About Southern Payroll Services
Southern Payroll Services has been helping businesses manage payroll since 1982. We began as Payroll Center, Inc., a family-owned Metro Atlanta payroll company founded by John T. McDowell. More than four decades later, we still believe payroll works best when experienced people know your business, answer the phone, and are there when you need them. Today, we combine that personal approach with modern payroll technology to make payroll accurate, flexible, and easier to manage.
Serving Businesses Since 1982
40+
Years in Payroll
98%
Client Retention
18+
Years: Every Current Team Member
30+
Years: Some Client Relationships
A Payroll Company That Still Believes in Personal Service
Payroll is too important to feel like just another support ticket.
When you work with Southern Payroll Services, you have access to experienced payroll professionals who get to know your company and how you operate.
Use our online payroll tools when you want to manage things yourself. Call or email us when you would rather have a specialist handle it. We give you the flexibility to choose the approach that works best for your business.
Behind it all is a team with decades of experience handling payroll, taxes, reporting, and the real-world situations that come with paying employees.
Why Businesses Stay With Southern Payroll Services
People Who Know Your Business
You are not sent through an anonymous call center every time you need help. Our team gets to know your account, your payroll, and the way your business operates.
Payroll Your Way
Process payroll through our online platform or send your information directly to our team. You choose how involved you want to be.
Experienced Payroll Tax Support
We handle federal, state, and local payroll tax filings and help keep payroll reporting accurate and on time.
Experience You Can Actually Measure
Every member of our current team has been with Southern Payroll Services for at least 18 years. Some of our client relationships stretch back more than 30 years.
That kind of continuity is difficult to replicate.
Our Story Started as Payroll Center, Inc.
1982
John Thomas McDowell founded Payroll Center, Inc. in Metro Atlanta as a traditional payroll service company.
The idea was straightforward: take the complexity of payroll off the employer’s desk and provide dependable, personal service from people who understood payroll.
That became the foundation of the company we operate today.
Payroll Center Grows and Technology Changes Payroll
As Payroll Center grew, so did payroll technology.
John’s grandson, Jesse Burgess, joined the family business and began developing technology to automate parts of the payroll process. That work eventually became the online payroll platform OnPay.
By 2013 and 2014, OnPay had become an important technology product inside Payroll Center.
2015: Two Separate Paths
In 2015, OnPay was spun out of Payroll Center to become an independent company focused on building a national payroll technology platform.
Payroll Center did not disappear, and Payroll Center did not simply change its name to OnPay.
The original payroll-service business continued serving its clients independently.
That legacy business is the company now known as Southern Payroll Services.
Southern Payroll Services and OnPay share a common history, but they are separate companies today.
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A Family Business Across Generations
Continuing What John McDowell Started
Southern Payroll Services remains connected to the family and service philosophy behind the original Payroll Center.
John’s daughter, Stacy Baker (McDowell), joined Payroll Center as a payroll specialist in 1997 and later took leadership of the legacy payroll business.
Today, she leads Southern Payroll Services while continuing the approach her father established decades ago: know your clients, know payroll, and take care of people.
That continuity extends throughout the company. Our team has worked together for years, and many of our customers have been with us just as long.
Founder, John McDowell
CEO, Stacy Baker (McDowell)
Relationships That Last Decades
Technology has changed dramatically since 1982. What our customers expect from us has not.
They want payroll to be accurate. They want questions answered. They want someone to pick up the phone when something is wrong. And they want a payroll company they do not have to worry about.
Some of our clients have trusted us for more than 30 years.
That is the kind of relationship we want to build with every client.
Testimonials
What Our Clients are Saying
Southern Payroll Services is staffed with knowledgeable, well experienced employees dedicated to providing superior customer satisfaction. Every member of our staff team has been with Southern Payroll Services at least 18 years.
We have been with Payroll Center for over 30 years. They are family.
For over the past 30 years I've trusted Southern Payroll Services with running our payroll and filing all related compliance documents. Our national staffing service annually employs thousands of workers and have had weekly payrolls in excess of six figures going back to 1996.
For over 20 twenty years, we have enjoyed the dependability, accuracy, and personal touch of Southern Payroll Services as they handled all of our payroll processing needs. They have been a great partner to us, and we look forward to many more years of working with them to make sure our payroll is always taken care of.
Southern Payroll Services has been doing our company payroll for well over 20 plus years. They are quick, reliable, and always so helpful. Couldn’t recommend them enough.
Payroll Has Changed. Our Approach Hasn't.
From the original Payroll Center to Southern Payroll Services today, our goal has remained simple:
Make payroll easier for the businesses that trust us with it.
You get modern payroll tools when you want them, experienced people when you need them, and more than four decades of payroll knowledge behind every payroll we process.
Ready for a Better Payroll Experience?
Talk with one of our payroll specialists about your current payroll setup and see whether Southern Payroll Services is the right fit for your business.