10th December 2015
Whether carried out in house or via a payroll outsourcing company, payroll processing is a vital part of running your business. And with constantly changing legislation to keep abreast of, it is a relentless job. Ensuring that no critical information is missed is one of the main reasons why many companies choose to use payroll outsourcing.
Payroll Outsourcing
Added to this, pay is a deeply personal and emotive issue for all stakeholders in a business. It is essential that your workforce receives their pay on time and correctly. Failure, for whatever the reason, simply isn’t acceptable and has consequences that can be damaging to the very core of your organisation’s stability – your workforce. It can also have detrimental effects to your bottom line, from incorrect tax payments and pension contributions through to interest charges from the HMRC.
Payroll legislation – changes afoot
While the main changes to payroll legislation, which happen every April at the start of each new tax year, can be factored into your time management, the smaller updates are dripped into legislation almost constantly. These include changing tax thresholds, new tax codes and changes to tax relief and to pension contributions, as well as changes to maternity and paternity pay as well as to sick pay. The minimum wage is also reviewed every October.
The cost involved, in terms of time to keep yourself and your payroll team abreast of these changes can often be far greater than the cost of opting to use a payroll outsourcing company. With a well chosen, reliable and trusted partner for your payroll outsourcing, managers and staff alike have more time at hand to dedicate to running and expanding the business. A good payroll outsourcing company will be on top of the game, with legal experts constantly looking ahead at prospective relevant legislation and how this will affect all clients.
Introducing RTI
One of the biggest legislative changes that will take place in the next year affecting payroll and payroll outsourcing is the introduction of RTI (Real Time Information). It is being put into place, as a part of the major overhaul to PAYE, to support the introduction of the Universal Credit – which itself will replace six income related work benefits.
Currently being trialled on a small number of companies, RTI will affect all organisations, including those using payroll outsourcing, with businesses employing more than 50 people scheduled for April 2013 and all others from August 2013. From these dates onwards, all companies must submit RTI data at the end of each pay run, whether weekly, fortnightly, monthly or any other – effectively giving HMRC a mini year-end report every time. If a company fails to submit the data they will face penalties.
RTI data includes information about tax, National Insurance Contributions, and other deductions. For companies with less than ten employees, the data can be submitted via the free HMRC Basic PAYE Tools package, but the HMRC recommend the use of commercial software packages for companies with ten employees or more.
At IRIS FMP we are taking an active role in the trialling of RTI. Payrite, our feature-rich software suite is being used as a part of the pilot programme. We are currently working on extending Payrite’s existing FBI module to handle the submissions of RTI data to HMRC. And for companies paying their employees by UK BACS, our UK BACS partner is engaging with the HMRC to create an industry wide BACS solution for RTI, meaning that Payrite will automatically and seamlessly be able to pass RTI data through to the BACS software.
How can IRIS FMP payroll outsourcing help your business?
With such big legislative changes for payroll afoot, there really has never been a better time to consider payroll outsourcing.
IRIS FMP Payroll Services delivers both payroll bureau and managed payroll services to a wide range of clients nationwide. Our Bureau Payroll service allows you to take the strain out of your payroll function while still giving you the control and input you desire, while our Managed Payroll service is for those wishing to fully outsource the payroll function.
Our flexible solutions for payroll outsourcing can be tailored to businesses of all sizes, adapting with them as markets and legislation change. Fully accredited by both the HMRC and BACS, our payroll managers, who collectively have more than 150 years’ experience of running payrolls across a wide spectrum of industries, with key personnel qualified to IPP diploma level.
However complex your payroll, our aim is to become your payroll outsourcing business partner, saving your company money, providing peace of mind and offering you the confidence that all of your payroll requirements are being taken care of, accurately, legally, and on time, every time.
Payroll Outsourcing – Contact us now to discuss your requirements and for a free review of your payroll.
