Senior Payroll Specialist (US Payroll)

About this role

Location: Alabang

Work setup: ONSITE

The Senior Payroll Specialis t owns accurate, on-time, compliant payroll for US employees, delivered from our shared services center in the Philippines. You serve as the subject matter expert for multi-state US payroll, resolve complex issues, and mentor junior team members.

Key Responsibilities

• Payroll processing
• Run end-to-end US payroll (bi-weekly) for hourly and salaried staff, including off-cycle, bonus, commission, and final pay runs.
• Validate time and attendance, new hires, terminations, salary changes, and benefit deductions before each cutoff.
• Review pre- and post-payroll registers, investigate variances, and approve results before funding and release.
• Meet all cutoffs and pay-date deadlines across time zones.
• Tax and compliance
• Ensure correct federal, state, and local withholding, including multi-state, reciprocity, and work-from-home scenarios.
• Prepare and reconcile quarterly and annual filings (Form 941, 940, state unemployment, W-2, W-3), working with the tax vendor.
• Apply FLSA, wage-and-hour, overtime, final pay, and state paid-leave rules.
• Process garnishments, child support, levies, and other court-ordered withholdings accurately.
• Support internal and external audits, including SOX controls where applicable.
• Reconciliation and reporting
• Reconcile payroll to the general ledger, benefit carriers, 401(k) providers, and tax accounts each cycle.
• Prepare payroll journal entries and accruals with Finance and Accounting.
• Produce regular payroll, headcount, and cost reports for HR and Finance.
• Service and stakeholder support
• Act as Tier 2/3 escalation for US payroll inquiries from employees, HR, and Benefits.
• Resolve tickets within SLA through the shared services case management tool.
• Coordinate with US HR and Finance, and with the payroll vendor.
• Process, controls, and people
• Maintain SOPs, process maps, and controls; identify and implement automation and continuous improvement.
• Lead payroll testing for system upgrades, tax updates, and annual changes.\
• Support transitions of US payroll into the shared services center.
• Qualifications and experience
• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• At least 3 years of hands-on US payroll experience, including multi-state processing
• Proven experience in a shared services, BPO, or global business services environment supporting US clients or headquarters.
• Strong working knowledge of US payroll tax, wage-and-hour law, garnishments, and year-end reporting.
• Experience with at least one major payroll platform
• Skills and competencies
• Technical depth: advanced command of US payroll calculations, taxation, and statutory reporting.
• Analytical rigor: spots anomalies in registers, traces root causes, and corrects them before pay release.
• Attention to detail and accuracy under tight deadlines.
• Clear written and spoken English for US stakeholders; confident in escalations and cross-time-zone calls.
• Confidentiality and sound judgment with sensitive employee data.
• Ownership mindset, coaching ability, and a continuous-improvement approach.
• Advanced Excel skills (lookups, pivot tables, reconciliations).
• Working conditions
• Night shift work required to align to US business hours; occasional weekend or holiday work around peak periods such as year-end.
• Hybrid or on-site in a shared services center; secure, clean-desk environment with confidential data handling.
• Periodic overtime during year-end, W-2 season, and system cutovers.