Program Spotlight: Payroll Management

A career in payroll is about a lot more than just crunching numbers. It is a critical function in every business with employees. Choosing to specialize in payroll is an excellent way to create a niche for yourself in the business world, by providing you with the knowledge and skill set that can be transferred across all industries.

Centennial College Payroll Management professor Alan Dryden is a veteran of industry. He has over 30 years of experience working in financial and senior management roles for well known companies including Ascendia Brands, Collins & Aikman and CCL Industries. He has earned a Master of Business Administration degree at the Richard Ivey School of Business and several professional association designations including the PCP and CGA. In addition to his teaching and professional roles, he has also written a textbook, “An Introduction to Canadian Payroll Administration,” which is used as a reference guide for students looking for general understanding of payroll.

In his interview, Alan Dryden talks about why the Payroll Management Graduate Certificate at Centennial College is one of a kind and how it gives graduates a professional advantage.

Question: Why is this program important for students to enroll in?

Answer: Centennial College’s program provides students with a combination of payroll knowledge, which is required to enter the payroll profession, as well as accounting, human resource management knowledge and the PCP designation. It also helps graduates to become technically skilled in the process of Canadian payroll. That’s important for students, especially international students, who may not be familiar with that process. Our program delivers that knowledge through a robust combination of the leading industry association’s comprehensive teaching materials, Centennial’s excellent academic programs and faculty who have current industry experience.

Q: What’s the PCP designation and why is it important?

A: PCP stands for Payroll Compliance Practitioner, and is granted through our partner the Canadian Payroll Association (CPA). The CPA is recognized to be the leading professional accreditation source in this field, so when students graduate from our program and can already present employers with the PCP designation, it signals that our graduates are skilled and can meet their standards.

Q: What’s the greatest benefit that the Payroll Management program offers its students?

A: Our program is a “fast-track” design with all of the courses directly related to the payroll practitioner. As a two semester program Centennial offers a significant advantage over other colleges where it takes students two years to complete the same qualifications.

Q: Who is this program ideal for?

A: This program is as much suited to people interested in payroll as well as bookkeeping, accounting and HR professionals. That’s because it provides a combination of current payroll, accounting and HR knowledge and how it relates to the payroll profession. It provides graduates with all the tools to be functional. It’s also an ideal program for second career people who have some office administration exposure and are looking to upgrade their office administration skills or specialize in payroll.

Q: What makes Centennial’s program stand out?

A: It’s a combination of things. When students graduate, they’ll have a Centennial College certificate and the PCP designation from the Canadian Payroll Association in just eight months. We also make sure that students get hands-on exposure to a variety of computer systems in the industry. Over 90 per cent of payroll is processed using computers, so this is a strong plus for Centennial, because at the end of the day, in the payroll industry, the processing is done using computers. Our program also offers students a blended delivery, which means they’ll get to experience traditional lectures and get to use our labs. So this program offers the dual accreditation, (college diploma and PCP designation), a fast-track program and lots of hands-on experience before graduation. As far as I know we’re unique.

Professional payroll management is critical to businesses and other organizations because of the significant amounts of money involved in employee remuneration and the complexity of the legal requirements.

Students completing this program will be eligible to receive the Payroll Compliance Practitioner (PCP) from the Canadian Payroll Association (CPA) subject to their joining the CPA and complying with its professional requirements.

Program graduates are prepared to works in every sector of the Canadian economy as:

• Payroll Clerks/ Officers
• Payroll and Benefits Administrators
• Payroll Accountants
• Human Resource and Payroll Generalists
• General Accounting Coordinators
• Small Business Bookkeepers/Accountants

For more information on this program, please see our graduate program outline.