Payroll Manager at Panelmatic

Panelmatic, Inc. was founded in 1957 in Youngstown, OH to serve manufacturing industries with the design and build of custom electrical, instrument, and pneumatic control panels. Our business has sufficiently grown over the years to support expansion for our clients. We have produced control packages for many of America's top corporations in the chemical, environmental, food, pulp and paper, rubber, petroleum, pharmaceutical, glass, metals, and utilities industries. We also deliver equipment for use worldwide. Our rigorous methodology assures compliance with domestic and international standards. We can meet the needs of our diverse clientele from start to finish through sales, design, fabrication, testing, and delivery.

Since 1957, we have been known for our high-quality, custom-built control packages, our comprehensive service, and our technological and manufacturing expertise. This expertise assures you of our ability to handle the largest and most complex packages quickly and efficiently.

Job Summary

Panelmatic, Inc. is seeking an experienced Payroll Manager to own the payroll function end to end: running payroll accurately and on time today, and building the process, controls, and systems discipline that will hold up a two to three times the current headcount. With a system transition on the horizon, this is a builder role as much as an operator role.

Panelmatic is scaling rapidly across multiple sites. Payroll runs across three businesses and multiple states with two businesses operating in house processing and the third through a PEO. With a full-suite HRIS impletmentation planned, payroll complexity is growing faster than the process and staff behind it, creating downstream issues in month-end close and benefit reconciliation.

Job Duties

• Own end-to-end payroll processing for 1000+ employees across multiple states and 6 locations, including hourly and salaried staff — executed accurately and on time every cycle.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for payroll questions from employees, managers, and Finance; own resolution and escalations.
• Own payroll compliance: multi-state tax registration and filings, wage and hour requirements, overtime and shift differential rules, garnishments, and year-end (W-2) processing.
• Partner with Finance on payroll funding, GL mapping, accruals, and month-end close with the explicit goal of eliminating payroll-driven close issues.
• Work with the Benefit team to reconcile benefit deductions to carrier invoices and resolve variances at the source rather than through manual correction each cycle.
• Manage the relationship and service levels with Insperity / paylocity.
• Review and approve all inputs that feed each run — timekeeping-to-payroll data, new hires, changes, terminations, deduction changes — before processing, in a segregated-of-duties workflow with the HRIS Analyst.
• Document the current payroll process end to end, identify failure points, and build a standard, repeatable payroll calendar and checklist.
• Establish controls and segregation of duties appropriate to a company of Panelmatic's size and growth trajectory, including approval paths for off-cycle payments and retro adjustments.
• Build audit-ready documentation and support internal and external audit requests.
• Create manager- and employee-facing guidance so routine questions are self-serve.
• Define and maintain the payroll rules the HRIS must enforce (pay codes, overtime and shift differential logic, deduction setup, GL mapping standards) and keep them current in the system through the HRIS Analyst.
• Own the payroll side of HRIS selection and implementation: requirements definition, pay structure and deduction conversion, parallel payroll testing, cutover, and post-go-live stabilization.
• Serve as the payroll lead when the PEO-based payroll for the PEO-supported company is transitioned in-house in the future — funding, tax setup, filings, and W-2 continuity for the transferred population.
• Partner with HR Operations leadership on implementation planning and standards.

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive payroll experience, including at least 2 years owning multi-state payroll end to end.
• Hands-on experience running multi-state payroll in a payroll system — not purely outsourced processing.
• Demonstrated experience building or rebuilding a payroll process, not only running an existing one.
• Working knowledge of multi-state wage and hour law, payroll tax, and garnishment administration.
• Strong Excel skills and comfort reconciling across systems.
• Track record of partnering effectively with Finance.
• Discreet with confidential compensation and employee data.

Preferred Qualifications

• Manufacturing, construction, industrial, or other hourly-heavy, multi-site environment.
• Experience through an HRIS implementation or payroll system conversion.
• Experience transitioning off a PEO to in-house payroll and benefits administration.
• Experience supporting rapid headcount growth across multiple sites.
• CPP or FPC certification.
• Paylocity, Workable, UKG Experience
• High attention to detail with the judgment to know which exceptions matter.
• Comfortable being the person who says "here's the process now" in an environment that hasn't had one.
• Able to explain payroll clearly to people who don't work in payroll.
• A hands-on manager who still reviews everything that touches a check.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, HSA, term life, AD&D, STD, LTD
• 100% medical premium paid for by Panelmatic for the employee-only level medical coverage
• 80% paid for by Panelmatic and 20% paid for by the employee on all other level medical coverage (i.e. employee plus child, employee plus spouse, family)
• 401(k) contributions matched 100% up to 4%
• Scholarships, educational reimbursement, paid volunteerism, and paid personal and professional development provided
• PTO and paid holidays provided
• Career advancement opportunities
• Competitive wages