Building Beyond the Foundations: activpayroll’s Perspective on Payroll Excellence
by activpayroll
LACE Partners’ recent white paper, Optimal Payroll Starts with the Foundations, presents an insightful framework for how organisations can strengthen their payroll functions through seven key pillars - from operating model and technology to adaptability and mindset.
At activpayroll, we recognise the value of these foundations. However, from our experience delivering global payroll services in more than 150 countries, we know that true success goes beyond process and technology. Payroll excellence is built on partnership, communication and trust between provider and customer.
As Callum McAndrew, our UK Payroll Operations Manager, explains: “You can get all the payrolls accurate and timely, but if the solution is not working as a partnership, if the relationship isn’t strong between provider and customer, both parties will never achieve success.”
That sentiment goes to the heart of our culture. We see payroll as a collaboration, not a transaction.
Rethinking Payroll Accuracy
In the white paper, the statement that “it is reasonable to state that payroll is always accurate because it will always give you the result of the data it consumes” raises an important debate.
Callum points out: “While I understand the intent behind this statement, I believe it may oversimplify the complexity of payroll processing. Even with accurate data inputs, achieving the correct payroll outcome involves multiple layers - from interpretation and configuration to compliance and timing. As payroll professionals, we know it’s rarely as straightforward as ‘one number in, one number out.’”
Payroll accuracy depends on much more than data integrity. Interpretation, configuration, compliance and timing all play critical roles. At activpayroll, we believe accuracy is a shared responsibility between technology, process and people. While automation delivers consistency, it is human oversight that ensures the right outcomes for employees.
Technology and Human Insight: A Necessary Balance
The white paper rightly highlights the growing role of automation, integrations and analytics. As HRIS, benefits and time systems become increasingly connected, payroll teams must be able to spot irregularities and gaps in data before they cause downstream issues.
Callum states: “With the advancement of integrations for payroll data from HRIS, Benefit, and Time and Attendance systems into payroll systems, it’s more important than ever that payroll functions can identify gaps or issues in the payroll data being received. You can know all the payroll regulations and compliance in a country, but if you can’t analyse and identify data that doesn’t match patterns for your customer, payroll won’t be processed accurately.”
Technology creates efficiency, but human expertise ensures accuracy and confidence. Our teams go beyond simply processing data - we analyse, interpret and validate it, ensuring every result reflects our customers’ reality.
Communication: The Missing Foundation
While LACE’s seven pillars create a robust model, one critical element is missing, communication and relationship-building between customers and providers, particularly in outsourced payroll models. From our perspective, this isn’t just an additional layer, it’s the core foundation that holds the others together.
“From Sales to Operations to Technology to Global Payments to Global Mobility to Finance, if we do not communicate and collaborate, we will have challenges providing service excellence for our customers” says Callum.
At activpayroll, open collaboration is fundamental. Our teams work closely across departments and with customers, ensuring expertise and context flow seamlessly. Challenges are resolved collectively and quickly, maintaining accuracy, compliance and trust.
Looking Ahead: Building Partnerships That Last
The LACE white paper captures the spirit of transformation sweeping through the payroll profession. Payroll functions must evolve - developing new skills, embracing automation, and leveraging data to drive strategic business insight. However, our experience reinforces a simple truth: people remain at the heart of payroll success.
The optimal payroll combines technology with trust, data with dialogue, and automation with accountability. It thrives on partnership, a shared journey between customer and provider based on transparency, collaboration and communication.
At activpayroll, we don’t just build the foundations of payroll excellence. We build the relationships that make those foundations last.