Customizations and regional optimizations made to a payroll preparation and management system by one or more contributing users are transformed into payroll optimization plug-ins. The payroll optimization plug-ins are then aggregated into payroll optimization plug-in sets that, when implemented, optimize the payroll configurations used by the payroll preparation and management system for a given region and/or type of business within the region. The payroll optimization plug-in sets for a given region and/or activity are then requested and/or selected by other individuals using the payroll preparation and management system and imported to the requestor's implementation of the payroll preparation and management system to optimize the requestor's implementation of the payroll preparation and management system for the requested region, and/or type of business within the requested region.