Payroll Manager

The Opportunity Amplēo HR is seeking an experienced payroll professional to join our team as a Payroll Manager. You'll be embedded with multiple client organizations as their day-to-day payroll lead, owning end-to-end payroll operations and building the instincts and client skills that define a great fractional payroll professional.

This is not a support role. You own your clients' payroll function. You'll be moving fast, solving real problems, and developing the kind of judgment that only comes from running payroll across multiple organizations, systems, and states at once. You'll work as part of our team of HR Consultants and alongside a Deal Partner who provides strategic oversight and access to the Amplēo Toolbox of proprietary frameworks, templates, and playbooks.

This role is for someone who genuinely wants to be a consultant, not an in-house payroll leader at one company. You'll thrive on variety, autonomy, and the pace that comes with serving several clients at once. Most importantly, you'll embody Amplēo's core operating principle: a consultant the CEO never has to manage. Your Standard: Operating as an Investment Every Amplēo consultant, at every level, is evaluated against a single distinction: are we an investment, or are we an expense?

An investment finds the work before being asked, proposes solutions to risks the client hasn't noticed, (the misclassified worker, the stale state tax account, the garnishment that was never set up), treats a silent inbox as a signal to dig deeper, and presents ready-to-sign work rather than new questions. The CEO never has to manage the payroll function.

An expense waits for assignments, answers only the questions asked, treats a quiet client as "everything is fine," and hands tasks back for the client to review and approve. Investments don't get cut. Expenses do. Every responsibility below assumes you are operating as an investment, regardless of which level you join at.

Who You Are

You are a seasoned payroll professional who knows how to operate in the gray. You're comfortable stepping into client environments that are evolving, sometimes unstructured, and often running on legacy processes or a patchwork of systems. You don't need everything to be perfectly defined to move forward. You use strong judgment and payroll instincts to assess situations quickly, prioritize what matters most, and take action.

You are highly organized and detail-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple clients, pay cycles, and deadlines at once without letting anything slip. You can switch context quickly and seamlessly, moving from a payroll run to a tax notice to a system migration without missing a beat. You understand that no positional authority comes with this role, and you know how to build influence through trust, expertise, and results.

You are a doer. You don't just advise, you execute. You take ownership of outcomes, follow through, and make things happen without needing to be chased down. You understand that payroll has no grace period: you balance speed with precision, and you know when to move quickly and when to slow down and get it right. You bring a client-first mindset to everything you do.

You build trust quickly, communicate clearly, and operate as a true partner to business leaders. You can explain a payroll tax issue or a process gap in plain business terms, and you understand that great payroll is not about process for its own sake, but about making sure every employee is paid accurately, on time, and in full, so the business can run better.

You are adaptable and resourceful. You can shift between strategic thinking and hands-on execution with ease, and you're energized by the opportunity to build, fix, and improve. You're comfortable navigating competing priorities and making decisions without perfect information.

What You'll Do

Day-to-Day Client Delivery On any given day, you might be reconciling and releasing a bi-weekly payroll for one client in the morning and untangling a multi-state tax registration issue for another in the afternoon. The work is varied, fast-moving, and never the same twice. You own the full payroll function for your assigned clients, from new-hire setup to final pay.

You execute with urgency and accuracy, and you ask the right questions when you need direction. End-to-End Payroll Operations: Own payroll processing from timekeeping data through approval, funding, and delivery, ensuring all employees are paid accurately, on time, and in full. Manage off-cycle runs, bonuses, commissions, retro pay, final pay, and corrections with precision.

Payroll Systems & HRIS: Bring in-depth knowledge across a wide array of payroll and HRIS platforms. Lead system selection, implementation, migration, and integration work, including data conversion, configuration, parallel testing, and post-go-live stabilization. Payroll Tax & Compliance: Manage federal, state, and local payroll tax compliance across all 50 states, including registrations, withholding, deposits, quarterly and annual filings, W-2 and 1099 reporting, and notice resolution.

Stay ahead of changing wage and hour, paid leave, minimum wage, and final pay laws across jurisdictions. Multi-State & Local Exposure: Identify and resolve multi-state, reciprocity, remote-worker, and local tax exposure proactively, before it becomes a penalty. Garnishments & Deductions: Administer wage garnishments, child support orders, levies, and other involuntary deductions, as well as pre-tax and post-tax benefit and voluntary deductions, in compliance with applicable limits and remittance requirements.

Audits & Controls: Conduct proactive payroll audits, including worker classification, exempt and non-exempt status, overtime calculations, benefits deductions, and tax accounts. Design and maintain internal controls, approval workflows, and segregation of duties. Support clients through agency audits and inquiries. Process Improvement: Partner with clients to assess current payroll processes, identify gaps and risk, and implement improvements that increase accuracy, reduce manual work, and shorten cycle times.

Accounting & Finance Alignment: Coordinate with client finance and accounting teams on payroll funding, general ledger mapping, accruals, reconciliations, and reporting.

Benefits

& Time Integration: Partner with HR and benefits teams to ensure enrollments, life events, leaves, and time and attendance data flow accurately into payroll. Payroll Analytics & Reporting: Use data to inform decisions, track accuracy and cycle metrics, forecast labor costs, and give client leadership clear visibility into payroll spend and risk.

Employee Payroll Support: Serve as a trusted point of contact for employee payroll questions, resolving pay discrepancies quickly, documenting issues, and escalating real risk. How You'll Do It Beyond the work itself, Amplēo consultants operate by five principles. At the Manager level, you're learning to apply these consistently across your client portfolio, with support to help you calibrate.

Operate as an Embedded Partner. Function as a seamless extension of the client's leadership team, not a vendor they have to manage. Consistently deliver ready-to-sign solutions, such as a reviewed payroll register ready for approval, focusing your efforts on returning time to the CEO. Prioritize Business Impact over Payroll Jargon.

Translate every recommendation into tangible financial or legal risk terms, such as penalty exposure, cash flow impact, or cost to fix. Acknowledge all messages within 24 hours and lead with the recommendation, not the background. Ensure Transparency and Predictability. Proactively escalate client issues to your oversight immediately, even when the issue is already resolved, ensuring they are never surprised by information coming from the client.

A missed deadline, tax notice, or payroll error is escalated the moment it's known. Maintain Radical Neutrality. Sit outside the client's internal politics to provide an unbiased perspective. Deliver the hard truth when necessary, recognizing that candid advice is the core value the client pays for. Proactively Capture Value.

Log time with detailed impact descriptions, not just activities, to ensure the client understands the full value delivered. Submit your tracker every Friday without exception. Eagerness to Embrace the Amplēo Values Always Amplify: We draw on collective experience to multiply the expertise of our leaders and clients. Manage What Matters: We don't do everything; we do the things that matter most, both for our clients and our people.

Progress to Perfection: We have a bias for action as we challenge the status quo in our people, thinking, execution, and results. Listen and Learn: We ask masterful questions and have an insatiable appetite for learning and improvement. Experts Without Egos: We collaborate and communicate to turn experience and insight into impact.

Operate Like Owners: We are entrepreneurial, results over recommendations.

Pay: $70000 - $90000 per year

Requirements

5+ years of progressive payroll experience, with a deep understanding of payroll best practices, payroll tax, and employment law.; Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).; Proven end-to-end payroll experience, including multi-state processing, off-cycle runs, year-end close, and W-2 and 1099 reporting.

; Working knowledge of payroll laws and tax requirements across all 50 states, including comfort with California and New York requirements and local and reciprocity taxes.; Hands-on experience administering garnishments, levies, child support orders, and pre-tax and post-tax deductions.; Experience conducting payroll audits and designing payroll controls.

; Hands-on experience with a wide array of HRIS and payroll systems (such as ADP, Paychex, Paycom, Paylocity, Gusto, Rippling, Justworks, Tri. Net, UKG, or Workday), including implementations or migrations.; Proficiency in Excel and Google Workspace, with strong reconciliation and data analysis skills.; Genuine appetite for client-facing consulting work, including variety, autonomy, and accountability for outcomes you don't have positional authority over.

; Strongly Preferred: Prior consulting, fractional, or multi-client payroll experience.; Strongly Preferred: Payroll and HR certifications (CPP, FPC, SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, SPHR).; Strongly Preferred: Experience scaling payroll through company growth stages, including post-funding, M&A, PEO transitions, or significant headcount changes.

; Strongly Preferred: Experience supporting clients through payroll tax agency audits, notices, and penalty abatement.

About Amplēo HR At Amplēo HR, we believe that an operationally excellent HR function is the key to business growth. We partner with organizations of all sizes to help them attract top talent, build a loyal and engaged workforce, and navigate the complex world of HR compliance. Our flexible service models let us meet companies wherever they are, whether they need a full HR department, specialized expertise, or defined project support.

We're dedicated to helping our clients optimize their people strategy so they can focus on what they do best: growing their business. Join us and be part of a team that is not just managing human resources, but empowering human potential.

What We Offer

Unlimited PTO Comprehensive Insurance Coverage Company-Paid Life Insurance Paid Parental Leave 401(k) Plan with Company Match 12 Paid Holidays Flexible Work Arrangements and Schedules Professional Development Opportunities Ampleo is an equal-opportunity employer that embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, skills, and perspectives because we know this only makes us better.

We strongly encourage women, persons of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, persons with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply even if you do not meet 100% of the qualifications.