Advice on payslips

jojogirly

We are a small business which relies on an accountant to hand write payslips for our employees in his spare time (he also works full time) The result is our employees only get them every few weeks despite being paid weekly.

One of our employees wants printed payslips - I have been looking at payslips on Viking direct and they are mostly sage compatible etc. We cant afford sage right now.

My question is - If I bought them and started working PAYE out myself would I be able to use them in a standard printer ? And are there any free programmes out there that would allow me to format them. Any advice on the subject gratefully received.

Pennywise

For £50 you can buy https://www.moneysoft.co.uk payroll package which is by far the best for the money, and every bit as good, if not better, than Sage etc. You can then do the payroll yourself (it is very easy) and print out payslips on plain paper using a laser or inkjet printer, thus saving money on having to buy pre-printed payslips.

jojogirly

Brilliant, Thanks for the link. I will check it out

Savvy_Sue

How many employees do you have?

I'm not entirely sure that an employee can insist on having a printed payslip, although having one every time they're paid probably is a 'given'. Someone must be doing the sums: could they not just pass the calculations on to you to either write or type the payslips?

I used to use payslip envelopes when I had 10+ staff to pay weekly, some of them more or less 'casual'. I did the sums myself from the HMRC website, it's not rocket science.

jojogirly

We have 6 employees so the written ones have been fine up until now. I have just made a payslip up on the computer, looks a bit better than the written ones, I suppose for our size the printed ones (sage etc) are just a waste of money at the moment. I guess the sooner I can get all the P11's from the accountant and crack on with it the better.

babiebeany

You don't need to spend any money at all.

I have recently changed from using an agency to do my payroll for me - for 5 employees.

All I did was to contact HMRC to tell them I was taking over. They sent me an employer cdrom which once you have set it up will tell you exactly what NI/tax each employee will pay. You can also send off your yearly figures to them electronically from this as well.

I did attend a course and needed 1 to 1 help from the inland revenue, due to difficulties with obtaining information from the agency, but once that was sorted I have not looked back.

I used excel to make a blank payslip and fill one in each month for each employee. It means I also have a copy of their payslips as well.

Dead easy now!

Murphy_The_Cat

I wish anyone doing their own payroll the Best of British -- in my experience, it is a complete nightmare. When it is just straightforward PAYE, it is as simple as - but one maternity leave, paternity leave, student loan, employee arriving without P45, salary sacrifice, childcare vouchers etc etc get thrown into the mix, its a blooody nightmare.
I've just recently had a Compliance visit from HMRC and I'm so grateful that you'd never believe that I pay someone else to run my payroll.

hjb123

Is it PAYE that you complete for each worker?

I do this for ours and use the HMRC Employer CD Rom which is really easy to understand and I just print off the sheets after inputting the pay details

Murphy_The_Cat

hjb123 wrote: »

Is it PAYE that you complete for each worker?

me ?

hjb123

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

me ?

sorry, not you, meant the OP:D

Savvy_Sue

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I wish anyone doing their own payroll the Best of British -- in my experience, it is a complete nightmare. When it is just straightforward PAYE, it is as simple as - but one maternity leave, paternity leave, student loan, employee arriving without P45, salary sacrifice, childcare vouchers etc etc get thrown into the mix, its a blooody nightmare.
I've just recently had a Compliance visit from HMRC and I'm so grateful that you'd never believe that I pay someone else to run my payroll.

You forgot to mention Statutory Sick Pay ...

OK, I will admit that I never had to deal with maternity or paternity leave, and most of my staff were students so no need to worry about student loans, and it was before the days of salary sacrifice and childcare vouchers. Employee without P45 isn't a problem (give 'em a P46!)

It's finding a cost-effective balance. I didn't have a problem doing this weekly for 6 or so staff (and I had more than that on the books, just that I wasn't usually paying more than 6 in a given week). The instructions from HMRC were truly comprehensive, and the helpline was invariably helpful. BUT it did have to be done every week, and we were desperately short of money, and I was doing this as a volunteer so it didn't cost us anything.

We outsource our payroll at work now, and I find just telling them what's changed each month takes enough of my time, before I start calculating the actual sums. But there are more of us at work than I used to be paying, and we do have to factor in student loans and maternity pay.

The OP may need to consider paying someone NOT to do this in their spare time but on a commercial basis, if the person doing it in their spare time hasn't got enough of it!