Surviving payroll year end

For payroll practitioners, the period April to July can seem like you are on a hamster wheel. There is a list of year end tasks that need to be completed (reporting final RTI submissions, issuing P60s, checking client eligibility for things like Employment Allowance and Small Employer Relief in the new tax year, issuing P11Ds etc). All these tasks need to be managed alongside managing the usual payroll runs. With experience, these tasks can get easier with each year and can be completed fairly quickly.

However, in recent years, the pace of change in payroll legislation has increased, meaning that in addition to the usual/routine tasks, there is the added burden of legislative changes to deal with. Some changes, such as changing pension contribution rates for example, have a one-off impact on workflow and affect the majority of employers in a similar way. Others however, require a bit more attention and a bespoke solution. For example, from 6th April 2019, employers are required to show hours on payslips for employees whose pay varies according to hours worked. That sounds straightforward if an employee is paid an hourly rate. However, we currently have a few clients that pay some of their employees on a net pay basis (i.e. the client specifies the net pay to be paid and this is grossed up to work out the tax, NI and pension due). These employees’ pay also varies according to the hours worked. Therefore, with effect from the first pay period after 6th April 2019, we had to make sure that
a) we made the affected employers aware of the changes and
b) we had a system in place that showed the hours worked on the payslip as required by legislation at no extra cost or administrative burden to the employer.

When it comes to implementing global changes that affect all employers in the same way, any average payroll practitioner can do that. However, when it comes to changes that require a bespoke solution, only the most capable practitioners will take the time and effort to provide a solution that meets the compliance requirements. I pride myself in making sure that Questfp always falls in the latter category.