Preparing to hire away payroll functions represents the majority of a company’s actual work in the outsourcing process. The first step is for the company to decide on a preferred degree of outsourcing. In other words, whether the company wishes to fully outsource or co-source, and if the latter, how does it wish to divide responsibilities? A company may decide, for example, that they’d like a third-party service to handle only the tax issues associated with payroll.