1. Accurately record personal data

First thing’s first, we will need to make sure the data you have on your employees is up to date. This seems basic, but you’d be surprised at how many companies get their payroll wrong because of incorrect employee data.

There are lots of things that can sway personal data, and if you have a large team, it’s easy for people to get overlooked. With this in mind, we’ll meticulously record things such as:

· Promotions

· Maternity leave

· Sick pay

· Pay reviews

· Overtime

2. Workplace pensions

Whether you’ve one employee or 100, you are bound by the workplace pensions law introduced in 2012. This means you need to offer your employees the opportunity to pay into a pension scheme which you’ll match, but there’s more to it than that.

Some employees should be automatically enrolled, but they can opt out at any time. If the pension is decided on a pay percentage, there’s a high chance it will change from person to person, and this can make things slightly trickier in terms of payroll requirements.

3. Audit trails

There’s a lot at stake when it comes to dealing with payroll, especially in the way of protecting against fraud and monitoring how well your business is doing. Failure to organise yourself will result in vulnerabilities, and if you don’t have a record of what happened, any money that is lost may never be accounted for. Our precise systems will let you know exactly how your business is doing.

In addition, there’s every chance you could get audited by a regulating authority, in which case you’ll need to produce a paper trail – we can assist if this situation arises. To protect both yourself and your employee.

4. Hitting deadlines

It’s common knowledge that HMRC won’t hesitate to penalise you if you miss an important deadline. The problem is that there are so many, and most of them relate to payroll in some capacity.

We’ll make a note of important dates such as tax deadlines and quarterly reports, and make sure we hit them every time. This includes handing out P60s to your employees on or before 31 May during your payroll year end.

5. Manage expenses effectively

Payroll can, as mentioned, fluctuate month on month depending on things like promotions, extended leave, and pay reviews, but another aspect that can impact your monthly payroll is expenses. It’s common for businesses to cover some of their employees’ expenses, but if you don’t set clear limits, you could find things get messy on the payroll. To avoid this, we’ll set clear boundaries with your employees on things that could impact their pay and any deductions that may be made.