Payroll Services Manager

Cascade CPA; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote

Leadership opportunity

Job summary

Cascade CPA, a modern 50-person accounting firm based in Madison, WI, is seeking a head of its Organic Payroll unit. You’ll run the payroll department as a business, own the P&L, set pricing strategy, and lead a remote team delivering high-touch payroll services to small businesses.

This player-coach role requires 7+ years of payroll experience and 3+ years of people leadership. You’ll personally handle a book of payroll clients 1–2 days per week and guide the team through process improvements

Qualifications

• 7+ years of payroll experience with 3+ years leading a payroll team.
• Experience processing payroll for many client companies at once in CPA, payroll service or PEO.
• Strong knowledge of federal and state payroll tax deposits and year-end filings.
• Comfort reading a P&L and making pricing decisions.
• Experience leading payroll software implementations or migrations.
• Confident with clients and partners and able to explain payroll clearly.
• Ability to learn new payroll software quickly.

Responsibilities

• Own the payroll P&L: revenue, labor cost, margin, and client retention.
• Maintain pricing model and advise on repricing and strategy.
• Hire, coach, and manage payroll staff; conduct performance reviews.
• Lead tech and process improvements; own procedures and onboarding.
• Escalation point for errors and complex client issues; scope new clients.
• Build relationships with referral partners and CAS/Tax teams.
• Raise department capability to serve CAS clients, multistate payrolls.

Skills

Payroll leadership

Payroll team management

Multi-client payroll

Payroll tax deposits & filings

P&L reading & pricing

Payroll software implementation

Client and partner communication

Learn new payroll software quickly

Tools

Payroll Relief

Job description

Cascade CPA is a modern, roughly 50-person accounting firm based in Madison, Wisconsin, with Client Accounting Services, Tax, and Payroll departments. Our payroll department, Organic Payroll, runs full-service payroll and payroll tax filing for about 500 small businesses, mostly Wisconsin companies with 5 to 15 employees.

We run on technology and good process, not on heroics. The whole payroll team works remotely, and we want a leader who will make this department the best small-business payroll service in the Midwest.

The role

You'll run the payroll department as a business: its team, its results, its technology, and its client experience. You report to the COO, sit on the firm's leadership team alongside the Tax and CAS leaders, and own the department P&L.

This is a player-coach seat. Plan on about one to two days a week personally running a book of payroll clients, and the rest leading the team and growing the department. You won't cold-call or prospect, but you will be the department's face with referral partners, and the person prospects talk to when they want to know how we'd handle their payroll.

What you'll own

• Department results. Own the payroll P&L: revenue, labor cost, margin, and client retention. Build the annual budget with the COO and report on it monthly.
• Pricing and strategy. Maintain the pricing model, decide when to reprice clients, and bring a point of view on where small-business payroll is heading and how we should respond.
• The team. Hire, onboard, coach, and, when needed, exit payroll staff. Run regular one-on-ones and performance reviews, set clear expectations, and manage capacity so deadlines are met without burning people out.
• Technology and process. Learn Payroll Relief quickly, then lead the team's move to its next-generation platform. Own documented procedures, quality controls, and the client setup process so knowledge doesn't live in one person's head.
• Clients. Be the escalation point for errors, agency notices, and difficult clients. Scope new clients and make sure onboarding is clean.
• Referral partners. Build relationships with referral partners and the firm's CAS and Tax teams. Lead consultative conversations with referred and inbound prospects.
• Serving the firm. Raise the department's capability so it can serve Cascade's CAS clients well, including more complex and multistate payrolls.

Hands-on payroll (about 1 to 2 days a week)

• Process payroll for a defined book of clients, mostly straightforward small-business and officer-only payrolls.
• Handle quarterly and annual filings for your book, including federal and state payroll tax returns and year-end W-2s.
• Step in to cover peak periods, absences, and urgent issues across the team's clients.
• Use your own production time to spot process gaps and fix them for the whole team.

What you bring

• 7+ years of payroll experience, with at least 3 years managing a payroll team, including hiring, performance feedback, and terminations.
• Experience processing payroll for many client companies at once, at a CPA firm, payroll service bureau, or PEO. Running payroll for a single employer isn't the same job.
• Solid command of federal and state payroll tax deposits and filings, multistate withholding and unemployment, and year-end W-2 and W-3 processing.
• Comfort reading a P&L and making decisions on pricing, staffing, and profitability.
• Experience leading a payroll software implementation or platform migration.
• Confidence with clients and partners: you can lead a scoping call, calm an upset client, and explain payroll in plain language.
• Ability to learn new payroll software quickly.

Nice to have

• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) designation, or Fundamental Payroll Certification (FPC) with progress toward CPP.
• Hands-on experience with Payroll Relief (AccountantsWorld) or similar accountant-focused payroll platforms.
• Familiarity with one or two other modern, mainstream payroll platforms we could consider for our next-generation platform.
• Experience managing remote or offshore team members.

What success looks like in year one

• First 90 days: You're processing your own book in Payroll Relief, you've met every team member and key referral partner, and you've given the COO an honest assessment of the team, pricing, and process.
• By month six: Proficient in our client setup, processing, and year-end processes and documentation. Team roles and capacity are clear, and you're running performance reviews.
• By month twelve: Department margin is at or above budget, client retention is steady or better, year-end closes without major errors, and the platform upgrade is planned or underway with your team behind it.

Location

Fully remote. We prefer candidates in the Midwest working Central Time hours. If you're based in Madison, you're welcome to your own office at our location.

Schedule

Full time, with heavier workloads around quarter-end and year-end.