Local or global payroll do not get spoken about much. It happens in the background, with most employees blind to the amount of work that goes into the process of getting their salary on time and in the right amount each month. But payroll really matters. Everyone deserves to get paid on time and in […]

In the face of an incredibly challenging period for businesses in the past two years, one silver lining has been the successful shift to remote working. Pre-Covid, while some jobs offered an element of flexibility, the broad consensus was that teams had to be physically together to succeed. The last two years have proved this […]

There are many reasons why a company may consider outsourcing payroll operations. Deciding whether it makes sense in the first place and what type of setup and partner are right for the situation requires the evaluation of a lot of pros and cons. Throughout my career, I have had to make these payroll outsourcing decisions […]

When the Covid19 pandemic hit us, most knowledge workers became suddenly remote. Whether they liked it or not, they had to stay home and set up some sort of a functioning space where they could do as much uninterrupted work as humanly possible, given the circumstances.  I was no different. I swapped my 15-minute cycle […]

An extensive guide on how benefits in kind tax works around the world, when employees are exempted from it, how companies can offset it, and how to file benefit in kind taxes accurately for your employees.

When I first moved from running Italian payroll to being responsible for international payroll in multiple countries, I remember being surprised by how complex being compliant with many different regulations was. It was challenging to ensure employees’ net salaries were impacted consistently across different countries. This was particularly the case with benefits in kind (vs general benefits) as they are treated differently across the board.

While the rise of mature tooling and services have enabled companies to more easily collaborate and create value with distributed teams than ever before, a legal and compliant remote work setup needs much more than great communication tools. We have already shared what are some of the employment challenges with remote workers and why hiring them as independent contractors is a bad idea in the long term. The only viable long term solution is legally employing them and establishing international payroll processes. In this post, we offer an 8-step “Do-It-Yourself” guide to setting up international payroll operations for your company.

Irrespective of where in the world it's done, payroll is the process and system by which a company pays its employees, pay period in and pay period out. It involves keeping employee financial records, calculating their paycheck taking wages, taxes, tax credits, allowances, and benefits-in-kind into consideration, and issuing those paychecks. Regardless of where the company or its employees are based, every employee must receive the accurate pay (and payslip) with all withholdings and deductions submitted to the local tax authorities. Here is what you need to understand about international payroll