Lead Payroll Specialist, Payroll Bureau

Restaurant365•Denver, CO

1d•$38 - $57•Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Payroll Specialist, Payroll Bureau manages the ongoing payroll experience for an assigned customer portfolio using native R365 Payroll. The role is the primary operational customer contact, responsible for preparing and reviewing payroll, resolving issues, communicating action items, and ensuring payroll is ready for customer approval. The specialist is accountable for accurate, timely, and well-documented payroll activities within the approved service scope. As an early member of the managed-service team, this hands-on lead individual-contributor partners with Payroll Operations leadership to build and refine the service. The role develops repeatable workflows, strengthens controls, and identifies opportunities to improve customer outcomes as the Payroll Bureau grows. It combines independent customer portfolio ownership with payroll subject-matter expertise, sound judgment, customer relationship skills, and cross-functional collaboration. Responsibilities may expand as the service and team grow. The position is hybrid, with employees expected to work onsite each Tuesday and Wednesday. The stated salary range is $37.88–$56.83 per hour.

Requirements

At least 5 years of hands-on payroll processing or payroll operations experience, with demonstrated ownership of complex payroll activities and customer outcomes.
Experience independently managing payroll across multiple customers, entities, locations, pay groups, or states, including competing payroll calendars and deadlines.
Strong knowledge of the end-to-end payroll cycle, including earnings, deductions, taxes, direct deposit, payroll reporting, reconciliation, corrections, and off-cycle processing.
Working knowledge of multi-state payroll tax and wage-and-hour concepts, with the ability to recognize payroll impacts and determine when specialist interpretation or escalation is needed.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including investigating variances, identifying root causes, exercising sound judgment, and escalating risks appropriately.
Excellent customer communication and relationship-management skills, including explaining payroll concepts, communicating required actions, managing expectations, and maintaining confidence during difficult situations.
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, with the ability to manage competing deadlines independently while maintaining confidentiality, accurate documentation, and control discipline.
Proficiency in Microsoft Excel for payroll analysis and reconciliation, including formulas, lookups, pivot tables, and data validation; ability to learn payroll systems and internal tools quickly.
Demonstrated ability to develop or improve procedures, identify process gaps, and contribute to consistent customer service and operational quality.
Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a remote, deadline-driven environment, adapting to evolving processes and priorities while maintaining reliable follow-through.
Curiosity and eagerness to use AI in daily work, supported by hands-on experience, understanding of generative AI’s capabilities and limitations, and judgment to verify outputs.

Nice To Haves

Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) certification is strongly preferred.
Payroll bureau, managed-service, or payroll outsourcing experience, including ownership of a customer portfolio or service-delivery responsibilities.
Experience as a payroll lead, senior specialist, or subject-matter expert, including mentoring peers, supporting escalations, or reviewing payroll work.
Experience developing payroll procedures, improving workflows, establishing controls, or helping launch or scale a new service.
Experience with R365 Payroll or comparable payroll platforms; hospitality, restaurant, or other distributed workforce experience is a plus.
Experience with quarter-end or year-end payroll activities, payroll system transitions, reporting tools, or approved workflow automation.
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Accounting, Finance, Human Resources, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.

Responsibilities

Independently manage recurring payroll activities for assigned customers, coordinating inputs, deadlines, approvals, and follow-up to support accurate, timely payroll.
Maintain an understanding of customer payroll calendars, business practices, entities, locations, and approval requirements, and translate those needs into consistent service delivery.
Review payroll readiness and required inputs, identify missing or inconsistent information, and coordinate customer decisions or corrections before processing deadlines.
Prepare or import approved payroll transactions, review calculations and variances, reconcile results, and investigate discrepancies within the approved service scope.
Perform payroll audits and reasonableness checks to identify unusual payments, material changes, calculation concerns, or exceptions requiring review or escalation.
Serve as the primary operational customer contact by explaining payroll results, presenting action items, setting expectations, and advising customers when payroll is ready for final approval and submission.
Support payroll corrections and off-cycle requests, coordinating customer instructions, internal dependencies, and approvals while considering downstream reporting and payment impacts.
Coordinate post-payroll reporting, reconciliation, issue resolution, and follow-up with customers and internal teams as appropriate.
Support customer onboarding, transition, and stabilization with Implementation and other service owners.
Coordinate additional customer services as the offering develops, potentially including ACA, workers’ compensation, or 401(k) reporting, subject to approved scope, training, and ownership.
Partner with Payroll Operations leadership to develop and refine workflows, customer playbooks, controls, service standards, and coverage practices for the new offering.
Contribute to clear handoffs, readiness expectations, approval boundaries, and escalation paths across the customer lifecycle.
Act as a subject-matter expert for complex payroll scenarios and customer escalations, coordinating with appropriate internal teams and leadership to resolve issues.
Identify recurring issues, customer needs, product gaps, and process improvements, and recommend practical solutions that strengthen accuracy, consistency, and scalability.
Contribute to service reporting and operational measures, including payroll timeliness, accuracy, correction trends, customer responsiveness, and processing effort; communicate risks and improvement opportunities to leadership.
Develop and maintain reusable documentation and knowledge resources based on payroll issues, customer feedback, and service delivery lessons.
Support knowledge sharing, cross-training, backup coverage, and onboarding of future team members as the managed-service function grows.
Collaborate with Implementation, Tax/Compliance, Customer Success, Support, Payments, Finance, Product, and Engineering to clarify ownership, manage dependencies, and support customer outcomes.
Preserve customer final payroll approval and follow established authorization requirements for payroll changes, funding-related activities, and other sensitive transactions.
Distinguish payroll recalculation and reporting impacts from tax-filing execution; coordinate technical tax determinations, filings, amendments, and related matters with Tax/Compliance or the designated owner.
Maintain accurate records of customer instructions, material decisions, payroll reviews, corrections, approvals, and escalations in approved systems.
Protect sensitive customer and employee information in accordance with privacy, security, access, retention, and internal control requirements; promptly escalate suspected security or payroll-integrity concerns.
Support quality reviews, audits, and root-cause analysis, translating findings into improved processes, documentation, training, or product feedback.
Use approved tools and appropriate automation to improve quality, reduce manual effort, and support consistent service delivery while maintaining human review and control discipline.
Participate in special projects and additional responsibilities aligned with the evolving managed-service offering and Payroll Operations priorities.
Find opportunities to automate and improve work using approved AI and other tools, choose appropriate tools, refine prompts, and review outputs for quality and time saved.