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Sr. Payroll Specialist
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Robert Half
Santa Clara, CA (In Person)
Full-Time
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Job Description
Description We are looking for a Sr. Payroll Specialist to join a growing organization in Santa Clara, California, supporting payroll operations for a large multi-entity workforce spread across numerous states. This contract-to-permanent opportunity is suited for a payroll specialist who can manage end-to-end bi-weekly processing, navigate complex pay scenarios, and maintain strong compliance standards. The role plays an important part in ensuring payroll accuracy, resolving issues efficiently, and strengthening payroll procedures in a fast-moving environment.
Responsibilities:
- Manage complete bi-weekly payroll processing across multiple entities and employee groups, ensuring deadlines are consistently met.
- Examine payroll data for accuracy, including regular earnings, variable pay, deductions, tax withholdings, benefit impacts, and employee reimbursements.
- Administer specialized payroll items such as incentive payments, retroactive adjustments, multi-state tax situations, prevailing wage calculations, and certified payroll submissions.
- Perform reconciliations for payroll registers, tax reporting, and general ledger activity to support accurate financial records.
- Coordinate with external service providers for tax filings, garnishment administration, and benefit-related payroll activities.
- Investigate and resolve payroll discrepancies, including payment errors, tax issues, and integration-related data problems.
- Prepare payroll records, reports, and supporting documentation for internal reviews and external audit requests.
- Contribute to payroll projects involving system improvements, benefit changes, acquisitions, implementations, and workflow optimization. Requirements
- 3-5+ years of progressively responsible payroll experience, including ownership of full-cycle payroll operations.
- Background processing payroll in a multi-state, multi-entity environment with a sizable employee population.
- Strong understanding of payroll tax rules, wage and hour compliance, and required reporting practices.
- Hands-on experience supporting varied compensation types such as salaried, hourly, commission, bonus, retro pay, and reimbursement payments.
- Working knowledge of prevailing wage requirements and certified payroll reporting.
- Proficiency with ADP Workforce Now or a comparable payroll platform; advanced system knowledge is strongly preferred.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to audit payroll data, reconcile discrepancies, and protect confidential information.