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Escape the payroll conundrum

4th Feb 2019
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proactivtax
ProActivTax helps accountants and advisers across the UK be much more successful with all aspects...
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Pass me the pills now!! I still break out in a cold sweat remembering the time 20 years ago when my boss volunteered me to oversee the payroll clients. For no extra pay might I add!!

History

In those days it was primarily a number crunching exercise performed in a timely manner. Problems were always immediate and could never be parked. Resources in time, staffing and software meant that payroll was normally financially a loss leader or at best break even. Timewise, in all honesty, energy was burnt for negligible gain. The primary focus was to keep the client close to you at all costs (literally in some cases!!). Don’t let Tom Pope accountants down the road get a toe in the door through them offering payroll services!!

Present day

Twenty years on nothing has changed as regards the primary focus and quite rightly so. However, the problematic issues surrounding all these aspects concerning resources have grown a thousand fold. Why, because it’s no longer a number crunching game. It’s become highly specialised, almost a science in itself. You can obtain a Payroll degree nowadays. Just listing some of the things these Payroll teams should be focussing on makes one aware of why that degree is fully warranted.

The issues and complexities

RTI, Auto enrolment, student loans, court orders, statutory and occupational sick pay, maternity and paternity pay, adoption pay, compassionate leave, pay spines, internationally mobile workers, flexible benefits, salary sacrifice, ORA, termination payments, workers status, and data protection to name but a few. There are more things that can go wrong with payroll than ever before. Immediate problems still there to be resolved. More queries to be answered as the complexities grow. More financial resources to be burned on both the staffing, education and software front plus significantly greater time spent in a specialised area which yields little financial return in its own right.

The Goals

Surely the time, the money and the staff could be put to better use somewhere else both to the value of the client and yourselves. FD work, proactive tax consultancy advice or marketing the practice in the local community spring to mind.

The ultimate and paramount goal has to be to keep the client close to you. Don’t give up on the payroll service. It’s part of the one stop shop policy. Nothing must put that in danger. So surely a contradiction in terms. You can’t have your cake and eat it. You can’t free up resources and retain a quality payroll service to your client base, can you?

Of course you can!! For example many of our members have taken the plunge over the past 9 months and white labelled/outsourced their payroll service through our UK based payroll degree inspired specialist. Their reasons for doing so to date are:

a) Profits can be controlled. The specialist only charges £3.25 per payslip (inclusive of auto enrolment), no set up costs, no end of year costs, no starter/leaver costs nor costs for re runs. The ultimate charge to the client is at the discretion of the accountancy firm with agreement, of course, from said client.

b) It unlocks the firm’s talent. It has enabled the member firm to free up their team to concentrate on other areas of their clients businesses.

c) The overheads reduce with clear savings on software, training and management costs.

d) The payroll specialist is seen as part of the team. He takes away the hassle but importantly keeps the firm up to date on the payroll front as well as spotting opportunities for additional added value work whilst providing a personal service to the client base.

e) It enables the firm to offer an additional service which they have not been able to do before, thereby protecting the client base but opening up an opportunity to put their toe in somebody else’s door.

If you want to find out more about this service please let me know. My contact details are shown below.

ProActivTax Half Day Tax Events

We are running a series of half day tax events in February and March covering off a range of tax topics with a guest speaker in tow. Why not come along and see us. The cost is only £45 + VAT and is CPD certificated. To see if there is an event near you please click here. Our payroll specialist will be at each venue.

ProActivTax help accountants across the UK

ProActivTax was set up to help accountants around the UK to develop their tax offering to their existing client base and to build up their tax profile within their local community and beyond.

All ProActivTax members have access to our tax specialists who cover the full range of taxes within the safe confines of the tax legislation as well as access to our Payroll Specialists.

We also do this through tax resources, tax marketing, tax specialists, tax training/webinars/seminar programmes and us.

If you would like to find out more please click here to access my online diary or simply drop me an email with some provisional dates and I’ll set up a conference call.

Paul Flynn

Email: [email protected]

Tele: 01246 488 200

Mobile: 07903 799091

Turning Tax Technical issues into commercial reality

ProActivTax Ltd (09540555) 7 Midland Way, Barlborough. Derbyshire. S43 4XA

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