What is a Payroll Clerk

Most organizations have a person within the payroll department who functions in the capacity of a payroll clerk. If your company has a need to have employee compensation, and most do, processed then they will have a payroll clerk on board. When you work for a company chances are you have certain deductions for federal and state taxes that need to be taken out on a regular basis well it's the payroll clerk that handles these functions. A clerk will normally have the assistance from some type of payroll software program.

Payroll clerks are also responsible for keeping a tab on employee's attendance which enables them to pay the employee the correct amount of compensation during each pay period. This is normally done by having the employee fill out time sheets. These time sheets are for the most part processed online by employees on a daily basis. The payroll clerk can then pull the correct program and extract the information from the computer system.

If there is a sales force involved or if employees receive commissions and bonus then the payroll clerk has to process this information appropriately as well. Each employee is allotted so many sick days and vacation days therefore when someone uses one of these days the payroll clerk has to keep track of the days as well as record it in the computer system. A payroll clerk will handle every aspect of an employee's paycheck including money taken out for a 401k, retirement programs, and health and life insurance deductions.

There have been some situations where employees were no longer employed by a particular company but still continued to receive their regular payroll check through direct deposit because the payroll clerk was absent or no longer working for the company. Sometimes commission checks are not processed when they should be because the payroll clerk did not put the paperwork through when it should have been.

You can probably see how crucial the duties and functions of a payroll clerk are to an organization. In the role of payroll clerk a person has to be focused and the ability to meet dead lines and as well as pay attention to detail.

Depending on the organization these types of jobs can be outsourced to different organizations. They will handle all of the payroll functions from A to Z. There are certain organizations that specialize in the payroll function. Organizations will seek them out if they feel it is cost effective. Employees within the organization are freed up to do things other than payroll.

The requirements can vary from company to company. If you have previous experience and an associate's degree in accounting these can help your cause.
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