Skip to content

UKG Inc., a leading provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions announces entering into a definitive agreement to acquire Immedis. Read More

What is a Truly Global Payroll Solution?

Ursula Dempsey
Ursula Dempsey

Content and Customer Marketing Manager, Immedis

Mar 1, 2022 4 mins

On this blog, we talk a lot about the power and the business potential of a single global payroll solution. How operating with one global payroll provider can address many of the challenges of processing multiple country payrolls. And that the consolidation and standardization of global payroll processing afford unique and highly valuable oversight and analytics.

We also know that many global payroll professionals agree that operating with a single payroll provider is very important.how global payroll solutions can help companies manage multi country payroll Source: 2021 Survey Results: Is Global Payroll Setup to Impact the Bigger Business Picture

However, alarmingly only 42% of those surveyed believe that there is a single global payroll provider capable of meeting all the demands and business needs. Some current payroll providers are perhaps the reason for this view.

Many payroll services issues producing a single global report as they cannot take data feeds from local engines or fail to consolidate payrolls due to a lack of experience or expertise in specific countries.

However, if you are assessing global payroll providers and payroll solutions here are the eight capabilities to consider.

8 signs that a payroll solution is truly global

1. Provides country specific information (CSI)

One of the most critical areas for any payroll professional is compliance –ensuring that you are meeting all the mandatory local payroll tax and employment obligations for both the employee and the employer.

And as is the case for most global organizations, this can involve employees or contractors on assignment and thereby involve operating a shadow payroll. This further contributes to the complexity and challenge of running multiple payrolls in different countries.

CSI Payroll Database

To help organizations manage global payroll and offer that critical peace of mind to payroll teams who feel under pressure to know every law in every country, we introduced Immedis CSI. This means that we house CSI information directly in our global payroll platform, providing a detailed payroll database of employee information fields required for each country's tax and benefit calculations and compliance requirements.

Immedis Perpetual Validation

This is coupled with another Immedis first, Perpetual Validation. Perpetual Validation identifies any payroll data gaps in your employee information- for example, a missing DOB or you don't have a date required by law, such as an expectant's mother's due date. You have time to supply the missing employee data and pay employees accurately and on time.

2. Offers multiple language options

By its very nature, global payroll means different cultures, countries, and languages. While it is unrealistic to expect your payroll teams to be multilingual, you can expect that your global payroll solution is.

Having a global payroll software that allows teams to work in one language, for example, Spanish, and yet manage the payroll of employees in another country, for instance, Germany means optimizing current teams and facilitating growth and expansion into new markets quickly efficiently.

The Immedis Platform supports 20+ languages

The Immedis Payroll Platform currently offers over 20 languages, including Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Apart from making it easier to use, it also enables organizations to comply with local tax and legislation. For example, to pay employees in Japan, an employee’s name must be listed in English, Kanji, and Katakana for statutory reporting with authorities.Consider the language capabilities when assessing global payroll solutions The Immedis Global Payroll Platform is provided in over 20 languages

3. Enables international payments

Generating the correct pay and deductions is one part of payroll processing. The other is ensuring that the money is transferred into each employee’s bank account. Again, if you manage global payroll, it means finding a way to pay in various currencies and banks.

It also means finding a way that doesn’t involve hefty bank fees or falling victim to money laundering and fake bank accounts.

Global payroll providers should offer you a fully managed payments solution to avoid these pitfalls and headaches. One that brings together all the systems and processes and provides flexible end-to-end payment automation that ensures complete, on-time delivery of your employee and statutory payments.

4. Provides tax expertise

As mentioned earlier, meeting all your organizational and employee tax obligations is not just the law, it is also part of your business strategy. Ideally, your global payroll provider offers taxation services so that as you grow and expand, you’ll be able to receive solid, knowledgeable advice regarding the financial aspects of whether employing locally or sending existing employees on assignment.

This is particularly relevant and beneficial when you are involved in M&A activity. For a very clear and informative discussion on the implications for employers around the borderless organization, I recommend tuning into this webinar: Creating a Borderless Organizational Structure with Global Payroll.

5. Is scalable

The overwhelming number of companies are constantly looking to grow and expand into different countries. Whether that is domestically or the wider world, the ability of your payroll teams to set up new employees into the pay system and get them paid on time is critical.

Supports M&A activity

M&A activity is expected to continue to rocket over the coming year. How quickly payroll operations can adapt is a key differentiator in the success of the expansion plans. In 5 Ways Global Payroll Can Assist at the Start of an M&A, my colleague Breiffni O’Domhnaill explains how payroll leaders can identify and support optimization opportunities and risks

6. Focuses on the employee experience

We have seen a shift towards a greater emphasis on employers providing a top-class employee experience in recent years. And payroll plays a crucial role in delivering on this goal. After all, no one is happy when they do not receive their pay on time, or it is incorrect.

Leveraging the payslip

It is also a fantastic way to help establish a company culture if every employee receives their pay information in the same format regardless of their location. This is hugely beneficial if you want to use the payslip as part of your financial wellbeing program and plan to leverage the payslip to communicate with your employees about financial matters such as retirement funds.

Employees want assistance with their finances, and leveraging the payslip to teach or inform on these crucial topics is invaluable for accomplishing this.

7. Facilitates audits

Having a single source of truth, the one repository of all your payroll data makes it far easier to gather all data for conducting audits. Having a single global payroll provider eliminates the need to contact several vendors in different time zones and then try to out all their various reports into one consistent format to review the figures.

Ideally, top tier payroll solutions can generate these reports and any others that a CFO might need for auditors.

8. Generates powerful analytics

And finally, although in many ways the most important, a single international payroll solution can offer unparalleled workforce insights as it provides you a single view into your entire global payroll.

With consolidated global reporting in a single currency organizations get a clear picture of headcount costs. The leadership team can assess current business modeling and influence future planning.

Advanced reporting

Immedis also enables companies to drill down into the details to review costs for individual employees while also broadening the scope to show regional and country levels. Our powerful variance analysis compares month-on-month variances, the severity of these variances, and where exactly the changes are occurring, right down to the pay element level per employee.

The payroll team can also work with HR by producing the employee data needed to support organizational equality with average gross pay distribution by age or gender. Information and insights that teams can also use for D&I initiatives.global payroll providers should provide robust reporting capabilities This report shows the breakdown of pay along gender line across an organization's international workforce.