Senior Payroll Analyst (Temporary)

Responsibilities

• Payroll Processing, Complex Adjustments, and Compliance
  • Process and review multi-state US payroll for salaried, hourly, and other employee populations.
  • Own complex payroll activities, including reversals, voids, post-only transactions, retroactive payments, overpayments, repayments, manual checks, and off-cycle payrolls.
  • Analyze and process current-quarter, prior-quarter, and prior-year adjustments with appropriate tax treatment, accounting impact, and audit documentation.
  • Review payroll inputs, exception reports, and employee-level calculations before payroll is finalized, with emphasis on high-risk or unusual transactions.
  • Serve as an escalation point for complex employee pay issues, tax setup discrepancies, prior-period corrections, and payroll calculation questions.
  • Support federal, state, and local payroll tax compliance, including tax notices, amended filings, W-2s, and W-2Cs.
• Reconciliation, Auditing, and Root Cause Analysis
  • Perform gross-to-net, payroll tax, 401(k), benefits, deductions, garnishments, bank funding, and general ledger reconciliations.
  • Lead investigation of payroll tax liabilities, deposits, filings, vendor reports, and reconciliation variances through resolution.
  • Validate employee and employer 401(k) contributions against payroll records and retirement plan vendor files.
  • Audit large volumes of payroll data, including company-wide employee populations, to identify errors, missing transactions, unusual activity, and data integrity issues.
  • Perform root cause analysis for recurring payroll issues and recommend control or process changes to prevent recurrence.
  • Prepare clear payroll reports and analyses for Payroll, Finance, Accounting, HR, leadership, auditors, and external partners as needed.
• Vendor, Stakeholder, and Escalation Management
  • Work directly with payroll, tax, retirement plan, banking, benefits, and system vendors to resolve operational, filing, and data-related issues.
  • Own vendor cases and complex stakeholder issues until fully resolved, documented, and communicated to the appropriate parties.
  • Partner with HR, Benefits, Finance, Accounting, Compensation, Legal, and managers on complex payroll matters requiring cross-functional coordination.
  • Provide guidance to internal stakeholders on payroll data requirements, exception handling, control expectations, and documentation needs.
  • Escalate high-risk, unresolved, or compliance-sensitive matters to payroll leadership with clear facts, recommended options, and potential payroll impacts.
• Systems, Automation, Process Improvement, and Team Guidance
  • Support payroll system maintenance, testing, integrations, upgrades, and implementation projects.
  • Lead or co-lead payroll process improvement initiatives that streamline work, reduce manual effort, strengthen controls, and improve accuracy.
  • Validate data between HR, timekeeping, benefits, retirement, tax, finance, and payroll systems, with focus on integration issues and downstream payroll impacts.
  • Develop practical automation opportunities, reporting improvements, and responsible use cases for AI-enabled tools within payroll controls.
  • Maintain payroll procedures, reconciliation files, checklists, control documentation, and knowledge-sharing materials.
  • Mentor or guide Payroll Analysts on routine processing, reconciliation preparation, escalation standards, and documentation practices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Human Resources, or a related field.
• 5-8+ years of US payroll experience, preferably in a high-volume, multi-state environment.
• Strong experience with complex adjustments, reversals, voids, post-only transactions, overpayment/repayment processing, and prior-period corrections.
• Hands-on experience with payroll tax, 401(k), gross-to-net, bank, benefits, and general ledger reconciliations.
• Strong problem-solving, critical-thinking, root-cause analysis, and organizational skills.
• Ability to audit and analyze large payroll data sets accurately and confidently.
• Intermediate-to-advanced Excel skills, including formulas, lookups, pivot tables, data validation, filtering, and large-data analysis.
• Ability to work independently, guide issue resolution, manage competing priorities, protect confidential information, and meet strict payroll deadlines.
• Experience working with payroll or HCM systems; hands-on experience with UKG Pro is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with ADP Smart Tax Compliance is preferred.
• Improvement-oriented mindset with demonstrated ability to identify control gaps, propose practical solutions, and support payroll automation or technology initiatives.