Great article, thanks Kate.
Must admit feeling a little nervous at all FPS data being viewable by all client employees when we all know how wrong it can be sometimes!
We had a phone call from a new client to advise HMRC Debt Collection had phoned him demanding £6k. When we looked into things the figures on the FPS we sent bore absolutely no resemblance to the figures HMRC had received! They advised it was probably an error in the interface between our 2 systems.
They then very helpfully said it wouldn't be looked at for at least 8 months. Makes us look so incompetent.
...in the hope of winning (more) work from accountants.
I don't happen to think SteveB is scaremongering, there is an awful lot more work to AE than at payroll level, and as a bureau in an accountants it is our choice whether we use middleware or not (which we have chosen not to do) and after staging 14 companies in the last 2 months there is definitely enough work to go around everyone!
@amanda67 Couldn't agree more. The difference in terminology has really caused massive problems. Pension providers are using terms 'gross' and 'net' for the same types of tax relief schemes, utterly confusing
for us January has been hectic, with 8 clients staging with 3 different pension providers.
Not one of the csv uploads from payroll software to pension providers is correct and they all have to have data manually adjusted within the files before uploading.
We will be up to around 35 companies staged by August (around 130 companies maximum eventually)and we hope that both payroll software companies and pension providers have ironed out most of the glitches by then.
We have approx. 350 client payrolls, the majority of which are 10 employees or less or director only who will be exempt.
Most of these companies will want a basic AE solution that doesn't cost the earth to manage.
We have set up a bureaux portal with Now:Pensions and will manage the whole AE process for our clients if they so wish, which will keep the costs down.
Our payroll system has an AE suite which can produce relevant uploads to 7 of the main pension providers so our clients can either decide to go with Now:Pensions or another provider.
We have had an IFA visit our 2 largest clients but that is the only time we have needed an IFA.
Our payroll/AE system will deal with all the comms as well.
Are we missing something fundamental that an IFA could offer us?
Unfortunately I do not believe the true scale of the problems with mismatched entries on the dashboard will come to light until after 05.04.15, that is when the fun will really begin!
My answers
Great article, thanks Kate.
Must admit feeling a little nervous at all FPS data being viewable by all client employees when we all know how wrong it can be sometimes!
We had a phone call from a new client to advise HMRC Debt Collection had phoned him demanding £6k. When we looked into things the figures on the FPS we sent bore absolutely no resemblance to the figures HMRC had received! They advised it was probably an error in the interface between our 2 systems.
They then very helpfully said it wouldn't be looked at for at least 8 months. Makes us look so incompetent.
@kevinringer
Couldn't agree more, things are at breaking point for Payroll Departments right now, especially us bureaus within accountancy firms!
@Kent Accountant
I don't happen to think SteveB is scaremongering, there is an awful lot more work to AE than at payroll level, and as a bureau in an accountants it is our choice whether we use middleware or not (which we have chosen not to do) and after staging 14 companies in the last 2 months there is definitely enough work to go around everyone!
@amanda67
Couldn't agree more. The difference in terminology has really caused massive problems. Pension providers are using terms 'gross' and 'net' for the same types of tax relief schemes, utterly confusing
We are a payroll bureau within an accountants and
for us January has been hectic, with 8 clients staging with 3 different pension providers.
Not one of the csv uploads from payroll software to pension providers is correct and they all have to have data manually adjusted within the files before uploading.
We will be up to around 35 companies staged by August (around 130 companies maximum eventually)and we hope that both payroll software companies and pension providers have ironed out most of the glitches by then.
Lie
81% of calls answered within 6 minutes? An outright lie surely?
.
Do we really need an IFA?
We have approx. 350 client payrolls, the majority of which are 10 employees or less or director only who will be exempt.
Most of these companies will want a basic AE solution that doesn't cost the earth to manage.
We have set up a bureaux portal with Now:Pensions and will manage the whole AE process for our clients if they so wish, which will keep the costs down.
Our payroll system has an AE suite which can produce relevant uploads to 7 of the main pension providers so our clients can either decide to go with Now:Pensions or another provider.
We have had an IFA visit our 2 largest clients but that is the only time we have needed an IFA.
Our payroll/AE system will deal with all the comms as well.
Are we missing something fundamental that an IFA could offer us?
I wouldn't.......
I wouldn't want to work there for love nor money, they obviously do not receive any adequate training.
There must be nothing worse than dealing with an irate customer when you have no idea what you are talking about.
.
Unfortunately I do not believe the true scale of the problems with mismatched entries on the dashboard will come to light until after 05.04.15, that is when the fun will really begin!