Payroll processing notice

Payroll processing notice

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I am interested to know how much notice practitioners tend to require to process client payrolls. Some clients that we have inherited have come to expect same day processing, which is scarcely practicable for a small practice with no dedicated payroll person. These vary from 4 to c12 employees, with variable hours, and in one case regular starters and leavers.

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By Moonbeam
04th Mar 2016 09:11

24 hours

But then I only have 12 payrolls per month, only 2 of which are quite complicated.

As you imply, more than that number per month plus lots of changes would cause me as a sole practitioner grave problems.

I gave up a 30 person payroll inc autoenrolment with lots of complicated adjustments to gross pay last year because I didn't have the time (or the inclination!)

If I had lots of other work I would seriously consider taking on a part time payroll person, but of course the clients would have to accept a timetable when Nelly would be in each week. Thinking about that part-timer, as there would be very little for her to do in weeks1 and 2 of the month, you'd have to have enough admin/bookkeeping work for them in those weeks. It isn't an easy solution I'm afraid.

But back to your "new" clients. They should count themselves as being very lucky in the past, but the world has moved on and they must accept a regular date each month for you to run the payroll, with an extra charge perhaps if they want the payroll run early or late.

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By craig preece
04th Mar 2016 10:15

Plan and train clients

Set a run date, set a time for information to be received.

Once you have run for a few months you will know how the client deals with it and when they will want to make payments so can plan for it.

As a rule we run the bulk of our monthly payrolls on 25th and most clients provide info on 23rd or 24th but we have couple who drop info on us last day or two of the month.

As long as you know when you will receive the info same day processing shouldn't be a problem.

For Xmas, etc. email the ones you need to detailing the bespoke dates for that month about a week in advance.

Of course there is nothing wrong with shouting and swearing when an emails drops at 5.30 on Friday 31st. 

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By Kazmc
04th Mar 2016 10:35

2 working days notice

We 'try' and implement a 2 working day turnaround as we process around 350 payrolls, however getting some clients to stick to that is practically impossible!

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By cbp99
04th Mar 2016 12:08

Thanks for all comments, food for thought.

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By andrew55
04th Mar 2016 13:40

Is this really an issue?

We've had one in today for an immediate turnround. However he does that every month so it's not like we don't know - you could say we had notice years ago.

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By Euan MacLennan
04th Mar 2016 13:50

Usually same day

Presumably, you are talking about payrolls with lots of adjustments to be input each time - such as those with staff paid by the hour.  With these ones, we tend to turn it round the same day if the details are received by midday or next (working) morning if received in the afternoon.

We do all the payrolls with fixed salaries and no adjustments a couple of days before the rush of ones with adjustments to be input.

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By adam.arca
05th Mar 2016 09:10

I seem to be a bit out of line

We ask for two clear working days.

So, if a client gets their info to us say late on Tues, we'll have it in their inbox when they open it Friday morning. And in theory if they only get it to us on Friday, they will have to wait until the following Wednesday.

In practically all cases we turn it round quicker but I am very, very reluctant to get into the same day scenario. We do it as a favour every now and again but we're more likely to deliberately sit on the info for a day just so clients don't slip into the assumption that they are our only job and we have reserved some time just for them.

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