Vice President, Payroll
Continuserve • Atlanta, Georgia • Full Time
Posted on Sat, Jul 25, 2026
Purpose of the Job:
The Vice President, Payroll provides strategic leadership and operational oversight of payroll services across a diverse client portfolio, including nonprofit and for-profit organizations ranging from emerging businesses to complex enterprises. This role is responsible for ensuring the accurate, compliant, and efficient delivery of payroll services across multi-state, union, and highly regulated environments.
As the leader of the payroll practice, the Vice President serves as a senior advisor to clients and internal stakeholders, partnering with U.S. and internal teams to deliver best-in-class payroll solutions. This individual is responsible for driving service excellence, regulatory compliance, operational scalability, and process innovation while navigating complex payroll requirements and evolving employment regulations. The VP acts as a trusted business partner, helping clients mitigate risk, improve payroll operations, and support organizational growth.
Roles and Responsibilities:
Direct Client Services (70%)
- Serves as the primary payroll leader and strategic advisor for assigned clients across nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
- Oversees end-to-end payroll operations across U.S. and Canadian jurisdictions, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, compliance, and exceptional client service.
- Manages complex payroll environments, including unionized workforces, ensuring adherence to collective bargaining agreements.
- Partners with cross-functional teams across North America to align payroll processes, controls, reporting, and compliance practices.
- Leads client-facing engagements, presenting payroll insights, risk mitigation strategies, and process improvements to senior stakeholders.
- Ensures compliance with applicable U.S. federal, state, and local regulations, as well as Canadian federal and provincial payroll requirements, including tax, wage and hour, and reporting obligations.
- Oversees payroll audits, reconciliations, and issue resolution, ensuring strong internal controls and audit readiness.
- Advises clients on payroll best practices, system optimization, and operational efficiencies.
- Advises clients on North American payroll matters, including taxation, year-end reporting, union payroll, regulatory changes, and complex compliance requirements.
- Supports payroll implications of organizational changes, including growth, restructuring, and workforce expansions.
- Collaborates cross-functionally with HR, Finance, and Benefits teams to ensure seamless integration and alignment.
- Manages payroll vendor relationships and evaluates systems and tools to enhance delivery and scalability.
Supervisory Responsibilities (20%)
- Leads the North American Payroll Practice, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, compliant, scalable, and profitable payroll services across the client portfolio.
- Provides leadership and direction to payroll professionals, fostering technical excellence, continuous development, and a high-performance culture.
- Establishes and maintains quality control standards, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and adherence to client, regulatory, and organizational requirements.
- Directs workforce planning, resource allocation, process optimization, and service delivery strategies to meet evolving client needs and business objectives.
- Serves as a subject matter expert and escalation point for complex payroll matters, driving best practices, operational effectiveness, and client satisfaction.
- Acts as a thought leader in payroll strategy, compliance, and operations, both internally and externally.
- Supports business development efforts, including participation in client presentations and solution design.
- Contributes to process improvement initiatives, automation, and scalability efforts across the organization.
- Partners with leadership to evaluate engagement scope, pricing, resource allocation, and staffing models to drive profitability, scalability, and client satisfaction.
- Partners with executive leadership to drive growth of the Payroll Practice, including service expansion, client retention, and strategic business development initiatives.
- Other duties as assigned.
- Serves as a representative of the organization in client and industry settings, demonstrating professionalism, expertise, and discretion.
- Builds and maintains strong client relationships, establishing credibility as a trusted payroll advisor.
General Knowledge and Skills:
Required:
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, HR, or related field
- 10+ years of progressive payroll experience, including leadership roles
- Proven experience managing multi-state payroll operations
- Union payroll experience, including interpretation and application of collective bargaining agreements
- Experience managing payroll for both small organizations and large enterprises
- Strong client-facing experience with the ability to communicate effectively with senior stakeholders
- Deep knowledge of payroll compliance, tax regulations, and reporting requirements
- Experience working with U.S. and international teams
- Experience with North American payroll operations, including Canada
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills
- Advanced proficiency with payroll systems and Excel
- Experience with nonprofit organizations and funding environments
- Experience in consulting, outsourcing, or multi-client environments
- Experience leading process improvement and system implementations
Physical demands: This position requires daily use of fingers, talking, sitting, listening, and vision. Equipment used includes, but is not limited to: computers and keyboards, calculators, writing utensils, and telephones. Employee must be able to lift up to 40 pounds.
Travel Requirements: This position predominantly operates remotely from a home office or at a local office at the employee’s discretion. Travel, while unlikely, may be required at the discretion of the Company. Required travel is typically local, but may require travel out of state for periods of time.
ContinuServe is an equal employment opportunity employer.
AuditFriendly salary estimate
The employer did not post a salary for this role. Based on AuditFriendly's salary intelligence model (comparable live postings, role, seniority, and location), we estimate base pay of $78,000–$177,000 per year (median ~$136,000). This is an AuditFriendly estimate, not an employer-provided figure.
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