People in payroll jobs are responsible for disbursing salary money to the employees of businesses and organizations, for calculating wages, and for keeping records of amounts paid out.  People in payroll jobs may also be responsible for payroll tax compliance, managing deductions for benefits, penalties, liens, and other concerns, preparing payroll reports for managers, and updating company balance sheets.  Some common payroll jobs include payroll clerks or assistants, who are responsible for filing documents, coding changes to payroll systems, and other technical details, payroll practitioners, who may audit hourly employee records and handle personnel changes in the payroll system, and payroll administrators, who review payroll procedures, maintain and file tax records, and process deductions and overtime.  Other payroll jobs include payroll managers, who may manage several different payrolls for separate parts of an organization, and accountants, who take care of the record-keeping and updating of company ledgers with payroll data.

Payroll professionals often work in the accounting offices of businesses or organizations, processing employee salaries and other forms of compensation.  Many people in payroll jobs also work with companies that provide payroll services to other businesses, allowing their clients to outsource payroll processing to specialists in handling payroll-related tasks.