30 Aug 2019
We hope you have enjoyed our posts this week and learnt a bit more about payroll. We’re finishing the week with our three top tips for running a successful payroll (although we think the list could be a lot longer!)
1. Excellent time keeping and organisation skills
As we highlighted earlier in the week, HMRC will charge you a penalty fee if you provide late or inaccurate payroll information. It’s essential that you know all the steps in your payroll process and those who have a responsibility to provide you information do so on time. Have a clearly defined process that everyone involved is signed up to.
Make sure that your payroll team have clearly defined roles and responsibilities – there’s nothing worse than duplicated effort on one task, and zero effort on another!
If you have a monthly payroll that is not subject to regular changes in pay i.e. performance related bonuses, consider how you can automate the payroll process on repetitive tasks that do not change month to month.
2. Keep up to date with legislative changes
It is up to you, the employer, to ensure you bring your business up to date with employment and payroll law changes as they occur. As we’ve touched on in the week, auto-enrolment of eligible employees into pension schemes has been a significant change in employment law over the last decade. There’s over 170 pieces of payroll legislation currently in place!
National Living Wage rates and National Minimum Wage rates are regularly reviewed, and typically updated at the start of the new tax year.
There is increasing pressure from Government bodies and Trade Unions to report on differences in pay between employees to ensure pay is not discriminatory against characteristics including gender or ethnicity. Although reporting typically starts with larger employers, there may come a time where all employees need to provide such information. Make sure you’re aware of any deadlines that may come up.
3. Invest in good payroll software
Payroll software will help you in many ways – it can automate the tax calculations, generation of payslips and prepare information ahead of annual tax returns. Automation also helps to reduce the risk of manual data entry errors.
These days many payroll software providers offer solutions that are based in the Cloud, meaning access can made wherever there is a decent internet connection. This offers employers the flexibility to manage payroll without physically being in the office.
Leading payroll software providers have invested heavily in data security so will a much more secure way of protective sensitive information like pay and bank details.
There is a popular alternative to running a payroll yourself – outsourcing your requirements.
Our payroll team at HJS Accountants have over 30 years’ experience managing payrolls for businesses of all sizes and from across a variety of industries. This means that our clients benefit from our in-depth knowledge and practical experience so that their employees are paid accurately and on time.
The process of running a payroll needs to be slick and effective. Many business owners prefer the hand over the responsibility and know it is managed by an experienced team with a clear focus.
If you have any questions about outsourcing your payroll to HJS, call and speak with the team confidentially about your business needs. Call 02380 234222 or email accountants@hjssolutions.co.uk
#NPW19 #KeepUKPaid #BePayroll