So YOU are either an Accountant or Bookkeeper, that is looking for a Payroll Solution?

Great, let’s dive in… find out everything about how our service works for YOU

First off, let’s talk about the Elephant in the room – We DON’T offer a whitelabel payroll service

Time to level with you… we have offered various formats of outsourcing over the years, including a ‘White Label’ service that offered calls and emails being branded and answered as the Accountant’s business name – but we stopped it. We’re Payrollers not performers or actors and when operating under a white label arrangement we have to pretend to be something we’re not… an employee of your business.

These days, clients don’t want to be misled, they want to know how and where one of their most critical business functions is being undertaken. Throw data security into the mix and ultimately clients want to know who has their data.

From first hand experience we have seen client relationships can break down if a client finds out (without being told upfront) that their Accountant has outsourced their payroll.

“Watch the Video”

Let Natalie talk YOU through “why” we don’t whitelabel

(and how to tell clients)

I hear you ask… “That all sounds great, but how do we tell our clients about our decision to outsource?”

Just tell them! Yes, it really is that simple.

Explain – payroll has developed over time in complexity and legislation, it is getting harder and harder to find great payrollers, and rather than compromise on the service you have partnered with the experts to ensure their staff will get accurately paid and they get everything they need as an employer on time!

To help – we have even designed an email template that you can use to communicate with your clients. Once you are on board with us, we are happy to share it and you can tweak it to suit your own language… we’re helpful like that 

How we support YOU with the switch, introducing our ‘WELCOME PAGE’

Once the date has been agreed that you tell your clients about the change, we will go to work to really support your clients in understanding the changes to service, so how do we do this?

Through great communications basically… we start by designing a dedicated webpage, effectively a ‘Welcome Page’ fully branded to your Accountancy business – here we explain to your client who we are, support the reasons why you looked to outsource and basically guide them through the process, on this page we record a personal video message as well and MOST importantly give them ways to reach out to us if they have any questions, they can even book a slot straight into our calendar to have a 1-to-1 Zoom call.

See what other Accountants are saying!

JESS SHERMAN – Performance Manager

For YOUR Clients

All frequencies of Payroll

Weekly, Fortnightly, 4-Weekly, Monthly & Annual or a combo of each, we can cover all bases.

All Pension requirements

From managing opt in’s / out’s (shake it all about…) through to pension letters and uploads to providers, we do it ALL… additionally we can take care of Re-enrollment as well.

Starters & Leavers

No Extra fees for these, it’s all included. We also streamline the process for clients by providing simple web based forms to capture  all the required info.

Client Support

From client queries and questions through to ensuring the instructions are received on time, we handle all of this. We guarentee a 4 hour response time to all emails. This covers everything in relation to the payroll.

All Statutory Payments

All Statutory payments are covered within the service, no extra charges apply.

Direct Earnings Attachments

All covered within the service, no hidden surprises!

Payroll Reports

All the neccesary payroll reports provided each pay period. Easy to understand, simple formatting – everything on hand that is needed!

All Year-end duties

All year end requirements covered within the service, including P60 distribution.

Reminders & Chasers

We will gently nudge clients ahead of pay day to send in their instructions. If they miss their deadline – we then get on their case!! Emails, phone calls, texts, carrier pigeon…the lot!!

Sign Off Stage

For all variable payrolls, we send the payroll to the client to sign off before we submit everything. Often referred to as the approval stage.

Emailed or Portal Payslips

We offer the option of either email payslips, or a payslip portal – whichever works best for your clients.

What YOU (The Accountant), gets from us:

> Access to your own Visabilty dashboard – giving you a real time overview of what stage each of your clients are in the processing cycle.
> Access to the Payroll Portal, here you can view previous reports and payslips

> At the end of the Tax year – provide you with Provide all relevant reports and information regarding the payroll for that period to enable you to complete end of year accounts.
> One set price list – regardless of whether a payroll is fixed or variable – our fee won’t change.
> One monthly itemised invoice
> Monthly Catch-up with Call with Nat (Relashioship Manager) make sure all is going ok.
> Payroll Journals

What YOUR Client gets from us:

> Reminders / timesheet chasers for their payroll data each period.

> A ‘Sign-off’ stage, with an opporunity to make the one change for anything forgotten. 1 opportunity to make changes at no extra charge.

> One ‘Jargon Free’ email for each pay period containing the following

  > Anything noteworthy i.e. Tax code change / pension enrolment

  > Net Pay Report – shows employees’ take home pay amounts, ideal for helping with making bank payments.

  > Employer’s Summary – shows each employees’ breakdown of pay, Tax, NI and all relevant data.

  > Pension Report – shows the breakdown for each employee’s pension contribution, along with a total amount payable to the pension provider.
  > HMRC Payment Report – informing your client of the HMRC liability figure that is due for payment.

  > Copy of payslips.

> At the end of the Tax year – Undertake all year end submissions and Prepare and send P60 forms to be distributed to your client’s employees

> Access to the Payroll Portal

> All Pension admin duties (uploads, opt in/outs etc)

> Dedicated Account Manager

Removing YOU from clients Queries & Questions from Client

Leave that to us… we take care of the lot – from client queries and questions through to chasing up or confirming payroll instructions, it all falls on our shouldiers to deal with.

Our job, is to stop the queries in the first place… and that done via the way we communicate, how we learned over the years, to educate clients around their own payroll to ‘turn off the tap’ when it comes to the payroll queries.

Extra Extra… read all about it!

(available “Add-ons” to your standard service)

PAYE & Pension Scheme set-ups

PAYE & Pension Scheme shut-downs

Re-runs for client changes

Same day turnaround

“What if” calculations / scenarios

Payrolling Benefits

Advance SMP Funding

Payslip Portal/App

The things we can’t help with…

sorry, we don’t support the below

We don’t offer HR Services

We don’t talk direct to E’ees

Behind the systems

Yes, it might sound ‘boring’ but we are a system lead business. Our internal procedures are regularly reviewied to ensure we provide our clients with the best service. Things change quickly in Payroll so adapting to changing legislation or clients’ circumstances is something we have become very good at over the years.

We believe in our ‘System of work’. Our model is based upon us working smarter. Everyone knows what is expected of them and more importantly, it ensures we provide a consistent, quality service for all our clients.

The Process

1
1. Reminders

7 days before payroll, clients receive our reminder email (including a monthly competition) clarifying the cut-offs for sending their instructions.

Futher email chasers and calls are made to ensure instructions are received.

2
2. Instructions

Every timesheet or instruction received is acknowledged back to the client, this email also sets the timeframe expectation as well.

3
3. Process

Every payroll processed by us follows the same process – We have a 20-point processing checklist, this gets used for EVERY Payroll. It ensures we stay on track and makes each team member accountable for following our process.

4
4. Quality Control

Every variable payroll or every fixed payroll with any type of change will be double checked. Undertaken by our dedicated Payroll checkers, every payroll is inspected, quality controlled and validated prior to being sent out the door.

5
5. Sign-off

All variable payrolls are sent to the client for Approval, this stage gives the client the opportunity to review the payroll reports and payslips before we finalise the pay period.

6
6. Approval

Once the client approves the payroll in writing to us, the payroll period will be finalised and submissions made to HMRC and where required pension uploads.

7
7. Reports

All the reports that were sent to the clients, along with payroll journals (where applicable) will be saved to your ‘Reports’ area, allowing you to access & review clients reports via our web based portal 24/7.

How we ensure the highest levels of Payroll quality?

At Payroll Sorted the quality and accuracy of our work is our top priority, we really hate mistakes !!!

Here are just some of the steps taken to ensure YOU and YOUR clients receive the best payroll service out there.

The Processing Checklist…

Every payroll processed by us follows the same process – We have a 20-point processing checklist, this gets used for EVERY Payroll. It ensures we stay on track and makes each team member accountable for following our process.

We have built our business on checklists… we like checklists so much we even included a ‘Check Box’ within our Logo.

Team Training

All our fabulous team members are Payroll professionals but that’s only the starting point, each team member gets trained the same way and goes through the same system and culture embedding process regardless of experience.

Why? For consistency… we aim to deliver the same experience and a repeatable outcome to each of our clients.

Quality Control Team

Undertaken by our dedicated Payroll checkers, every payroll is inspected, quality controlled and validated prior to being sent out the door. We even have our own internal warning system for error alarms (this is actually on our office wall).

“Watch the Video”

Let Natalie talk YOU through our Quality Control process

Keeping

on your Clients

Linked in to our scheduling tool, we have built a high level visibility dashboard for you to access in real time (if you want) just to check in on where we are with your client’s payrolls!

YOUR Visibilty dashboard

A ‘Game Changer’ within the Payroll Industry.

Linked in to our scheduling tool, we have built a high level visibility dashboard for you to access your client information.

This not only allows you to be informed at all times where we are with your clients payroll (in real time) if you want, but provides you with all the key information you might need about your clients, such as employee numbers, who their pension is with, when their re-enrolment dates are, their inside leg measurement… it really does cover everything.

The Monthly KIT Call

We also provide a monthly Keep In Touch video (KIT) where we openly share how the previous month went, any issues encountered, troublesome clients and basically just update you on how things have gone.

This is also an opportunity to communicate any upcoming changes, service and system developments with you – keeping all of our partners fully informed.

Reports Area

Designed from the ground up (with the help of our lovely Partner Accountants) is the Reports Area. Allowing you and your team to easily access ALL your clients payroll and CIS reports, along with P60’s and journals as soon as they have been saved down by the payroll guys – it is all instantly available to you to view, download or just use as a storage location if you like!!

Really handy when attending client meetings as everything is available to you in one easy location!

Making payroll profitable – the power of outsourcing.

A payroll service is profitable if you can sell it for more than it costs you to do the work. YOU don’t need to be an Accountant to understand that concept…

But, imagine a world where you could charge your client from a ‘Pre Set’ payroll pricelist and have no involvement with payroll again whilst still being guaranteed to make a passive profit. This is the ‘Profit from Payroll‘ model that our service is geared towards. Too many Accountants are charging incorrectly for Payroll. We’ve lost count of the number of times Accountants have told us “Payroll is a loss leader” and they know they don’t charge correctly for it.

So how can you profit?

The pricing model is very simple, if you want to get rid of payroll but still make a profit from offering the service, here’s the secret (actually 2 secrets) Firstly, charge YOUR clients more for their payroll service than we charge YOU and secondly make sure you always charge for those ‘hidden’ Payroll extras.

That’s it… Doing those two things, ensures YOU are guaranteed to Profit from payroll without ever having to look at a timesheet again.

Typically our Partners profit from outsourcing their payroll. Some even used it as an opporunity to re-price and start charging for the service correctly.

How do we invoice YOU

At the start of each new tax month, you will receive a simple schedule confirming the number of employees processed for each of your clients, colour coded to show the movement (ups and downs) of employee numbers, any additional work undertaken, along with our invoice.

Our invoice process has been designed for simplicity, giving you the information you need, so you can easily pass the charges onto your end clients as part of your own invoicing process.

“Watch the Video”

Let Natalie talk YOU through our invoicing

We provide you with Payroll Journal Integration with Accounting Packages as well.

We can include Payroll Journals for a number of accounting packages, including Xero, Sage One, Quickbooks Online, FreeAgent, Kashflow, AccountsIQ and Twinfield. This means we can either provide the payroll journal directly to you via your partner dashboard to post as part of your boookkeeping routines or we can even send them straight to your accounts software instead via an API.

“Watch the Video”

Let Natalie talk YOU through journals

Journals available for

Our terminology when it comes to payroll

Variable

We would categorise a payroll as variable where employees are paid different amounts each pay period, this could be varying hours, commissions or bonuses for example. If we are needing an instruction from a client before running the payroll this would be classed as variable.

Also referred to sometimes as: Changes / Changing

Fixed

We would categorise a payroll as fixed where employees are paid the same each pay period, ie no variations to the pay, this would typically be relevant to salaried employees.

Also referred to sometimes as: Static

Directors Only

As it says on the tin… the payroll only contains Directors and the pay would typically only change at the start of each tax year.

Also referred to sometimes as: Hmmm not sure… think we may have coined this phrase.

How we get you onboard

Our on-boarding process goes from strength to strength – every time we on-board a new partner, we use it as an opportunity to learn and tweak the process – the aim… to create the smoothest, quickest way for you to rid yourself of payroll, and get the payrolls out of your world and into ours.

Agree the Go-live Date

Once the date has been agreed that you tell your clients about the change , we will go to work to really support your clients in understanding the changes to service, so how do we do this?

Through great communications basically… we start by designing a dedicated webpage, effectively a ‘Welcome Page’ fully branded to your Accountancy business – here we explain to your client who we are, support the reasons why you looked to outsource and basically guide them through the process, on this page we record a personal video message as well and MOST importantly give them ways to reach out to us if they have any questions, they can even book a slot straight into our calendar to have a 1-to-1 Zoom call.

The Migration Stage

Supported by our dedicated on-boarding team, we ensure the migration process goes as smoothly as possible. Working closely with you to understand your clients and their payrolls, Our onboarding process for partners gets better every single month, every time we on-board a new Accountant we use it as an opportunity to find ways to make it quicker, more efficient, easier and most importantly as smooth as possible for all parties!!

How we introduce ourselves

Once the date has been agreed around when you are going to tell your clients about the change, we will go to work to really support them in understanding the changes to service, who we are, and how we work together with you as a partner.

So how we we do this?

We send a friendly welcome email to each client, with an overview of the information we have been provided, confirming the key details such details such as pay dates and cut offs. Within that email, we include a welcome page, branded up with your logo and ours to demonstrate our collaborative approach. This page contains everything they need to know about us and the service provided, setting out the rules of the game in aa clear and friendly way. This page provides all our contact details, along with an option to book a call with us if they have any concerns or questions they would like to go through face to face (on a Zoom call).

Then we kick off with our 3 stage message process:

1. On agreed date – Send a direct individual email to the client, this email confirms their 1st payday, how payslip distribution will happen and the cut off deadline, this email also links into the ‘Welcome Page’

2. 7 days later – we undertake a mailshot campaign, a more general email but again pushing them to the welcome page.

3. 3 days later – we send them a welcome text message, making reference to the previous emails and again including a link within the text to the ‘Welcome Page’

“Watch the Video”

Let Natalie talk YOU through how we help

Why do we go to these lengths, because we want to make your clients feel from Day 1 that your decision to pick us is the right one for them – this is a process that has been tried and tested and tweaked over the years to get your clients ready for the change.

GDPR and Client Data

We take data security as seriously as you do.

Ensuring that you meet data protection laws and protect the sensitive data of clients has become an even bigger talking point since the implementation of GDPR.

Getting compliance right will be a concern both for employers and Accountants – but how does it works from an outsourcing point of view.

We reached out to one of the leading experts in the GDPR field (adavista.com) to provide this factsheet area.

GDPR

Accountants Fact Sheet

As i’m sure you are aware, in May 2018 Data Protection laws changed in the UK. Following BREXIT, we now have the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR). This means that nothing changed and all organisations in the UK – no matter what size or sector – need to comply.

There has been a lot of confusion over the years about who is a “data controller” and who is a “data processor” under the terms of the law.

DATA CONTROLLER – This is the legal entity who “controls” the processing. You are a controller if you process data on your own systems – ie if you are an employer. BUT you are also a controller if you process data on your own systems having received it under contract to provide a service that could be done by the client controller without additional cost or expertise – so an Accountant is a controller and so is Payroll Sorted.

DATA PROCESSOR – You are the processor if you process data on behalf of another organisation on their systems or under their “umbrella” – for example you provide a service that they could do in-house, like photocopying. Whilst Payroll could be achieved in-house, businesses do not necessarily have the expertise so they will contract out the service through their Accountant. 

Payroll Sorted receive data direct from the end-user, but our contracts are usually with the End-user’s Accountant. Data are transferred to us from the Client and we process it on our own systems to produce the payroll “paperwork”. We will deliver the output direct back to the end-user, but our contract is with the Accountant to provide these services. There is NO “personal data” involved in the Contract with the Accountant except that of the Accountant and Payroll Sorted. No data from the end-user (Accountants Client) passes from the Accountant to Payroll Sorted. Everyone in the “chain” is a data controller for the data they are processing.“CONSENT”

No “consent” is required from any individual for any processing conducted on behalf of an Accountant – Client. The Contract between the Accountant and Payroll Sorted – as well as our Privacy Notice – give all the information required on our processing and security measures. Were we to give more information out publicly about our security measures could potentially jeopardise that very security, so there is no requirement to do so. SECURITY

AS a data controller in our own right, Payroll Sorted is at liberty to decide the best software and security of this software for our clients. We recognise that we have a duty of care of the data we hold. If you have any questions on this matter, then we will be happy to discuss them as far as we are able without compromising the confidentiality.

How we help with this stuff?
 We have sought the input of a Specialist in the field.. we wanted to be sure that we are fully compliant and are looking after data appropriately. We have all feasible and practical security measures in place. We have an appropriately-worded Privacy Notice which meet the requirements of being concise, no legal language yet it contains all the relevant concepts expected to be seen by the ICO – the UK supervisory Authority. Please follow this link if you want to read it.This Privacy Notice is in the public domain and you may share this with your clients, employees or anyone who is interested! Please note that a Privacy Notice has to be specifically tailored to each business/organisation, so we do not recommend you copy it and try to tailor it yourself! “

Suggested course of action for Accountants

The is no specific requirement to notify the end client that a third party has been engaged for their payroll service (whether a “CONTROLLER” or “PROCESSOR” in their own right) however it should be recognised in your Privacy Notice that sharing of data to a third party for the purpose of processing is possible. Individual “PROCESSORS”/”CONTROLLERS” do not need to be identified unless a data subject specifically requests that information.

What do you and us need in Place?

What Payroll Sorted has in place?
In ‘Data Protection’ terms, as the party being ‘outsourced’ to, we at Payroll Sorted include a paragraph within our Letter of Engagement (LOE) issued to Accountants, which reflects the above responsibilities. We have detailed this within our Standard Terms and Conditions of Business, which are issued within our LOE.

What do both parties need in place?
None of the above affects the requirement for all parties to be compliant with Data Protection legislation in the UK, regardless of “CONTROLLER” or “PROCESSOR”. So all parties have a responsibility of their own to ensure they have paid the ICO fee and have an appropriately worded Privacy Notice in place, which includes sharing of data legitimately, but limits responsibility to processes within the “CONTROLLERS” control/remit and appropriate security measures to protect the data.

Who advices us around GDPR?

We went out and sought the input of a Specialist in the field of GDPR.. we wanted to be sure that we were fully compliant, looking after data appropriately and that we understood the relashionsip in regards to GDPR between us and you guys.

So we used Robyn Banks, at Advista. Roybn helped us pull together the necessary GDPR documentation and to understand what is needed to be in place. We highly recommend her services for anyone needing support in this area. https://adavista.com/about-us/

Client Data

Data Security
RELIABILITY

We have in place the latest technology in terms of firewalls, anti-virus software and password protection. Our failsafe backup system gives you piece of mind that client business-critical data is always protected. Updates are performed regularly to make sure we always have the latest security updates.

We limit every single employee to data access depending on their job and all our computers are password protected to make sure no one else can access key data.

We are HMRC compliant – the software that we use is fully HMRC approved.

SECURITY

Our servers are hosted in a secure UK location where only a few people have access to. This ensures not everybody can access the data.

All client data is stored in Europe’s most secure data centre ‘The Bunker’ as we like to call it.

Cloud2Me Hosted Platform

We use cloud2me for our managed IT serviecs.

View our FREE Stuff page to find out more about our decision to outsource our IT requirements to those guys.

But why? multiple reasons really but as we scaled up our business, we knew our existing ways of handling IT wasn’t going to be good enough both in regards to data & Internet security but also for the growing remote workforce.

It also means we have access from anywhere on any device if we ever need it.

Physical location of our servers

Our servers are hosted by cloud2me systems which are kept in 2 of the most secure places in the world – they are state of the art nuclear bomb-proof bunkers which were designed to protect command and control systems in the event of an attack. Both Data Centres are ISO27001 and PCI DSS compliant

  • Purpose built armored nuclear bomb proof bunkers
  • 3.5m high perimeter fence
  • 3m thick reinforced concrete walls
  • 24/7/365 on-site security (ex-military & police)
  • Solid steel doors
  • MOD trained guard dogs
  • CCTV with 24 hour recording
  • No unescorted access
ICO Certification

We are ICO registered. Click the logo to see our ICO registration certificate.

Cyber Essentials Certification
Cyber Essentials Certified
Cyber Certificate
Click to view

What is Cyber Essentials?

Cyber Essentials is a government backed certification scheme that helps a business, no matter what its size, to protect itself from the most common types of cyber attacks


Why we wanted the Cyber Essentials Certification?

First off it was peace of mind for us, we wanted to make sure that we had the right security, privacy management and policies in place.

But also for YOU (our clients) this certification hopefully gives the reassurance to our customers and clients that we take IT security seriously and have this independently assessed.


So what was involved in the process?

In simple terms the requirement is to complete a lengthy questionnaire and for this to be assessed by IASME, an independent organisation. On the face of it this sounds pretty straight forward until you really get into it… so we reached out to the experts.

We were helped through the application process by the team at Get Cyber Certified who are cyber experts, their supported package is ideal for organisations who need a little bit of hand holding

Check out their website at www.getcybercertified.co.uk 

Here’s Some Other Questions We Get Asked A Lot

(Still got questions? Visit our Video Library for answers)

Will I need to pay for Payroll Software?

No way! our fees include all software costs. when it comes to software we aren’t a ‘Jack of all software’ we purposely use just one payroll software (Brightpay) but we are experts of migrating the data from other leading software into our world.

Whats the minimum number of Payrolls you take?

The good news is there is no minimum! We work with all sizes of Accountants – we have some partners starting out with just 1 or 2 clients, right through to Partners looking to outsource hundreds of clients.

How long are your contracts?

There are NO long term contracts or commitments. They are YOUR clients and you can cancel our service at any time you’d like!, we ask for just a 1 MONTH heads up

What about Agent Access?

All sorted! Clients are kept associated with your business and you add us as a secondary user to your agent portal and assign us PAYE only access – we even give you a guide explaining how to do this.

Can you handle the load?

Yes, we are gearing up to be the #1 payroll provider for UK Accountants, part of that plan means constantly hiring new Team members, our ongoing recruitment drive ensures we always have capacity coming and our ‘go-live’ pipeline is constantly being reviewed.

Who is the engagement with?

They are YOUR clients… so you still engage and invoice them under your banner (exactly like you do now) and our engagement is with YOU and we invoice you for the payroll service.