Based on cost alone, all companies would manage payroll in-house. But the decision to outsource payroll is multi-faceted (in fact, most industry analysts advise against outsourcing any business function based solely on cost). Growth-oriented organisations want to actively decrease compliance risk, divest themselves of the responsibility of managing payroll on-premise and relax in the knowledge that they’re working with a solution that will scale cost-effectively in line with business demands.

It’s certainly true that, based on the cost per payslip, with only a few employees in-country your fixed costs per employee will be higher when using a global payroll solution than an in-country platform. However, as your employee base grows, economies of scale kick in and this cost will decrease.

But what if your local employee population doesn’t grow, and isn’t likely to in the short to medium term? This is where it becomes a judgement call, and where you need to make sure you’re not comparing apples to some other fruit altogether.