The tendency to outsource executive payrolls is far higher than with other payrolls. The main reasons for this are:

• Confidentiality. Businesses often want to keep the pay of their executives confidential, even to the payroll department.
• Complexity. Executive payrolls often have unique complexities around incentive schemes, bonus schemes, share option schemes and expat components that normally do not apply to the rest of the business. These schemes are often also confidential.
• Continuity. Due to the extreme confidential nature of executive payrolls, the executive payroll is often processed by only one person in the organization. This however creates risk around continuity. If this person is suddenly incapacitated, there is nobody else who can do it.

Make sure you find a reputable payroll outsourcing provider to do your executive payroll. It should preferably be a provider that has other executive payroll customers. The nature and frequency of the communication with the business is also very different from a normal payroll. The cost per payslip is normally higher for executive payrolls than with other payrolls due to the complexity and risk involved.