As another year comes to a close, HR leaders know the importance of reviewing compliance, benefits, payroll, and reporting. The Paylocity year-end checklist is an essential tool to ensure your organization is prepared for January 1st. But simply checking boxes isn’t enough to truly maximize the value of your Paylocity platform, or your HR strategy.
That’s where the difference lies: moving beyond the checklist and taking a strategic approach to year-end planning. By combining Paylocity’s capabilities with outsourced HR expertise, companies can optimize processes, reduce compliance risks, and set the stage for growth.
Why the Paylocity Year-End Checklist Matters
At its core, the Paylocity year-end checklist is about accuracy and compliance:
- Ensuring employee data is correct and complete
- Reconciling payroll and tax information
- Finalizing benefits elections and ACA reporting
- Reviewing PTO accruals and carryovers
- Preparing for W-2 and 1095-C distributions
Every HR leader needs these tasks completed. But the best organizations see this as a baseline, not the finish line.
Beyond the Checklist: Strategic HR Planning in Paylocity
Paylocity is more than a payroll platform, it’s a hub for workforce strategy. HR leaders who want to elevate their year-end planning should look beyond compliance and consider how their year-end work impacts business goals.
Here’s where companies can level up:
1. Audit Employee Classifications and Pay Practices
Year-end is the perfect time to review FLSA classifications, pay equity, and role consistency across the organization. In Paylocity, reporting tools make it easier to identify discrepancies before they become legal risks.
2. Leverage Data for Workforce Planning
Paylocity dashboards provide insights into turnover, overtime, and compensation trends. Instead of only preparing year-end reports, HR leaders can use these metrics to shape 2026 workforce strategies.
3. Optimize Benefits for Retention
Open enrollment may be complete, but year-end is an opportunity to evaluate benefits offerings. Are you providing competitive options that support retention? A deeper review, combined with Paylocity’s benefits tools, helps you align offerings with employee needs and budget realities.
4. Evaluate Compliance Beyond Payroll
From ACA reporting to state-specific requirements, compliance doesn’t stop at W-2s. Paylocity offers a foundation for compliance, but many businesses need additional HR oversight to ensure nothing is missed, especially if your workforce spans multiple states.
5. Plan Organizational Changes in Advance
Promotions, restructures, and new hiring initiatives for 2026 should be built into Paylocity ahead of time. This proactive approach avoids last-minute scrambles and ensures leadership is aligned on workforce growth.
The Role of Outsourced HR in Paylocity Year-End Success
Here’s where EmphasisHR makes a difference. We work exclusively with the Paylocity platform, but we are not a PEO. That means we’re mutually exclusive to Paylocity, providing HR strategy and support that Paylocity itself does not deliver.
Our team helps businesses move beyond the checklist by:
- Managing compliance and HR tasks within Paylocity
- Providing strategic HR insights alongside payroll execution
- Guiding open enrollment and benefits planning
- Supporting talent initiatives for retention and growth
The result? HR leaders can stop worrying about the details and focus on their role as business partners—driving strategy instead of chasing paperwork.
Elevating the Conversation at Year-End
Too often, year-end planning is viewed as an administrative burden. But for companies leveraging Paylocity with outsourced HR expertise, it becomes an opportunity:
- To validate compliance today while planning growth for tomorrow
- To improve employee experience through better benefits and communication
- To use data for forecasting and workforce strategy
When HR leaders think beyond the checklist, they elevate their role, and their organization’s trajectory.
Take the Next Step in 2026
Completing the Paylocity year-end checklist is essential, but it’s only step one. The real opportunity lies in using year-end as a springboard for smarter HR strategy and organizational growth.
At EmphasisHR, we help companies on the Paylocity platform make this leap. From payroll accuracy to workforce planning, we manage the details so HR leaders can focus on what matters most, building a thriving business.
👉 Schedule a free consultation today and let us do the work.
