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Auto Enrolment – Fight or Flight?

17th Mar 2015
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The payroll solution that provides all you need for Auto Enrolment.

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With the tsunami of auto enrolment staging dates ready to hit the UK in the coming months, accountants are at a crossroads deciding whether they should follow the ‘fight’ path or the ‘flight’ path. Many accountants are questioning whether or not auto enrolment is worth the time and effort, and whether or not it will be profitable for them.

Auto Enrolment - Fight

Auto enrolment is a great opportunity for accountants to provide some real value added services to their clients. 78% of small businesses are expected to use their accountant or bookkeeper for automatic enrolment. With this heavy reliance on accountants, they may have no choice but to get involved as their clients could end up going elsewhere.

Auto enrolment is being dramatised with the fear of intense workloads, months of preparation, and drastic penalties taking over. However, this is not necessarily the case. Various payroll software providers, such as BrightPay, are trying to ease the auto enrolment process by automating as many tasks as possible.

Provided accountants have the right payroll software in place, the auto enrolment workload should not be a burden. Staging is the most hands-on task involved, and although this can take an hour or two, it will become easier and faster for accountants with each additional client who stages.

Enrolling all relevant employees, making deductions and contributions, and communicating as required should be done within a matter of minutes. Postponing employees, opting-in employees and opting-out employees should also be effortless. From then on, payroll software should automatically monitor the ages and earnings of employees in each pay period and notify you if any further enrolments are required.

Auto Enrolment - Flight

In contrast, a number of accountants want to avoid offering auto enrolment services. If this is the case, they should at least be prepared to assist their clients before they reach their staging date. As a potential first point of contact, they should be able to provide information when asked about auto enrolment in general.

Clients may expect their accountant to play a central role in ensuring that the scheme they use for automatic enrolment meets both their needs and the needs of their workers. While it is important for accountants to be clear about their level of involvement, they should at least be able to direct clients to sources of information, guidance and advice.

Accountants need to decide on their level of involvement in the auto enrolment process. Would fight or flight be the best response for them? Is simply offering advice worth the risk of losing customers? Will offering auto enrolment services be too much of a burden? Regardless of how involved they choose to be, they must be prepared to suffer the consequences. Auto enrolment does not need to be a major headache for accountants – it should become a seamless part of the payroll process.

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Written by Rachel Hynes for BrightPay

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