely processing of monthly payroll in accordance with company policies and local regulatory standards, including liaising with payroll vendor where applicable.
• Partner with team members and payroll vendor to ensure accurate and timely filing and payment of statutory payroll withholding taxes to relevant government authorities.
• Partner with team members and payroll vendor to ensure accurate and timely processing of involuntary withholding orders.
• Partner with internal teams and payroll vendor to ensure that employee income from stock option and share grants is correctly computed and reported in accordance with local regulatory standards.
• Partner with internal teams and payroll vendor to support accurate and timely processing of payroll related journal entries and accruals.
• Work with payroll vendor to support issuance of employee income tax reporting statements.
• Resolve escalations by providing root cause analysis and corrective action for complex or non-routine situations.
• Review and resolve employee pay-related inquiries.
• Keep abreast of payroll regulatory changes, review and analyze tax and legal regulations (including complex issues such as stock-based compensation).
• Identify issues/implications affecting company and employees; as needed, work with Corporate Legal, Tax, and People areas as well as payroll vendor to ensure resolutions.
• Consistently review existing work practices and recommend areas for improvement including workflows, payroll vendor competencies, analysis & planning, regulatory compliance, etc.
• Assist in implementation of improvements/enhancements, including working independently with all stakeholders, and achieve high levels of efficiency, accuracy, and compliance.
• Assist with responses to all payroll related audits, both internal and external.

Basic Required Qualifications:

• 5 years of relevant professional experience: Prior payroll experience required with a preference for experience in a multi-national company; processing payroll for at least 5000 employees or more.
• Highly organized and capable of working under time constraints to meet tight deadlines
• Extensive knowledge of Excel, including use of pivot tables
• Ability to accurately manipulate and move data to and from a variety of sources across multiple platforms.
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to work independently and within a team
• This role will require working East Time hours.

Additional Preferred Qualifications:

• Diploma or Degree in Human Resource Management or Business or Accountancy.
• Experience with Workday
• CPP certification a plus