Payroll Outsourcing Services

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1. At a glance

2. Scope of Work

Trócaire seeks a provider for outsourced payroll services for its operations in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The contract will cover the processing of payroll for 122 employees in the Republic of Ireland and 27 employees in Northern Ireland as of August 2026. The core function involves receiving monthly payroll instructions, including changes such as new starters, leavers, sick leave, maternity leave, and salary adjustments, via a secure portal or API.

The provider will be responsible for:

• Core Payroll Processing:
• Maintaining payroll records for employees, workers, and payees.
• Processing salary, hourly pay, allowances, expenses, deductions, benefits, back pay, and statutory payments.
• Managing starters, leavers, contractual changes, absences, and retrospective adjustments.
• Calculating tax, social security, court orders, student loans, and other deductions.
• Completing regular, supplementary, correction, and year-end payroll runs.
• Producing electronic payslips and statutory documents.
• Preparing payment files and supporting the approval and banking process.
• Maintaining a complete audit trail for all payroll activities.
• Statutory and Regulatory Services:
• Ensuring compliance with payroll, employment tax, social security, record retention, and data protection requirements in both jurisdictions.
• Preparing and submitting all required filings, declarations, reports, and year-end returns by statutory deadlines.
• Monitoring legislative changes and advising on their operational impact.
• Supporting statutory audits, regulatory enquiries, and correspondence with authorities.
• Identifying and recommending corrective actions for compliance risks.
• Employee and Manager Support:
• Responding to employee payroll enquiries via email, portal, or telephone.
• Operating a documented query management and escalation process.
• Providing support to HR, Finance, managers, and authorised users.
• Tracking enquiry volumes, categories, response times, and resolution times.
• Offering accessible support for employees with additional communication needs.
• Reporting and Reconciliation:
• Generating gross-to-net and payroll control reports.
• Producing current and prior period variance reports.
• Providing general ledger journals and cost centre allocations.
• Generating payment and deduction reports.
• Supplying benefits, tax, and statutory reports.
• Performing payroll balance sheet reconciliations.
• Creating headcount, absence, overtime, and remuneration reports.
• Generating custom and ad hoc reports as requested.

A key objective is to integrate the processing of employee expenses into the monthly payroll, which is currently handled independently. The service must be accurate, secure, compliant, resilient, and cost-effective.

3. Background & buyer context

Trócaire is an international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) working with communities in up to 20 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Its mission is to tackle the underlying causes of poverty and injustice and respond to crises, aiming for positive and lasting change for a just world. The organisation is supported by the people of Ireland and focuses on five goals: promoting access to justice, achieving climate and environmental justice, ensuring women and girls’ protection, voice, and influence, saving lives and protecting human dignity, and mobilising the public for global justice. This procurement is for essential operational support, ensuring the accurate and compliant processing of its employee payroll in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The current RFT indicates a need to transition from an incumbent provider or to formalise an existing arrangement.

4. Eligibility & selection criteria

Bidders must meet the following minimum criteria to be considered for evaluation:

• Turnover requirement: Not specified for this tender.
• Insurance: Not specified for this tender.
• Certifications:
• Clearance of Information Security and Data Protection review based on the DPIS questionnaire (Appendix 1).
• ISO27001 certification is requested, with a requirement to provide a copy if held.
• UK Cyber Essentials certification is requested, with a requirement to provide a copy if held.
• Past experience:
• At least 3 years demonstrated experience in the provision of payroll outsourcing services.
• References from at least 2 comparable clients within the past 3 years.
• Details on previous relevant experience, number of payroll clients, and employees processed in relevant jurisdictions are required.
• Personnel:
• The proposed team structure, qualifications, and experience are required.
• Named service management roles are required.
• Geographic / facility constraints:
• Experience in providing payroll outsourcing services in Ireland and Northern Ireland is required.
• The primary data store location is requested, with a preference for EU hosting.

Additionally, bidders must accept Trócaire’s General Terms & Conditions of Procurement, Trócaire’s Supplier Code of Conduct, and Trócaire’s Data Processing Agreement.

5. Award criteria & scoring

Trócaire will select the tenderer that submits the most economically advantageous proposal. The evaluation will be based on the following criteria:

Criterion Weight (%) Sub-criteria