Payroll
This guide is designed for HR / Payroll platforms offering the following services to their customers: Payroll Payment services (platforms who enable companies to make payouts to employees and local tax authorities) and/or Employer of Record services (platforms who serve as the Employer of Record and bear the legal obligations of an employer). It outlines the benefits of Airwallex's solutions and provides guidance on how to implement these without requiring in-depth expertise in the domain.
Through Airwallex Global Treasury solutions, platforms can fully automate and streamline the end-to-end payroll payout process, delivering a seamless experience for their customers, natively within their product.
Overview
A typical HR/Payroll platform handles various tasks such as time and attendance tracking, salary calculation, and employee benefits management. While some platforms support payouts in multiple currencies to employee bank accounts and/or local tax authorities, global payouts often require customers to manage transactions outside the platform, through their external bank accounts. This can lead to challenges in processing payroll payouts on an international scale. Issues include high FX costs, limited market coverage, data accuracy concerns, and manual data transfers, resulting in inefficiencies and payment delays.
Our Global Treasury solution addresses these challenges by automating funding and cross-border payments, reducing FX conversion costs. With broad geographical coverage, platforms can swiftly enter new markets, expand services, and monetize payouts. The solution ensures global compliance with local regulations, guarantees reliable and timely salary payments, offers low-cost and high-speed transactions through local payment rails, and facilitates easy monetization with customizable mark-ups on FX rates. This comprehensive approach allows platforms to generate revenue while providing a competitive and streamlined experience for their customers.
Integration models
Airwallex's payroll solution supports four integration models:
- Domestic payroll payouts
- Cross-border payroll payouts
- Employer of Record (EOR) payouts
- Employer of Record (EOR) Aggregator payouts
In the models where platform's customers fund payroll, customers are onboarded to Airwallex as connected accounts with Wallets in their own name to hold funds. For more information on connected accounts, see Connected accounts overview.
Choose your integration model
The choice of integration model will typically depend on the following factors:
- Platform offering: The services the platform is offering to its customers (e.g., Employer of Record service, Global Payroll service, or both)
- Jurisdiction-specific legal nuances: Different jurisdictions have different regulations regarding fund ownership, impacting whether the platform can be in the flow of funds.
Our team will work with you to further analyze both factors and identify the suitable integration model. Note that platforms can potentially choose one or more integration models.
| Domestic Payroll payouts | Cross-border Payroll payouts | Employer of Record payouts | Employer of Record Aggregator payouts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suited for | Platforms offering payroll payouts for companies who need to pay domestic employees in the same country. | Platforms offering payroll payouts for companies who need to pay overseas employees in another country where they also have legal entity. | Platforms offering payroll payouts for employees where the platform is the Employer of Record. | Platforms offering payroll payouts for their local partners, who are the Employer of Record for employees. |
| Employer of Record | Platform's customers | Platform's customers | Platform | Local partners (or in-country partners) |
| Customer onboarding to Airwallex | Required (customers are onboarded to Airwallex with dedicated connected accounts) | Required (customers are onboarded to Airwallex with dedicated connected accounts) | Optional | Optional |
| Account where funds are collected | Customer's connected account Wallet | Customer's connected account Wallet | Platform's Wallet (without connected account) Customer's connected account Wallet (with connected account) |
Platform's Wallet (without connected account) Customer's connected account Wallet (with connected account) |
| Is the platform in funds flow? | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Payouts initiated from | Connected account's Wallet | Connected account's Wallet | Platform's Wallet or connected account's Wallet | Platform's Wallet or connected account's Wallet |
Airwallex can help you fast track your implementation by providing the necessary infrastructure and tooling support for secure money movement. For more information, see Enabling infrastructure and tooling.