OUTSOURCING
Payroll outsourcing: what to check before choosing a provider.
A payroll partnership works when it is written down who sends the data, who validates it, who decides on exceptions and who answers the employees.
THE HUMX TEAM
~3 MIN READ
Start by delimiting the responsibilities. Then compare the price, the operations included and the way of working on the same basis.
Who does what, across four areas
It is worth writing down, before the contract, who holds each role in the four areas where questions usually arise.
Input data. Who sends the time records and the month's changes, in what format and by which agreed date.
Validation. Who confirms the calculation before payment and who signs off the final version.
Exceptions. Who decides on unusual cases: a variable bonus, a suspension, a retroactive correction.
Employee questions. Who answers, through which channel and how quickly, according to what the contract says.
Outsourcing moves the operation, not the status of employer. Obligations that the law places on the company stay with the company; the provider executes, reports and flags. A good contract describes exactly what falls within its mandate and what remains an internal decision.
Eight criteria that make offers comparable
The last row is discussed at the beginning, not at the end. A handover described from day one shows how easily the provider can be changed, and that says something about the relationship.
Employee data
Three things are clarified explicitly: who has authorised access and to which data, whether the provider uses subcontractors and which ones, and how data is returned or deleted when the partnership ends, according to the applicable conditions.
If the provider processes data on behalf of the company, the relationship usually falls under the situation described in Article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation, which requires a written agreement with clear obligations for both parties. The text above is not legal advice; check the contractual form with your own adviser.
Evaluation questions and an illustrative example
Six questions to send before deciding
Who is the contact person and who covers for them during leave?
What happens when you receive incomplete data, one day before closing?
What does a real monthly report look like, on an anonymised example?
Who answers employees' questions about their payslip, and through which channel?
Do you use subcontractors for any part of the operation?
What would you hand over, in what format and within what deadline, if we ended the partnership?
Illustrative example: incomplete time records and a variable bonus
The situation is hypothetical. A company with two sites sends its time records on the agreed date, but from one site the overtime for the last week is missing. In the same month, the sales team has a bonus that depends on receipts only confirmed after the closing date.
The provider flags the missing information, and the person responsible within the company checks the records and confirms the data. For the bonus, the authorised person clarifies the basis of calculation and the moment of payment according to the applicable rules. If a piece of information stays unclear, the case is escalated before validation and the decision is documented.
The example shows why the "exceptions" area deserves to be written as carefully as the list of included operations.
The practical step
Write the four areas of responsibility on one page, together with a monthly calendar you can actually keep, then ask for offers on that same document. If the inputs are the hard part, start there: see how a month of time records is closed step by step.
Let's clarify what we take on.
We start from the areas of responsibility and from your monthly calendar. See how we work on HR and payroll outsourcing.
Let's clarify what we take on →