When you launch a new business venture, the volume of business administration can be overwhelming. Payroll services are often one of the last administration tasks to be considered, yet absolutely vital to get right. With lean teams and overloaded to-do lists, it’s very easy to make mistakes. Those errors can be costly, impact team engagement and even get you into trouble with the tax man.
At Qualitas, we’ve been providing expert payroll services to businesses of all shapes and sizes for almost 10 years. We’ve been exposed to (and corrected) just about every payroll mistake that new businesses make in the early days of trading.
Here’s our insights on the key areas where mistakes happen, to help you prevent the same errors from happening in your business.
People: No dedicated payroll specialist
Payroll is often viewed as a secondary task that finance, administrators or managers in the business can take on.
However, accurate payroll execution is complex. Paying the right sum, to the right person, to the right account, on the correct tax code, on the right date, via complex data secure IT platform, all whilst achieving multi-layered regulatory demands. Well, it’s no easy task. Internal payroll functions require knowledgeable specialist personnel with technical payroll knowledge. If you don’t have the internal expertise, outsourced payroll is a low cost way to prevent expensive mishaps.
Compliance: Failure to meet regulatory obligations
Managing compliance in an ever-changing regulatory environment can be challenging and not for the feint of heart. From setting up the business correctly with the regulators through to tax management and reporting obligations, managing benefits and retirement contributions, and keeping accurate, secure data records, accurate compliance is vital.
Failure to comply can lead to six figure fines that that can bankrupt a start up before they’ve even begun. Avoid exposing your business to risk by engaging a payroll company to manage the function for you.
IT: lack of process, software and infrastructure
As you launch, build and grow your business, keeping accurate data across each function will pose different headaches. For many departments, these processes can evolve. For payroll however, adequate IT systems and processes should be embedded from the start. This does however require time, resource, money and expertise to set up and manage.
An easier and less costly option is outsourcing your payroll. Payroll companies have the digital infrastructure as standard, the very latest payroll software and provide up to the minute data security and compliance. What’s more, thanks to economies of scale, they can usually offer all of this to small businesses for just a few pounds a head each month.
Training: lack of succession planning and the widening skills gap
The payroll skills gap is growing with each year, thanks to the ever-changing regulatory environment and continued digital transformation in payroll discussed above. With no dedicated internal payroll resource and overstretched teams managing the function, businesses can quickly fall behind on their regulatory obligations and become stuck in outdated, cumbersome legacy processes that could be automated with the new software on the market. At Qualitas, we have dedicated teams that are ahead of the curve on regulation and technology. We constantly train and innovate so that you don’t have to.
Cost: lack of investment, spiralling overheads and risk of fines
The cost of managing internal payroll is typically grossly underestimated by new businesses, as you can see from the points above. People, IT infrastructure, resources, training and succession planning all add up to a significant annual business cost. This is before we consider the risk exposure to HMRC fines for non-compliance or the financial impact of employees demotivated by errors to their salary.
Outsourced payroll services on the other hand, are almost negligible by comparison, mitigating your risk exposure as well as your overhead costs.
Why Qualitas?
Why risk falling foul of any of these mistakes, when you can outsource your payroll and focus on higher value tasks? At Qualitas, we guarantee efficient, low cost outsourced payroll services for businesses across the UK. We keep pace so you don’t have to.
Our services include:
- comprehensive start-to-finish payroll service
- holiday scheme management
- absence and sickness reporting
- payroll investigations (including data quality reviews, health checks, technical queries and error corrections)
employee benefits reporting (including P11D)
For more information about outsourcing your UK payroll, get in touch today for a free no-obligation quote.