Payroll Specialist

We are looking for a Payroll Specialist to join a collaborative team supporting a dynamic, multi-entity organization in Santa Clara, California. This contract opportunity is well suited for a payroll specialist who can manage high-volume processing with precision while navigating complex pay scenarios across a distributed workforce. The role plays an important part in delivering accurate bi-weekly payroll, maintaining compliance, and strengthening payroll operations through careful review, problem-solving, and process improvement.

Responsibilities:

• Manage complete bi-weekly payroll processing for multiple entities and employee groups, ensuring timely and accurate pay for salaried, hourly, and commission-based staff.
• Examine payroll records for earnings, deductions, taxes, benefit elections, reimbursements, and other adjustments to confirm data integrity before final processing.
• Administer specialized payroll items such as bonus payments, retroactive adjustments, multi-state tax situations, prevailing wage requirements, and certified payroll reporting.
• Reconcile payroll outputs with tax documents, internal reports, and general ledger activity to support accurate financial reporting.
• Coordinate with external providers that support tax filings, garnishments, and benefit-related payroll activity to maintain smooth payroll operations.
• Investigate and resolve payroll exceptions, including payment discrepancies, overpayments, underpayments, and system-related issues.
• Prepare payroll records, reports, and supporting documentation for internal reviews and external audit requests.
• Contribute to payroll projects involving system enhancements, workflow improvements, benefit changes, acquisitions, and implementation-related activities.
• Review payroll system integrations and data transfers to help ensure employee and payroll information moves correctly between platforms.