Payroll Specialist

This position is remote, but occasional travel for training and meetings may be required, so the successful candidate will be a resident of Pennsylvania.

Summary/Objective:
This position reports to the HR Shared Services Payroll Manager and is responsible for performing the daily operations personnel transactions and processing payroll for the bi-weekly payroll. This position ensures the accuracy, integrity, and confidentiality of the payroll process and ensures that correct, appropriate, timely payments are made to eligible employees. This position requires independent thinking, action to ensure accuracy, strong auditing, problem solving, time management, and communication skills.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Prepare and input payroll transactions to the centralized payroll system for faculty, staff, and student payroll. Transactions include, but not limited to; appointments, terminations, changes in deductions, hourly pay changes, organizational reassignments.
• Responsible for entering, auditing, monitoring, and ensuring accuracies with manual processes such as manual leave and salary adjustments and posting changes.
• Updates the data within the SAP Payroll module by input, record keeping, report generation and resolving payroll problems. Responsible for ensuring personnel data is accurate and pay is processed properly.
• Reconciles and verifies payroll accounts, payroll reports and accounts related to payroll and develops automated payroll reports for use in reconciliation and verification of employee and payroll records.
• Applies, interprets, and ensures compliance with federal, state, and local guidelines and accepted university and State System practices, policies and procedures and maintains and prepares, if necessary, appropriate documentation to ensure compliance.
• Runs automated reports to support the payroll, other student payroll related programs and university departments and develops and makes recommendations regarding student payroll processing, policies, and procedures.
• Reviews the processes for compliance with regulations, monitoring and establishing controls, coordinating the processing of deductions, garnishments, taxes and withholding amounts, overseeing the distribution of employee earning statements and recommending improvements and changes to the process and posting changes.
• Performing and ensuring the performance of statistical reports and analysis and reviewing input and output from the report.
• Collects tax documents for employees when necessary and as required and reviews forms for correctness/completeness prior to processing payment, ensures necessary documentation and compliance and prepares, if necessary, documentation to ensure compliance. 
• Instructs, communicates, provides information, and answers employee related payroll questions and questions regarding payroll policies and procedures.
• Develops automated, specialized reports to meet payroll reporting needs and to coordinate and assess data requests and to provide requested data by either running automated reports or developing new automated reports.
• Resolves discrepancies related to the G/L postings.
• Develops recommendations regarding payroll processing and payroll policies, procedures, compliance, and appropriate courses of actions and/or approaches and recommends the drafting of payroll processes, policies and procedures and applies and interprets payroll policies and procedures.
• Process unemployment claims and employment verifications for employees and processes escheat checks and payroll refunds.
• Ensures that all paperwork and documentation for non-resident alien employees is complete and updated on an annual basis and maintains files related to the non-resident alien paperwork.
• Maintains filing system for payroll tax records and other payroll documents.
• Compile and calculate data for overtime, shift differential, and regular wage payroll and prepare documentation transmittal for processing.
• Process overtime, shift differential, wage hours, deferred holiday pay, and out-of-class payment for employees.
• Answer leave questions and calculate leave balances and accruals. Process leave payouts and expired comp time.
• Provides salary verifications for internal and external requests.
• Ability to interpret related functions of the Collective Bargaining Units. 
• Provides customer service for payroll related inquiries.
• Maintains master data for faculty, staff, administrative, and student appointments.
• Monitors leave balances for exceptions and extraordinary usage/balances. Instructs or takes corrective action as deemed necessary.
• Responsible for reporting inquiries from employment and governmental agencies.
• Works with campus partners and stakeholders involved in payroll processes to ensure data accuracy, process improvement, to allow for accurate and timely pay.
• Responsible for auditing, calculating, and processing input for payment for overload, independent study, individualized instruction, summer school, working out-of-class, overtime, dual employment, mini courses and faculty incentive payments and other faculty supplemental pay.
• All other duties related to payroll processes as assigned within scope of job classification.
• Researches and resolves employment documentation discrepancies and payroll errors to verify significant differences comparing pay periods utilizing wage type reporter, ad-hoc query, payroll journal and the gross compare report. Verify retroactive payroll adjustments, through SAP reporting, each pay period for validation.
• Verifies and ensures pre-employment documentation is received and complete prior to processing payroll actions. This includes appropriate authorizations for non-citizens.
• Ability to develop, run and analyze Ad-Hoc, BI, and other data reporting and analyze results.
• Makes recommendations for changes and efficiencies and process improvements in the payroll processes.
• Process schedule substitutions and changes when applicable.
• Receive and respond to employment verification requests from lending institutions for employees.
• Receive and respond to unemployment requests from PA Unemployment agencies.
• Compile work-related injury wage information. Inform employees regarding leave entitlement, usage, and anticipation of leave.
• Provides training/training documentation to new employees on the functionality of the Employee Self Service portal. Inform new employees of the use of leave and the CBA guidelines for leave usage.
• Will cross train with team to serve as a back-up in absence of payroll manager and to provide back-up to the payroll team.
• Research and resolve payroll issues regarding payroll and leave administration. Other duties as assigned