Real-Time Payroll: Today’s Luxury, Tomorrow’s Standard

As tech evolves, organizations adapt to keep up and gain an advantage, and what was once new quickly becomes the standard. The same goes for payroll solutions. And as a new generation of digital-native payroll professionals arrives in the industry, real-time payroll takes center stage. The benefits that it offers are a luxury today, but they’ll soon become the new standard.

In this article, we’ll discuss the remarkable evolution of payroll technology and how today’s leaders can empower the next generation. You’ll hear from the experts: CEO of Deel Local Payroll, Bruce van Wyk, and Principal Analyst, GxT Advisors, Pete Tiliakos.

The evolution of payroll technology

On-premise to cloud-based

One of the most impactful transitions was from cumbersome on-premise systems to cloud-based systems. This shift helped mitigate downtime and reduced the risk of not paying people on time, marking a crucial improvement in reliability and scalability.

As businesses expanded internationally, they required multi-country payroll capabilities, but many vendors weren’t willing to take on the complexity or investment. This gap led to the rise of the “long tail” concept and the aggregator model, where data from multiple in-country providers was brought together, primarily for reporting purposes.

Aggregators to unified models

Aggregators provided a reporting layer that allowed companies to gather and standardize data from various sources, but the core processes remained fragmented and difficult to manage at scale.

To address these limitations, unified platforms emerged. These systems increase accuracy by unifying data at the source and creating native data structures, which are essential for building insights and enabling real-time operations. The unified approach brings advantages in integration, compliance, and consistency, while also improving the experience for both employees and administrators.

Unified models to real-time payroll

Now, real-time payroll is redefining what’s possible for the next generation of payroll professionals. Bruce van Wyk explains that “real-time and unified are often confused because historically, real-time didn't mean ‘in real time,’ as it still involved batch processing and delays. That’s no longer the case.”

Real-time payroll now provides instant gross-to-net (G2N) calculations, enabling faster and more accurate payroll processing. Deel’s real-time payroll is localized for over 50 countries, ensuring compliance and transparency. With just the push of a button, companies can immediately view the final payroll cycle result, including total employer cost, gross pay, and net pay.

Why will real-time payroll become a must-have for businesses?

The tech-enabled and human-led future of payroll

Technology is vital, but it’s people who make it happen. However, as Bruce van Wyk explains, “Many experienced professionals are aging out of the field, and due to a lack of backfilling, the industry is left with a limited talent pool with deep in-country compliance knowledge.”

Because of this, more companies are shifting to managed services to ensure continuity, expertise, and always-on support. Managed services today are tech-enabled, tapping into a tech stack that can future-proof operations while relying on the expertise of professionals who know your business.

The strategic advantages of real-time payroll

When technology evolves, forward-thinking organizations must be quick to pick up on the benefits it offers:

• Immediate payroll insights: Vital for global organizations, as payroll managers get real-time, up-to-the-minute information on their payroll costs and spend, enabling them to make more accurate and strategic decisions.

• Error detection: Helps to mitigate mistakes and oversight. Real-time payroll removes bottlenecks by flagging errors immediately, allowing payroll leaders to investigate, correct, and reprocess payroll without disruption to the employee.

• Increased speed and efficiency: What used to take days of going back and forth with vendors can now be done within a matter of minutes, saving precious time for payroll managers and helping teams work more efficiently.

As adoption of the technology increases, these advantages will become the new standard for payroll. Particularly as experienced professionals age out of the industry and a new generation steps up.

The role of AI in global payroll

The future of payroll lies in a strategic division of labor between payroll engines, AI, and the next generation of payroll professionals. While AI excels at pattern recognition and automation of repetitive tasks, it’s not yet ready to replace payroll engines for core gross-to-net calculations. Instead, it acts as an extra set of hands to relieve some of the burden on payroll teams. As Pete Tiliakos says, ‘It’d be nice to have eight arms like an octopus, for the payroll leader.’ That’s where AI comes in.

AI is already being used to automate tasks, freeing up payroll teams to focus on more important work. By combining Large Language Models (LLMs) with payroll data, it’s easier to detect variances and explain tax table updates. It’s also currently being used to audit policy standardization across global payroll operations.

In the near future, AI will be able to recommend policy changes based on local tax updates and assist in predicting costs and running simulations.

Of course, there is much more to be said about AI in HR. Learn more about how to implement AI in HR to boost your productivity and workforce engagement.

The importance of integration

Increasingly, a company is only as strong as its tech stack. Leaders need payroll solutions that integrate for seamless operations and an efficient workforce. And, as Bruce van Wyk describes, “Payroll integrations are the arteries of global payroll. That data needs to flow to and from other systems—HR, finance, operations."

Deel’s vision is to enable companies to hire and manage the best talent globally, regardless of location. That means delivering a seamless experience—not just payroll, but everything that touches the employee journey: onboarding, compliance, benefits, performance, etc."

To do that, we centralize the employee data record so it can be used instantly across the platform. That way, real-time payroll doesn’t just stay in the payroll department—it powers insights and action across the business.

Advice for the next generation of payroll leaders

Many organizations find themselves paralyzed by their legacy systems, unsure of how and when to modernize. Real-time payroll is easier to adopt than you may think, but transitioning to any new tool is still an investment of time and money.

To make sure you’re making the right choice, don’t wait for the perfect moment. Run a proof of concept. Focus on your main pain points and use cases, and see how real-time payroll works side-by-side with your current system.

Thanks, in part, to technological advances, payroll is finally being given its due as a strategic investment rather than a cost center. A capability to maximize instead of a cost to minimize. Any future payroll leader needs to recognize its potential as a key enabler of organizational agility, employee trust, and financial accuracy.

What to look for in a modern payroll platform

If you’re considering upgrading your payroll platform, but you’re not sure where to begin, here are some key considerations.

Real-time payroll with Deel

Unified, real-time payroll isn’t just possible—it’s going to become essential.

With traditional systems, payroll processing can take days. Now with Deel’s native payroll engine, everything happens within one platform, delivering instant growth and calculations, giving you more time to make those inevitable last-minute changes. Maximize compliance with local knowledge for all of your operating markets, without needing to hire a fleet of in-house experts.

See Deel’s real-time payroll in action, and book your 30-minute demo.