The Context

Paychex Europe Germany GmbH is part of Paychex Europe, the European organization of Paychex Inc., headquartered in Rochester, NY, USA — one of the world’s largest providers of payroll and HR solutions, founded in 1971. Active in the German market for over 40 years, Paychex Europe supports more than 6,000 clients across the country from its locations in Berlin, Hamburg, and Rostock — from start-ups to international mid-sized companies.

With Paychex Europe Payroll, the company has offered a fully cloud-based, ITSG-certified payroll software solution since 2024 — providing maximum security, scalable performance, and flexible service models. Three service levels enable companies to switch between in-house payroll processing, targeted support, or full outsourcing — directly within the software and adjustable monthly.

With deep expertise in payroll and HR management, advanced technology, and decades of experience, Paychex Europe delivers solutions that digitize processes, ensure compliance, and create lasting value — reliable, flexible, and future-ready.

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The Challenge

Traditional Payroll systems often lack integrations with HR systems (such as HiBob, Personio, etc.). Recognizing this gap, the Paychex Europe team leveraged seamless HRIS integrations as a key differentiator in their go-to-market strategy. By offering quick and effortless onboarding that fits into clients’ existing tech stacks, they aimed to attract more customers and enhance the user experience.

We spoke with Florian Harbig, Product Owner of the Infrastructure & Integrations team, who shared the strategic thinking behind Paychex’ Europes decision to prioritize HRIS integrations:

• Enhancing the customer experience for existing clients
• Accelerating new client acquisition by ensuring compatibility with any HRIS a potential customer might already use

From the start, we knew we wanted an external provider. Building and maintaining integrations in-house is time-intensive, and we needed the agility only an external partner could provide. We don’t know what new customers or HR systems we’ll encounter in the coming months, and working with a provider like Kombo gave us peace of mind.
‍– Florian Harbig, Product Owner at Paychex Europe

When a prospective client approaches Paychex Europe, it’s often because they are frustrated with their current provider and need a fast transition—not a months-long wait for a new integration.

Florian emphasized the efficiency of partnering with Kombo:

It took us the same amount of time to integrate Kombo once (gaining access to hundreds of HRIS tools instantly) as it would have taken us to build a single integration ourselves.
‍– Florian Harbig, Product Owner at Paychex Europe

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The Decision & Outcome

A few months after their initial discussions, Paychex Europe decided to partner with Kombo, and we have been working together since.

In just two months, Paychex Europe successfully implemented Kombo and rolled it out to their customers, mapping over 25 fields from the HRIS to their payroll system.

The support from Kombo’s product team during implementation was outstanding. Every HR tool comes with a structured “guideline,” which was incredibly helpful for our team when communicating with customers. It provided clear instructions on everything from finding API keys to other essential details, ensuring a smooth and swift implementation process.
‍– Florian Harbig, Product Owner at Paychex Europe

Paychex is not only mapping standard fields, but make extensive use of Kombo’s custom fields mapping capabilities.

Being able to map custom fields was crucial for us, as our customers frequently require these fields to be integrated into our payroll system. Examples of the custom fields we work with include the IBAN or Tax ID.
‍– Florian Harbig, Product Owner at Paychex Europe

The response from Paychex Europe’s customers has been overwhelmingly positive. When asked about the impact of the integrations, Florian shared:

Our customers have provided excellent feedback on the direct integrations. On average, they are saving more than 10 minutes per employee during the onboarding process — significant time savings for HR teams managing anywhere from 10 to 1000 employees.
‍– Florian Harbig, Product Owner at Paychex Europe

These integrations have also served as a powerful differentiator in Paychex Europe’s strategy to attract new customers. Offering out-of-the-box integrations is still a relatively new concept in the industry, and customers are excited to find that their existing tech stack can seamlessly connect to Paychex Europe Payroll system from day one.

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