Senior Payroll Specialist jobs at Ey in South Africa, Durban

Your key responsibilities

As a part of the Payroll Operate team you will work in the Durban Office on payroll compliance services.

Required skills include:

• Strong analytical and interpersonal skills
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• Problem-solving ability and attention to detail
• Strong numerical aptitude and analytical skills
• Good time management and organisational skills.
• Ability to prioritise and multi-task in order to meet deadlines.
• Ability to work in a team.
• Highly meticulous and methodical

Responsibilities:

• Collate payroll information.
• Process payroll input
• Extract payroll reports and deliverables
• Ad hoc payroll tasks as assigned.

To qualify for the role, you should have:

• Matric with bachelor’s pass including Maths or a payroll qualification.
• Minimum of 4 years payroll experience inclusive of processing experience.
• Knowledge of SAGE300 and PaySpace applications are an advantage.

We’re interested in SA citizens,
based in Durban, with a passion for payroll and the drive to take on new responsibilities and projects growing their payroll knowledge and skills.

You’ll also have the opportunity to achieve your potential by being given professional development and experiences with clients across geographies. If you’re keen to play a pivotal role within a fast paced and highly focused global payroll operate team, this role is for you.

The position will be a hybrid work arrangement between the office and remote working from home.

Your key responsibilities:

• Provide timely and high-quality payroll support, project management, governance and service management services and work products that exceed client expectations, including regular contact with EY global payroll teams to verify that payroll services are delivered on time and accurately.
• Support on the review and resolution of client requests and queries on portfolio, including technical queries.
• Liase with the offshore and Africa teams as relevant to deliver on client payrolls.
• Be responsible for accurate and timely service delivery of payroll for our clients.
• Respond to payroll and governance payroll queries from clients and internal global stakeholders.
• Develop the client payroll calendar detailing all payroll delivery activities and dates; support the collection of client data and work with global EY teams to confirm receipt and set up OGM.
• Manage the creation and updates of payroll processes/procedure documentation for all clients and audit annually.
• Work with teams to correct as relevant, including working with and training offshore teams on payroll processes.
• Support in all activities within Payroll Operate that include sales and service opportunities under the direction of a senior manager or manager in the group.
  

As an Assistant Manager in Payroll Operate you will help supervise the design, implementation and operation of global multi-country payroll operate services for our small clients. Capabilities include:

• Implementation of centrally managed global outsourcing model, leveraging the global payroll tools to provide clients with greater control, visibility and compliance for their global payroll;
• Governance of payroll operations with ability to lead the global country teams utilizing one global methodology to track the end-to-end process, and provide governance throughout our client life cycle to mitigate risk, increase corporate transparency, increase compliance, ensure leveraging of key data insights and provide clients with additional product offerings;
• Working, directing and resolving questions, identifying service opportunities with internal EY serving Africa and global teams;
• Build on technical competence by keeping up to date on global trends, developments and regulations and applying them to moderately complex situations and undertaking non-routine, complex project-type work as requested by clients;
• Exhibit competency in technology by maintaining complex sets of data, reviewing data analytics and analyzing trends, including the collection of data per agreed-upon payroll calendars and other requirements;
• Ensure the payroll processes and procedures documentation is relevant, up to date and used at all times;
• Manage payroll projects as assigned (including new client transitions) which will require ownership, project management, recommendations, solutions, root cause analysis, SLAs and metrics, decisions and resolution including the escalation of client and internal country issues;
• Identifying potential opportunities to expand client services (within payroll and in other SLs) based on current offerings and client feedback;
• Should be a subject matter expert in understanding the payroll rules and legislations in a multi-country environment and being up to date with current payroll knowledge and legislation.
• Good understanding of the Technology enablers within EY to support on innovation and continuous improvement within the practice;
• Responsible for ISAE3402, billings and payments, BRET and third party contractor management, pipeline management, debtors responsibility;
• Initiation and completion of the ASQs and QRM process with support from senior manager group as relevant.
  

Skills and attributes for success:

• Strong payroll processing background;
• Experience with South African/African payroll processing;
• Managing a wide variety of team members per client engagement;
• Be involved in identifying team structure for complex projects/engagements;
• Act as coach for team members as requested;
• Strong analytical skills, interpersonal, and written/verbal communication skills; problem-solving ability and attention to detail;
• Project management skills;
• Up to date with current payroll knowledge and legislation; and
• Excellent communication, presentation and client service skills.
  

To qualify for the role, you should have:

• Bachelor’s degree/equivalent diploma preferably with an emphasis in accounting, business or finance (This is preferable, not a mandatory requirement)
• 7+ years of relevant payroll and/or tax experience or equivalent experience in business or industry preferable.
• Strong numbers acumen, including analytical abilities and knowledge of Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
• Excellent organizational and verbal/written communication skills with a proactive approach to problem solving and attention to detail.
• Create components on existing payroll systems and configure the formulas and tax & related statutory deductions correctly, aligned to specific country legislature
• Ability to manually calculate taxes and other statutory deductions outside the payroll system applying the tax tables for African countries
• Client-facing exposure in a payroll role.
• Project management experience with global or multi-national payroll.

You will work with challenging but motivating projects spread across a wide spectrum of companies and industries. Nonetheless, you will be working with a vibrant team that is focused on helping our clients succeed. Moreover, this role will offer you a diverse and independent work schedule that requires commitment and initiative.

Qualifications

Everything you do will lead to providing definitive auditing services that the capital markets and the client can rely upon. You will analyze financial statements, annual reports and annual general meetings for our clients to ensure that there are no breach of auditing standards. You will help our clients respond better to reporting and auditing issues within their businesses.

Skills and attributes for success

• Identifying potential audit issues or unusual trends in financial statements with detailed analytical trend analysis
• Demonstrating your professionalism while working in clients’ environments and providing exceptional service
• Operating effectively in a regulated environment, with a focus on protecting the capital markets and the investing public
• Having a genuine passion for protecting the financial markets via audit procedures auditing, and the resilience to prioritize and adapt in a demanding, fast-moving, constantly changing environment

To qualify for the role you must have

• Qualified CA(SA)
• Bcom Honours
• Around 5-7 years’ experience as an accountant or auditor in the various sectors – Mining, Financial Service, Retail etc.
• Excellent critical thinking and analysis skills, and the confidence to identify and resolve problems
• A proven record of excellence in communication and negotiation, supported by the technical writing skills to translate data into compelling stories and meaningful insights.

Ideally, you’ll also have

• Qualified CA(SA)

What we look for

We understand the importance of continuous professional development for our employees and so we offer support, coaching, mentoring and feedback from some of our most engaging and experienced colleagues in the industry. You will have the flexibility and freedom to outline and manage your work plan and therefore have complete ownership of your role. We also offer a highly competitive compensation package that reflects our appreciation for your performance and the value you bring to our business. In addition to these, we offer Total reward packages designed to promote your personal and social well-being. These include:

• Team building and Social events
• Health Insurance, Sickness Insurance and Group Insurance including accident and life insurance
• 4 weeks’ vacation, Fitness benefits, Confidential counselling support and Corporate volunteering opportunities.