Senior Payroll Specialist

Senior Payroll Specialist

Fully remote

*Must have construction experience: prevailing wage, union experience

Job Description

This Senior Payroll Specialist role focuses on processing complex U.S. and Canadian payrolls while ensuring full compliance with federal, state, provincial, union, prevailing wage, and certified payroll requirements. You will lead high-level, technical payroll processing, support a recently implemented Workday environment, and drive continuous improvement across payroll operations. This position offers the opportunity to work fully remote within a growing national organization that is expanding rapidly and investing heavily in large-scale initiatives and systems enhancements.

Responsibilities

• Process complex U.S. and Canadian payrolls accurately and on time, ensuring compliance with all federal, state, provincial, and local regulations.

• Review payroll transactions for accuracy, including wage calculations, deductions, withholdings, taxes, fringe benefits, and employee changes.

• Administer and process union payrolls, including union fringe reporting and adherence to union agreements and related requirements.

• Manage prevailing wage and certified payroll processing and reporting, ensuring compliance with applicable laws and project requirements.

• Reconcile payroll, tax, and bank accounts on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis, proactively identifying risks and resolving discrepancies.

• Maintain strict compliance with wage and hour regulations, union agreements, and all applicable payroll laws and reporting requirements.

• Serve as a central point of coordination for payroll-related initiatives, tracking action items, following up with stakeholders, and driving projects to completion.

• Lead daily prioritization of payroll activities and communicate effectively with stakeholders to ensure critical payroll issues, tax matters, and system enhancements are addressed efficiently.

• Partner with internal teams, vendors, and outsourced payroll providers to implement process improvements, system enhancements, and payroll-related updates.

• Generate, review, and analyze payroll reports, including year-end data, union fringe reporting, general ledger activity, and other audit or management requests.

• Monitor union and regulatory changes that impact payroll processing and system configuration, and adjust processes and systems as needed.

• Maintain accurate payroll records and documentation while ensuring confidentiality of employee and company information.

Essential Skills

• At least 3 years of multi-state payroll processing experience.

• At least 3 years of union payroll processing and reporting experience.

• At least 3 years of prevailing wage experience.

• At least 3 years of experience with high technical payroll processing, including intermediate to expert-level Excel skills such as pivot tables, VLOOKUPs, macros, and the ability to learn new systems quickly.

Additional Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field (preferred).

• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) certification (preferred).

• Experience with job costing and allocating payroll costs to projects.

• Hands-on experience with CMiC or similar construction/contractor-focused systems (preferred based on skill details).

• Working with union environments and union payroll complexities.

Work Environment

This role offers the opportunity to work fully remote, providing flexibility in where you perform your work while maintaining standard business hours with some flexibility as needed to meet deadlines and support payroll cycles. You will join a large, distributed payroll team where most team members also work remotely, and where there is significant experience with remote onboarding, training, and ongoing collaboration.

Job Type & Location

This is a Contract position based out of Columbus, OH.

Pay and Benefits

The pay range for this position is $32.00 - $38.00/hr.

Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to specific elections, plan, or program terms. If eligible, the benefits available for this temporary role may include the following: • Medical, dental & vision • Critical Illness, Accident, and Hospital • 401(k) Retirement Plan – Pre-tax and Roth post-tax contributions available • Life Insurance (Voluntary Life & AD&D for the employee and dependents) • Short and long-term disability • Health Spending Account (HSA) • Transportation benefits • Employee Assistance Program • Time Off/Leave (PTO, Vacation or Sick Leave)

Workplace Type

This is a fully remote position.

Application Deadline

This position is anticipated to close on Aug 17, 2026.

About Aston Carter

Aston Carter provides world-class corporate talent solutions to thousands of clients across the globe. Specialized in accounting, finance, human resources, talent acquisition, procurement, supply chain and select administrative professions, we extend the capabilities of industry-leading companies. We draw on our deep recruiting expertise and expansive network to meet the evolving needs of our clients and talent community with agility and excellence. With offices across the U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific and Europe, Aston Carter serves many of the Fortune 500. We are proud to be a ClearlyRated Best of Staffing® Platinum Award winner for both client and talent service.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and will consider all applications without regard to race, sex, age, color, religion, national origin, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information or any characteristic protected by law.

If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation, such as the modification or adjustment of the job application process or interviewing process due to a disability, please email View email address on click.appcast.io (%View email address on click.appcast.io) for other accommodation options.

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, for all positions located in the city and county of San Francisco, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Massachusetts Lie Detector: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): We may use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support parts of our hiring process, including sourcing, screening, and evaluating candidates. AI helps assess applications and qualifications, but final decisions are made by our hiring team. By applying, you acknowledge and agree that your application may be reviewed using AI tools.