multiplymii - Payroll and Benefits Accountant

• Payroll accounting and financial reporting • Prepare, review, and post payroll journal entries for wages, salaries, overtime, bonuses, incentives, PTO, payroll taxes, garnishments, and employee deductions. • Record employer-paid benefit costs, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, retirement-plan contributions, HSA/FSA contributions, workers’ compensation, and other benefit programs. • Allocate payroll and benefit expenses by department, cost center, legal entity, provider, location, grant, project, or other organizational reporting dimension. • Partner with Payroll and HR to validate employee master-file changes, compensation changes, deductions, benefit elections, leave activity, terminations, and other transactions affecting payroll and accounting. • Review payroll registers before processing or posting to identify unusual items, duplicate payments, negative net pay, incorrect deductions, coding errors, and other exceptions. • Reconcile benefit carrier invoices and third-party administrator statements to payroll deductions, employee enrollment records, and general-ledger balances. • Investigate discrepancies involving benefit eligibility, employee deductions, employer contributions, retroactive adjustments, and vendor billing. • Coordinate with benefits vendors, retirement-plan administrators, brokers, HR, and payroll providers to resolve payment, enrollment, deduction, or reporting issues. • Support annual open enrollment by validating deduction setup, effective dates, benefit-plan mappings, and payroll-system configuration. • Assist with employee payroll and benefits inquiries that require accounting, deduction, payment, or reconciliation research. • Process improvement and systems • Maintain and improve standardized payroll and benefits reconciliation templates, procedures, checklists, and month-end close calendars. • Participate in payroll, HRIS, timekeeping, ERP, benefits-administration, and general-ledger system implementations, upgrades, testing, and process changes. • Develop reports and dashboards for payroll expense, benefits cost, headcount, overtime, labor distribution, and payroll-liability trends. • Use Excel and reporting tools to analyze large data sets, identify exceptions, and improve reporting efficiency. • Cross-train with payroll, accounts payable, HR, and accounting personnel to support continuity of operations.