Article
When payroll becomes core
Article
When payroll becomes core
Business insights, Security, Innovation and development
April 13, 2026
When payroll becomes core
Business insights, Security, Innovation and development
April 13, 2026
Article
When payroll becomes core
Business insights, Security, Innovation and development
April 13, 2026
Article
When payroll becomes core
Business insights, Security, Innovation and development
April 13, 2026
13/4/2026
Business insights, Security, Innovation and development
When payroll becomes core
The category that only gets noticed when it fails
Rex+ was not built around a new category or a fashionable startup pitch. It grew out of repeated exposure to one of the hardest operating problems inside any business: payroll. When payroll breaks, the consequences are immediate. People are paid late, legal risk rises, and confidence inside the company starts to weaken.
Inside Grupo Sable, payroll had appeared for years across software projects in healthcare, banking and the public sector, in environments where reliability is crucial. Over time, it stopped looking like a supporting module and started looking like a category that needed its own product logic.
“Payroll is not a feature. It’s infrastructure. And infrastructure can’t afford to be good enough,” says Andrés Gómez, founder and Managing Director of Rex+.
That view became sharper in 2012, when Grupo Sable sold one of its largest payroll businesses. The deal worked financially, but the product stopped being treated as core and, as a consequence, innovation slowed, priority faded and customers felt it. That experience left Andrés Gómez convinced that once a mission-critical product becomes secondary inside the company that owns it, the damage shows up later in the customer experience.
Shaped by experience, built for complexity
By 2015, rebuilding payroll was not an act of reinvention. It was a practical decision. The team started inside an accounting ERP, this time with years of accumulated knowledge about how payroll logic breaks under pressure, where regulation creates friction, and what kind of flexibility customers eventually demand.
“When it turned out so good, we said: let’s spin it off and grow it,” recalls Andrés.
That spin-off became Rex+. Its advantage lay precisely in that experience and deep knowledge.
“This is like the sixth time we’ve built this software,” Andrés says.
That history is visible in the architecture. At the centre sits a controlled formula engine. Around it are layers for legal logic, development, client-specific needs and user configuration. The result is a platform that gives customers room to adapt the system to their own reality without compromising the integrity of the product underneath.
“These layers give flexibility and client autonomy,” explains Andrés.
That mattered commercially because Rex+ found traction in businesses where payroll is closely tied to day-to-day operations, including payroll BPOs, staffing companies, service-intensive organisations, and larger employers with complex people operations. These customers do not want the simplest possible tool. They want robustness, control, security and a product that can absorb complexity without losing consistency.
When a client requested functionality with broader value, Rex+ built it into the product and released it for everyone. Each serious customer need made the platform stronger for the next one.
When growth required a different structure
The early years proved there was demand. The decisive test came in 2020 and 2021. A large migration project went well. The first 500 clients came in successfully. Demand increased. Competitors were investing heavily.
“If we don’t invest, we’ll fall behind,” Andrés says.
That was the moment when Rex+ stopped being simply a strong product and became a company that needed a different structure. More investment was required. So was more deliberate management. By July 2021, Andrés had formally taken the lead.
Larger customers require more than a good product. They demand stronger delivery, sharper prioritisation and a company that can carry more complexity without slowing down.
The same logic shaped the search for a buyer. Capital alone was not enough. The company needed an owner that understood payroll as a core business and could take it further than Rex+ could on its own.
“The ethical reason is that the next owner can develop the business better than us,” Andrés explains.
There was also a clear line that could not be crossed.
“We didn’t want funds that buy to sell, or companies from another industry entering ours,” Andrés adds.
More structure, sharper focus
That is where Visma changed the story. The immediate impact was not a dramatic strategic pivot. It was operating discipline. KPIs became clearer. Financial control improved. Performance could be compared more rigorously. Decisions that might previously have depended too much on instinct had a stronger management framework behind them.
The company also became more precise about where to focus. Rather than stretching into every adjacent capability, Rex+ could go deeper into payroll and people administration while integrating with other specialist companies across the group.
The commercial effect came quickly. “We sold about 30% more than the previous year,” Andrés says.
The same progress was visible in the product.
“Now the latest big companies we onboard require little to no development,” Andrés explains.
The platform is no longer bending itself around each new large client. It is arriving stronger, with more of the complexity already built in.
Rex+ scaled by tightening the product, strengthening the company around it, and choosing an owner that treated payroll with the seriousness the category demands.
About the episode
Voice of Visma
Welcome to the Voice of Visma podcast, where we sit down with the business builders, entrepreneurs, and innovators across Visma, sharing their perspectives on how they scale companies, reshape industries, and create real customer value across markets.
Diana Kigyossy
Benedikte Lyngbø
Holli Hatherly
Berit Braut
Mandy Burger
Victoria Bondarchuk
Jet Bouwman
Brian Ye
Lilja Helgadottir
Carina Ramsøy
Kejsi Gjordeni
Martin Olstad
Claus Dahl
Vlad Boldura
Kaja Falck-Ytter
Linn Kjærland
Ida Nicoline Glosimot
Stina Wahlsten
Pieter Bijl
Emily Northway
Rie Jørgensen
Henriette Veiby
Magnus August Lien
Philip Scarampi
Ari-Pekka Salovaara
Helle Hobbelhagen
Alexander Lystad
Ida Strande Markman
Amanda Lundius Mörck
Isabel Arkvik
Gina Ross Eriksen (former employee)
Juliette Prado (former employee)
Anne-Grethe Thomle Karlsen (former employee)
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