Payroll roles focus on processing employee salaries accurately and on time. Daily tasks include calculating wages, deductions, and bonuses, updating records, managing timesheets, responding to payroll queries, and ensuring compliance with tax and employment laws.
What is the payroll team?
The payroll team processes the monthly or weekly payroll for salaried employees. As a team member, you will be responsible for creating, maintaining and updating all payroll data, which can include overtime, commissions, expenses, statutory sickness, maternity and other employee benefits. You could also be helping employees with their payroll queries and liaising with tax authorities.
How do I achieve it?
You can enter a payroll team through an organisation’s accounts or human resources department. Alternatively, you could consider joining a specialist shared service payroll team. Whatever your entry point, there are excellent prospects for progression up to supervisory and management positions. You may even have the opportunity to move into other areas of finance and human resources.
The knowledge and skills required for this career are available through the ACCA Foundations level qualifications. Those interested in management will also benefit from the ACCA Qualification. Once completing your exams, you should research how to improve employability to help you secure your preferred role in the payroll team.
Frequently asked questions
While formal degrees aren’t always required, a background in accounting, finance, or business is useful. Both payroll-specific qualifications, such as the CIPP (Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals) and more broad advanced professional qualifications, such as ACCA, are highly valued.
Familiarity with widely used systems like Sage, ADP, QuickBooks, Xero Payroll, or SAP can give you a head start. Excel proficiency is also essential for reporting and reconciliations.
Accuracy comes from double-checking calculations, reconciling records regularly, understanding tax rules, and keeping up to date with legislation changes. Good organisation and attention to detail are critical.
Payroll professionals must apply updated income tax, National Insurance, pension, and other statutory rules. Failure to comply can lead to fines, penalties, or incorrect pay for employees. Staying informed through training or professional updates is essential.
Entry-level roles include payroll assistant or payroll administrator. With experience, you can move to payroll officer, payroll manager, or senior payroll specialist roles. Progression often involves handling larger teams, complex payroll systems, or multi-country payrolls.
Payroll involves highly sensitive employee data, including salaries, tax, and bank details. Confidentiality is crucial; access should be restricted, and data should be handled in line with company policies and regulations like GDPR.
In the UK, entry-level payroll roles typically start around £22,000–£28,000. Experienced payroll managers can earn £35,000–£50,000, with larger companies or complex payrolls paying higher.
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