Best payroll software for auto enrolment

Best payroll software for auto enrolment

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This is my first post - so apologies if I make any mistakes.

I am probably being a little premature, but am looking at my payroll software to ease the burden of auto-enrolment, which is due to hit my client base in 2016.

However, if I change payroll software it would be better to do this at the beginning of a tax year, so I would need to make the change next Spring and want to be well prepared.

Currently I am using Moneysoft which is very good for dealing with payroll and CIS, however their website makes it clear that, although they will provide reports and help with assessments and calculations for auto-enrolment, they will not be providing additional tools to help with the admin side.

I looked at Brightpay, which ticks the boxes for auto-enrolment (and seems popular among posters on this site) but it doesn't appear to do CIS.

I also looked at QTAC - which seems to do CIS and the admin for auto-enrolment.

Any thoughts on whether a change is warranted, which software would be the best option and if anyone is currently dealing with auto-enrolment what are their experiences in dealing with the administration in conjunction with payroll.

Thanks

Ian

Replies (17)

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By rjoconnor81
30th Apr 2014 12:53

Admin?

When you say the admin side, what specifically do you mean?  The letters to employees etc?

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Replying to WhichTyler:
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By gcannon
30th Apr 2014 13:00

Letters to employees

rjoconnor81 wrote:

When you say the admin side, what specifically do you mean?  The letters to employees etc?

Hi

Yes, the various notices that are required.

One of my payroll clients has a lot of starters and leavers (5 starters and 10 leavers in April alone) so they will need a lot of work in respect of notifying staff that they are enroled, or that there enrolment is being deferred etc.

Moneysoft are clear that they will not be helping with this

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By rjoconnor81
30th Apr 2014 13:07

Moneysoft

You are correct that Moneysoft won't be supplying letters for the staff etc, but most of the pension providers are, but then I am only dealing with payrolls up to about 15 with little movement of staff.  What is becoming much clearer to me by the day that this is not going to be the simple process the client thinks and that unlike RTI payroll fees will have to increase.  

Look at what the pension providers are offering before moving providers though (for instance Sage wants a lot of money for the auto enrollment top up, but a far as I could see Moneysoft and the pension providers together offer all of this).

 

 

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By A Counting House Limited
30th Apr 2014 13:50

12Pay

Hi,

 

I use both BrightPay and 12Pay for my PAYE/payroll clients.

 

12 Pay definitely does both CIS and auto-enrollment and it is a very easy piece of software.  Their support service is very useful too with a very quick turnaround time on both system issues and PAYE issues.

 

Kind regards

Deborah Scott

(For and on behalf of A Counting House Limited)

www.a-countinghouse.co.uk

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By coops456
30th Apr 2014 14:57

letters are the least of my concerns

Rjoconnor is spot-on that this isn't a simple process.

Only one of our clients has staged so far (and after leaving the whole thing to the very last minute, has postponed everyone the max 3 months), but it's the one with the highest turnover of staff. The pension provider is issuing letters to staff. I don't see us offering that as a service; if the pension provider doesn't either, then the client will have to do it themselves. 

My greater worry is the ongoing practical side. It seems that Moneysoft will do the assessment, but then you have to take that report and use the info to enter employer and employee contributions on the Pay Details screen for each eligible jobholder.

Next, generate the CSV file and upload that to the pensions provider. Download any data e.g. opt-ins/outs, and manually enter them.

On a weekly payroll where the hours worked vary from week to week, this is going to take a lot of extra time. Every. Single. Pay. Period. <groan>

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By Camilla Winlo
01st May 2014 10:07

Not all clients can cope with just payroll support

Payroll offerings all leave clients with quite a lot of work to do and not all of them are up to it so you should think about what you want to do for them too. We did some research that showed that there are 33 mandated responsibilities that take an average of 103 days to complete, and that payroll solutions leave clients with 68 days' work. That's fine if you can be confident that companies understand what they need to do and are doing it, but it's not always the case. Research by another consultancy that came out recently said that about two thirds of companies that are currently approaching their staging date don't even know when it is, never mind what they need to do. Our concern is that companies like yours will be left fielding the complaints if you only have the payroll solution as an option. My company, Creative Auto Enrolment, is the only one that does everything for employers, so it's a good alternative offering for companies that can't, or don't want to, pick up the extra 68 days' work.

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By Simon Leyland
01st May 2014 23:12

Shameless plug time....

You need a truly agnostic (any pension provider/any payroll provider) AE solution here. Something that as the accountant/bookkeeper you can control and ultimately charge to the client if necessary and even make an honest crust at the same time

LEBC’s solution æComply can do all of this and a whole load more. Very happy to talk (of course). Mobile is 07827 350771.

Simon

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By Niall Ferguson
02nd May 2014 08:25

Letters and stuff
Drive message HARD out to all clients -
Get workers personal email addresses to:-
• Reduce costs
• Increase efficiency
• Make it easier for workers to opt out/ in

To achieve this state potentially moving over to e-payslips - unsurprisingly this gets 85-90% emails OR we're updating emergency contact info, and need it - this gets about 40-50%

Nest - cannot do pre member comms
Peoples - only do eligible member comms
NOW: - do a fully managed comms solution but can switch this off if someone else prefers to manage this

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By Kazmc
02nd May 2014 08:38

Moneysoft

We are looking to go live with Moneysoft from 15/16 and are looking to use Now:Pensions.

We have a meeting with Now;Pensions this month and from initial enquiries Moneysoft are looking into providing some data download/transfer document (?) which will interface with Now:Pensions...... we hope :)

We have 350 payrolls so it's going to be a massive undertaking for us as we are going to be providing our clients with the option for a full AE service.

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By coops456
02nd May 2014 11:35

Moneysoft and NOW

@Kazmc, see my previous post above. Yes there is already the ability to output a NOW friendly(ish) file, but it needs some work before successful upload to NOW can be achieved. I've also found the NOW portal slow and inefficient.

Unless Moneysoft are planning to significantly enhance the AE functionality from what is currently there, we will be left with a lot of additional manual input. Hence the middleware offerings being plugged.

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Replying to fawltybasil2575:
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By MIKE_ROHAN
04th Jun 2014 16:41

Tipping point?

coops456 wrote:

Unless Moneysoft are planning to significantly enhance the AE functionality from what is currently there, we will be left with a lot of additional manual input. Hence the middleware offerings being plugged.

 

Hi Coops.

 

Do you think at some point you will reach a tipping point that will make you reconsider the payroll software you use? Rather than bolt on middleware as you mention above, do you think you'll re look at the whole end to end process and consider switching?

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By coops456
09th Jun 2014 15:08

Maybe

Never say never. We do love Moneysoft, and I am hopeful that - as the staging dates for their core market get closer - they will enhance the AE functions.

It may come down to how long we have to wait. If there's an equally easy to use alternative that offers these functions now, and at a Moneysoft-ish price, then it will make sense to switch.

Auto-enrolment is both an opportunity and a threat to my company, and the same will apply to Moneysoft.

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By MIKE_ROHAN
10th Jun 2014 08:43

Morning Coops,

 

Moneysoft set their stall out quite early and admitted that their product wasnt going to take care of all the jobs that AE creates. I agree with you though in that they will probably be keeping it under review and monitoring customer feedback.

 

If they dont think AE enhancements are critical, but their customers do then it could spell trouble for them. I suppose it all depends on what they think their core business is and what they want. If they think their customers view this as a pain/concern then their development team will be working on it as we speak, thats my assumption.

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By coops456
10th Jun 2014 12:21

fair enough

That's my hope!

I don't expect a payroll program to do the staff comms part of AE - unless I buy an additional module - but I do expect it to handle the assessment and any consequent deductions in a robust and automatic fashion.

Time will tell.

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By [email protected]
21st Aug 2014 13:20

BrightPay

I'm a bit late to this post having just come across it on a search.

As our product has been mentioned above, I would like to confirm that BrightPay will handle assessment, deductions (automatically), communications (printed or emailed), csv file preparation for NEST, Peoples Pension, NOW, Scottish Widows and others. It will also handle postponement, opting out and opting in.

We have tried to make it as easy to use as possible and a seamless part of the payroll process (much like RTI).

It is true that CIS is not included and this is something we are looking at.

Coming from a practice background I would advise anyone to steer clear of middleware as this will exponentially increase any administrative burden.

Kind regards

 

Paul Byrne fca

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By Cazm45
10th Nov 2014 21:48

Auto enrolment interface software
We are using Qtec payroll, however the export file does not match the import requirements of Now pensions. Support from both sides has been terrible.

Has any one managed to import data into now pensions and if so have you used an interface?

Very difficult - help please

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By miketombs
13th Mar 2015 10:36

Can't use BrightPay

We currently use MoneySoft and are very happy with it, but with AE it seemed a good time to look around at alternatives. BrightPay seemed to tick all the boxes but then I read here that they don't handle CIS. I just phoned them to see if that had changed but it hasn't. That's a staggering omission for a UK payroll system - a bit like Xero being so late to the party in providing EC Sales Lists for VAT purposes. (They allow you to capture CIS suffered but said that CIS deducted from subcontractors has to be catered for 'elsewhere'!)

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