We are a small practice and do the payroll for some of our clients. We want to change from Sage as we find it slow and I would be most grateful for your recommendations and experiences in other payroll packages. Thank you
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You didn't look very hard
Thank you so much for your responses. I looked into Moneysoft but I don't think it handles P11Ds???
Here is the Moneysoft Payroll Manager Features page and here is the Prices page. It is a no-brainer compared with Sage.
Payroll software
Try Brightpay - it is brilliant, does it all, easy to use, no limit on number of employers and employees, and very reasonably priced. The people at Brightpay are really good, I have only ever needed support once and they went all out to help. I cannot fault them.
I have nothing against Brightpay, but ...
go for Brightpay
its brilliant
very easy to use and super support
... if it's so brilliant, why do you need support?
The same as recommended for 2013/14, and 2012/13 and 2011/12 and..... Moneysoft.
Don't waste a single brain cell cogitating, just buy it. End of.
Moneysoft and AE
http://www.moneysoft.co.uk/payroll-software/payroll-manager-pensions-auto-enrolment.htm
We are eagerly awaiting the April update, which Moneysoft have said will be auto-enrolment aware, since our biggest client is staging in April. Not that they have done anything to prepare so far!
Definitely Moneysoft
Also deals with CIS, Agents, Statutory payments and deductions, RTI and introducing extra features in April 2014 to help with auto-enrolment. Much cheaper, easier and quicker than Sage.
Payroll bureau experience of AE and Moneysoft
Our biggest client, which owns pubs and restaurants with c150 weekly and monthly-paid staff, staged in July. We also brought our own staging date forward, to gain experience.
We've found that Moneysoft's AE support is good but basic.
1. After entering and checking the wages as normal, we run the AE employee status report, to check if anyone is over 22 and has hit the trigger. [Earnings fluctuate enormously, so postponement could be beneficial but the admin overhead for the employer of communicating it is too great.]
2. For each new enrolee, we go onto the Pensions tab and enter the 1% employee and employer deductions, and hit alt-enter to copy them down the rest of the year.
3. Next we produce the payslips and client reports as normal.
4. Generate the enrolment file CSV for any new enrolees. Generate the contributions file for all.
5. Then I have to do some cutting and pasting to get Moneysoft's CSV output to be acceptable to either NOW or NEST. Moneysoft includes everyone in this CSV, whether they are autoenrolled or not, or if they've left or not. So there are lots of extraneous lines to be ignored/stripped out.
Both pension providers have detailed documentation which should be studied carefully to ensure the right data are in the right fields. For example, NEST requires the Postal town to be line 3 of the address, whereas it is often line 2.
This doesn't take that long; I use the NEST file templates to generate the final CSV for upload.
The biggest overhead is keeping track of contributions deducted versus those paid to NEST. If someone opts out then there are refunds to process. I keep an extensive spreadsheet so the client has the information for management accounts (they want to know how much each individual site is costing them in contributions, as well as how much will go out of the bank account each month).
Don't underestimate how much time AE can eat up. First in getting your head around what's required and explaining it to your clients, and then in the actual running of it.
It's very easy for AE to become a time sink.
Moneysoft
Our biggest client, which owns pubs and restaurants with c150 weekly and monthly-paid staff, staged in July. We also brought our own staging date forward, to gain experience.
We've found that Moneysoft's AE support is good but basic.
1. After entering and checking the wages as normal, we run the AE employee status report, to check if anyone is over 22 and has hit the trigger. [Earnings fluctuate enormously, so postponement could be beneficial but the admin overhead for the employer of communicating it is too great.]
2. For each new enrolee, we go onto the Pensions tab and enter the 1% employee and employer deductions, and hit alt-enter to copy them down the rest of the year.
3. Next we produce the payslips and client reports as normal.
4. Generate the enrolment file CSV for any new enrolees. Generate the contributions file for all.
5. Then I have to do some cutting and pasting to get Moneysoft's CSV output to be acceptable to either NOW or NEST. Moneysoft includes everyone in this CSV, whether they are autoenrolled or not, or if they've left or not. So there are lots of extraneous lines to be ignored/stripped out.
Both pension providers have detailed documentation which should be studied carefully to ensure the right data are in the right fields. For example, NEST requires the Postal town to be line 3 of the address, whereas it is often line 2.
This doesn't take that long; I use the NEST file templates to generate the final CSV for upload.
The biggest overhead is keeping track of contributions deducted versus those paid to NEST. If someone opts out then there are refunds to process. I keep an extensive spreadsheet so the client has the information for management accounts (they want to know how much each individual site is costing them in contributions, as well as how much will go out of the bank account each month).
Don't underestimate how much time AE can eat up. First in getting your head around what's required and explaining it to your clients, and then in the actual running of it.
It's very easy for AE to become a time sink.
Hi does Moneysoft calculate the employee contributions at 0.8% to allow or tax relief ?
Moneysoft Auto Enrolment
5. Then I have to do some cutting and pasting to get Moneysoft's CSV output to be acceptable to either NOW or NEST. Moneysoft includes everyone in this CSV, whether they are autoenrolled or not, or if they've left or not. So there are lots of extraneous lines to be ignored/stripped out.
What happens when you are running payrolls for multiple clients cutting and pasting is a recipe for disaster
The reason it puts everyone on the CSV is that everyone has to be assessed there is no need to remove them from file as the pension provider will only take the ones that have contributed.
Get you next clients who stage to look at Peoples Pension its much easier to use from your perspective.