Multi-Country Payroll Automation Across Distributed Teams
Overview
As the company scaled its global workforce across Asia, managing payroll operations across India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka posed a critical challenge. The organisation needed to unify payroll processes across these jurisdictions—each with its own tax regimes, statutory obligations, and payout cycles—while maintaining operational flexibility, confidentiality, and compliance. Additionally, recurring adjustments in Philippine payroll, combined with dual payroll structures and multi-bank coordination, introduced significant inefficiencies and compliance risks, demanding a tailored, automation-first solution.
Our Client
Our client is a global leader in data engineering and GenAI enablement, serving enterprises across digital publishing, AI readiness, and data operations. With major delivery centers in the U.S., India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka, They manage a diverse, distributed workforce under varying statutory and operational environments.
AscentHR’s automation-first approach streamlined our multi-country payroll, reduced manual work, and ensured compliance across India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka—empowering us to scale seamlessly with accuracy and confidence.
Challenges
• Multi-Country Payroll Fragmentation
Fragmented operations across India, PH, and Sri Lanka with unique tax and compliance rules.
• Dual Payroll Structure
Required parallel workflows for confidential (leadership) and regular payroll with strict access governance.
• Location-Specific Workflows
Customised processing and reporting requirements based on local point-of-contacts and disbursal timelines.
• Recurring Adjustments in PH Payroll
Frequent retroactive changes for OT, LWOP, and night differentials, leading to manual rework and delays.
Solution
Solutions implemented by AscentHR:
1. PowerPay – Country-Specific Payroll Engines
Deployed tailored engines per country, embedding local statutory logic and automated reporting features.
2. Confidential vs. Regular Payroll Segregation
Created secure, access-controlled workflows with encrypted outputs for executive payroll.
3. Retro Pay Engine – Philippines
Implemented a retro pay module to auto-adjust entries for time-bound variations without disrupting current payroll runs.
4. POC-Centric Report Delivery
Automated report generation and delivery by location and stakeholder, reducing operational load.
5. Multi-Bank Payout Scheduling
Supported staggered disbursals with automated scheduling based on entity, bank, and pay date.
Outcomes
The outcomes from the engagement were:
- Achieved 30% faster payroll cycles through automation and location-wise scheduling.
- Realised 50% fewer manual corrections in the Philippines payroll via the retro pay engine.
- Fully automated compliance filings: Form 16 (India) and BIR reports (PH), boosting compliance dependability.
- 13+ years of partnership, reflecting deep adaptability and service consistency.
- Supported seamless geographic and role expansion without backend reconfiguration.
Conclusion
Through AscentHR’s PowerPay platform, our client was able to transform a complex, multi-country payroll landscape into a streamlined, high-accuracy operation. Automation of country-specific requirements, secure dual-track payrolls, and proactive compliance tooling not only brought down turnaround times and errors but also created a resilient framework to support their global growth. The solution’s long-term adaptability stands as a testament to the success of this strategic payroll transformation.