The ultimate guide to global payroll

Looking for a compliant payroll provider to streamline your global payroll processes? Contact our team of specialists today, to get started.

• What is global payroll?

Global payroll is a system that manages employee wages, tax, and social security contributions across multiple countries. It ensures compliance with local employment laws and reduces administrative complexity for businesses expanding internationally.

• Benefits of global payroll

Using global payroll solutions ensures compliance with tax and labour laws. It also improves efficiency by streamlining payroll operations, enhances accuracy through automation, and centralises payroll data for better reporting. Another benefit is the boosting of employee retention by ensuring timely and accurate payments.

• Risks of managing payroll without support

Without a global payroll provider, businesses risk payroll errors, non-compliance penalties, and administrative burnout. Burnout can lead to costly mistakes and inefficiencies in managing international payroll operations.

Thinking of going global? You’re not alone. More and more companies are setting their sights on international goals.

According to a recent report from HSBC, 450,000 UK businesses are “poised to seize international opportunities.” Additionally, 87% of those already trading globally intend to expand further.

And bringing your business overseas is easier than ever. Many options are available for managing your global teams. Employer of Record (EoR) can help you hire and employ internationally. Services like Global Business Expansion and Salary Benchmarking can help you establish overseas operations and competitive pay strategies.

One of the main services leveraged by ambitious organisations to support their overseas ventures is global payroll. This popular solution takes the hassle out of overseas payments by allowing companies to delegate the compliant remittance of employee salaries to a trusted third-party.

What is global payroll?

Global payroll is the term used to refer to centrally processing the calculations and subsequent payment of employee wages, tax, and social security contributions across numerous regions.

Global payroll services include paying salaries, tracking employee working hours, managing leave, and ensuring compliance with local employment laws.

Paying internationally often poses a challenge for growing businesses. Differences in regional requirements complicate the process, creating potential compliance risks. Authorities are strict about non-compliance, often imposing serious penalties.

Global Payroll providers offer compliant solutions to ensure alignment with all local regulations, while also standardising the process across multiple distributed teams. This helps to simplify the process of paying numerous people across different countries.

What are the advantages of using international payroll services?

Compliance with local laws

As mentioned, compliance with local tax and employment laws is paramount to a successful global venture. When seeking to pay teams across multiple regions, businesses must be aware that laws vary greatly between jurisdictions.

As a result, each global payroll will require its own country-specific strategy. Engaging a global payroll provider helps to ensure that your organisation adheres to each country’s tax, labour, and reporting requirements.

Cost and time efficiency

As a global business, you’ve got a lot on your plate. Hiring and managing your international teams, undertaking extensive market research, and establishing entities overseas all takes time and effort. So, you don’t need the complexity and risk of trying to handle multiple overseas payrolls hanging over you. Managing this on your own can be time consuming and costly.

Working with a global payroll service helps to streamline payroll operations. It can reduce the administrative burden and expenditure, and improve your peace of mind.

As well as saving time, using an international payroll service is cost-efficient. It eliminates the financial risk of non-compliance. It also means you eliminate the need to invest in expensive payroll software.

Guaranteed accuracy

In areas like payroll, we have the resources to minimise human error. Global payroll providers will use state-of-the-art automated payroll systems. These systems mitigate the risk of errors in calculations, tax deductions, and payments. This will ensure that you pay your international employees correctly and on time, no matter where they are in the world.

Data centralisation

Attempting to manage payroll systems and tax compliance in a number of different countries can cause administrative headaches. This is especially true for smaller businesses that may find their teams overextended, with too many plates in the air.

When your organisation collaborates with a global payroll provider, this simplifies the process of managing payroll across borders. You benefit from a single global payroll system that consolidates all payroll data.

This system provides a unified view of payroll information across multiple locations. The system supports and streamlines reporting, analytics, and decision-making.

Boosted workforce retention

Ensuring your international teams feel seen, secure, and supported is crucial to the success of your global venture. Prioritising the timely and accurate payment of your workers is a key way to keep your teams satisfied.

Leveraging the expertise and efficiency of a trusted global payroll partner helps to guarantee that your employees can rely on their salaries being delivered on time, all the time.

What are the risks of not using a global payroll provider?

Increased errors

Managing payroll systems and processes across numerous jurisdictions can be a recipe for disaster if attempting to go it alone. Organisations like SMEs and NGOs operate within limited budgets, timeframes, and reporting deadlines. Attempting to navigate this complex landscape may result in rushed work. This can lead to errors, crucial details missed, or key dates forgotten.

Delegating the burden of managing global payroll to a trusted party means your teams have less to worry about, and your organisation can ensure compliance.

Serious penalties

With compliance errors come serious penalties. Organisations that do not follow local tax and payroll laws can face significant fines. They may also be subject to business penalties and, in serious cases, prison time.

Avoid penalties by leaving your global payroll needs in the hands of experts.

Staff burn-out

As mentioned, navigating overseas tax and salary remittance in multiple places is an enormous administrative burden for any team. Managing this while staying compliant in all locations can lead to team members feeling burned out. The possibility of errors and accidental noncompliance increases.

Reduce the administrative weight on your finance teams to ensure employee satisfaction, retention, and trust.

So, how does global payroll really work?

At Mauve Group, we have over 30 years of experience hiring, employing, and paying employees around the world. Our experts possess local knowledge in over 150 countries. We are experts in the complexities of handing global payments efficiently and compliantly.

How are workers in multiple countries paid?

Ensuring standardisation, compliance, and service levels across various regions is a complex task. But Mauve Group’s experts specialise in tax issues, local customs, and legal concerns. Each of our clients is assigned a dedicated account manager, responsible for making sure your workers are paid compliantly and on time.

What businesses can use global payroll?

Our Global Payroll solution is available to organisations of all shapes and sizes. Multinationals, SMEs, educational institutions, and NGOs all avail of our suite of employment services, including Global Payroll.

The solution works best for businesses that already have an in-country entity. If you do not already have a legal entity established, we can also help with hat. Our Global Business Expansion service can help you to establish in new markets with ease.

What is the timeframe for implementing a global payroll solution?

Payroll implementation is a detailed process involving the review and transfer of data, setting up new procedures, and ensuring compliance. Each country is different, as are client requirements in terms of payroll size and location. Establishing a payroll solution can take from just one month to up to six months for larger projects.

Trusted, experienced providers will use these timeframes to gain a thorough insight into your business’ current payroll situation, securely transfer your worker data, and get everything set up on their system. Taking this time and care will protect your business and workers and allow for the integration between your departments and the provider’s processes.

For example, Mauve’s systems are completed prior to the parallel running of payrolls and the eventual go-live processing run. We prepare our Global Payroll solutions on a bespoke basis. We complete all due-diligence while developing a compliant, process-driven solution.

Can a payroll provider pay salary and taxes on your behalf?

The most reliable global payroll services typically provide various options for handling salary payments and tax obligations for clients. For example, at Mauve, we will carry out salary and tax remittances internationally, where it is legal to do so. We will ensure the correct payments are made by the required pay dates, for both employees and in-country tax authorities.

Options exist for processing local salary and tax payments, especially when legal obligations necessitate that these transactions occur within the confines of a specific nation's borders.

How should a payroll provider ensure data protection, security, and privacy?

It is recommended to work with a global payroll provider who has been awarded data protection certifications. For example, Mauve Group is proud to have been awarded ISO 27001 certification by the British Assessment Bureau.

This certification recognises that Mauve Group employs a spectrum of procedures and policies to ensure that all aspects of security information management are secure. This includes the realms of client confidentiality, the correct and consistent management of data and information, and data encryption.

Why Mauve’s Global Payroll service is the best option for you

Mauve Group's Global Payroll team handles the end-to-end process of paying your overseas employees, via a fully managed solution.

By outsourcing to our international payroll service, you eliminate the necessity of establishing a local payroll team in every region or purchasing specialised payroll software.

With thirty years of experience, ISO 27001 certification from the British Assessment Bureau, solutions in over 150 countries, and an innovative centralised platform, Mauve Insight, we’re here to help you to quickly and compliantly pay your overseas staff. Contact us, today.