The Role
Manage end-to-end French payroll for a portfolio of clients, including data collection, processing, declarations, reporting, governance calls, compliance, and post-payroll activities. Provide expert guidance on payroll legislation, tax, and social security obligations; resolve queries; maintain payroll documentation and controls; identify service risks; and build strong client relationships while supporting consistent team delivery.
Summary Generated by Built In
Our payroll operations are at the heart of our business, delivering accurate, compliant, and timely payroll services to a diverse portfolio of clients. We are looking for a Senior Payroll Accountant to join our growing team, with the opportunity to be based in either Paris or Orléans.
In this role, you will take ownership of a dedicated customer portfolio, managing the payroll process from initial data collection through to payroll completion, social and fiscal declarations, and post-payroll activities. You will act as a trusted advisor to clients, providing expert guidance on payroll legislation, tax and social security obligations, while ensuring a seamless and best-in-class customer experience.
Working closely with clients and internal stakeholders, you will play a key role in delivering high-quality payroll services, maintaining compliance, and building strong, long-term customer relationships.
On a typical day, you'll be...
- Acting as the focal point for a varied portfolio of payroll clients, delivering consistently fantastic customer service
- Processing end-to-end French payrolls of various headcount and pay complexity
- Hosting and chairing regular governance calls with clients to track progress, review performance and identify opportunities for improvement
- Preparing monthly governance reports
- Ensuring that payroll manuals are relevant and updated regularly to reflect current processes
- Preparing payroll calendars and checklists, ensuring that checking sheets are completed for every payroll processed
- Answering queries from clients, partners and colleagues, troubleshooting and resolving where possible, or escalating more complex issues through our internal channels
- Delivering excellent customer service, responding quickly and effectively to all queries and ensuring that issues are resolved either directly or through the right escalation channels
- Making sure that customers are fully updated and never in any doubt as to how their service is being managed
- Making sure that any risks to service delivery are communicated quickly and realistically to the client and to the appropriate managers, and being innovative and agile in bringing solutions or mitigations to the table
- Being honest and authentic in communicating both positive and difficult conversations
- Being a brilliant team player, supporting colleagues across the team to ensure that customer service delivery is consistent across the department, providing help and guidance and ensuring no one is left behind
To be truly effective you will…
- 5-8 years experience in payroll in France, with a deep understanding of fiscal responsibilities
- Strong English language skills is highly recommended.
- A passion and aptitude for numbers, ideally gained from a role in a finance or payroll environment
- A keen eye on the external markets in payroll to ensure compliance with tax and legislation changes
- A genuine commitment to delivering the highest standards of customer service
- An unusually high attention to detail, with the ability to spot errors or notice when things “just don’t look right” - and motivated to follow these through to resolution
- Really good with databases, systems and software packages, especially Microsoft Excel
- Being action-oriented, willing to step up and be counted under pressure and seize opportunities to make things work better for both customers and colleagues
About
Our Story From our entrepreneurial origins as a founder led start up, to a high performing global player working with some of the world's most recognisable brands, activpayroll has both a fantastic history and masses of future potential. Our story began in 2001, when our founder saw a gap in the market to support the oil and gas industry. Today, we are a leading global professional service organisation, providing integrated global and domestic payroll solutions, expatriate taxation services, global HR services and online HR people management tools to over 1,200 companies in more than 150 countries worldwide. We’ve Got YouHiring people is more than an investment of time and money – it’s an investment of trust. You trust us to help you realise your fullest potential, work with brilliant people and recognise your achievements. In return, we trust your abilities, we trust your instincts and are fully behind you to deliver the great work you are capable of - empowering you to make the tough calls and valuing your opinions, ideas and abilities.
Skills Required
- 5-8 years of payroll experience in France
- Deep understanding of French fiscal responsibilities, tax, and social security obligations
- Strong English language skills
- Experience or aptitude in finance or payroll involving numbers
- Knowledge of payroll tax and legislative changes
- High attention to detail and ability to resolve errors
- Experience with databases, systems, and software packages, especially Microsoft Excel
- Strong customer service and communication skills
- Ability to work under pressure and improve processes
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The Company
What We Do
Created to let your business work seamlessly in multiple countries by giving you complete clarity and confidence, activpayroll is global payroll, international payments, global mobility and HR in one. Pay your people compliantly, on time, every time, worldwide. Take control with accessible tech. Team up with global tax specialists to stay one step ahead of legislation and compliance. Strengthen your workforce with our strategic HR specialists, and work with a partner that gets your vision of global clarity. Wherever in the world your business takes you, we’ve got you.








