Questions to ask about a country’s payroll before you contract a payroll provider

Payroll / HR manager – who is responsible for the payroll?

Is there a Legal entity that is the employer in the country?

Does the Legal entity have all the required government and tax registration numbers?

Is there a local bank account with money in the local currency in it?

How many employees are in the country?

Any Expat / employees who work cross borders? Shadow payroll needed?

Is the payroll currently managed by an external provider or in-house?

If there is an external provider managing the payroll, what is the notification period to terminate the service?

If there is an external provider managing the payroll, what services do they provide?

Where is the employee demographic data (name, job title, salary) stored? Is it up to date? Can you easily download it so it can be put into the format of the new provider?

Where is country specific payroll data? Is it up to date? Can you easily download it so it can be put into the format of the new provider?

What are the country’s specific payroll activities (country legal forms)? Do you have a record of them including submission dates?

What is the Pay date?

What happens if the pay date is a non-working day?

What are the cut off dates for any internal or external sending of data or information?

How many payrolls are there? E.g. A monthly and a weekly payroll

Pay frequency – 12 times a year (monthly), 24 times a year (semi-monthly), 26 times a year (biweekly) or 52 times a year (weekly)

Are there extra payments? such as 2 payments in June (1 extra pay for the summer) and 2 payments in December (1 extra payment for Christmas)

Common to have off cycle payroll?

What are the Finance codes, cost centres and General Ledger codes for the General Ledge file?

Are there any interfaces – inbound or outbound?

Is there a time and attendance system? Are their clocks?

Do you need a time and attendance system to track and manage the time employees work / do not work?

How are expenses managed?

3rd party providers – pension, expenses, car lease?

Current payment methods – salary, pension and taxes?

Payslip delivery – what do you have now?

Payslip format – need a customised format?