Agency want to pay via Umbrella co. Was not told this at start.

patman99

Complicated one this. Did 2 trial days at a company via an agency. Put in signed timesheet last Friday.
Today I get a call from a company called 'Fairgate Construction' who wanted my details so they could process my wages as they act on behalf of the Agency as an 'Umbrella company'. For this, they will be deducting a fee of £15.

When I originally signed-up with the Agency, they asked if I was PAYE, working through a Limited Company or working through an Umbrella Company. I told them I was only interested in being on the books as PAYE & under no circumstances was I interested in being paid by any other scheme other than PAYE.

Having spoken to the Agency, they insist that all jobs via their 'Technical desk' were paid via an umbrella company (no mention of this in the contract though). All jobs via other 'desks' are paid by the Agency via their own pay department rather than a middle-man.

Can I legally insist on the Agency paying me via their payroll dept., or am I going to have to register with the umbrella company (incurring extra costs as I need to apply for a full birth certificate as proof of ID).

patman99

Meant to add -

If I am forced to accept the 'pay via umbrella company' method in order to get my hands on my money, can I go after the Agency for the £15 as an illegal deduction of earnings as I never authorized this method & would have not under any circumstances taken the work if I had known about the method of pay.

keyser666

Be interested to hear the name of the agency as I would guess the umbrella company is owned by them and they are tking yet another slice of your wage

closed

is there any difference, they may both wish to take a small cut for the admin required to do your paye/nic

£15/week or month?

androidgamer

well no, as that would mean you work with them, which isn't what they want as they're office/ admin based and the job i presume your doing isn't...as for the £15 will be classed as administration fee's (or something similar). Fairgate Construction aren't going to let you use their services for free, even if you never agreed to this way of payment (they probably need your details to send you a contract)

I got a job as a shop fitter through a recruitment agency (company A), doing the job for a supermarket (company , but was paid by another business (company c) who registered me as self employed but charged me a fee (% of earnings) for them to create an invoice for the work i had done on my behalf and then forward me my earnings:-

from company B, to company A, to company C & then to me...

(your confused...on my 1st £60 earnings they took £20, i never went back)

having had a face-to-face interview at the R.A., they never mentioned once I would be set up as self employed, would require an accountant & need to pay my own NI contributions.

here's a couple bits of information from the (company C) information pack i got, which should fill in some of the gaps you have:-

"How it works
...we act as an intermediary between you and any recruitment agencies that you may want to source work from and because we are a UK limited company your recruitment agency does not have any problem issuing us with a contract.

We are not a recruitment agency and therefore we can simply sub-contract the work out to you as a sole-trader."

"Invoicing & receiving payment
Each week/month that you work, you are required to complete an agency or client time-sheet, which then gets submitted to your agency or client.

Most agencies we work with will let us know how much we need to invoice on your behalf without you having to send your spreadsheet to us.

When we receive the information we will issue an invoice to your agency for the work completed.

We will also generate an invoice from you to us for the same amount minus our fee. You will receive a copy of each invoice by email or post. This is your verification of all the invoices that have been raised to your agency and paid on to you.

On receipt of the invoice the agency pays the money to us and as soon as the money clears into our account we will pay it on to you.

this was in the contract terms and conditions...
“The Discount” Means an amount of not less than 3% and not more than 35% of each and every work invoice processed. This shall be discounted on each invoice from the sub-contractor to us.

LittleVoice

androidgamer wrote: »

“The Discount” Means an amount of not less than 3% and not more than 35% of each and every work invoice processed. This shall be discounted on each invoice from the sub-contractor to us.

:eek:..............

Who?_me?

To be honnest, you will come out with pretty much the same as you would get if you are going through PAYE - it's just saving the employment agency money. Make sure the Umbrealla company is registered in the UK (Gurnsey is a popular place for these companies - do not touch with barge pole if not registered on Main Land uK.

patman99

Apologies for the delay in responding but FiL ended-up in hospital yesterday, so had no chance to get on PC.

The job was for 2 days & the pay was only £136 (as this is a 2nd job, Tax should be deducted at 20% of the total earnings as already being paid holiday pay by another Agency for the days being worked). Even by submitting the max. amount of expenses, I can only claim back £7.40, so will still be down £7.60 on the deal.

The Agency (Prime Appointments) only use this system to pay staff who will be out on assignments where each assignment has a different rate of pay & who are working in technical roles such as engineering & machine operations. All non-technical staff (either on fixed or variable pay per assignment) are paid via Prime's own pay dept. with no deductions for admin fees.

Have read the contract & no mention of admin fees or the requirement to register with an umbrella company. Could be a breach of contract if they refuse to pay me via their own pay dept.

patman99

Checked, and Fairgate are at least registered in England, so not trying to avoid Tax.

One thing I forgot about was that you not only save Tax on monies paid as expenses, but NI as well. So savings for Tax/MI for the amount earned is £7.56.

The agency will accept billing via a Limited Co. and I can register one for £14.95 with one online company. As I am unlikely to bill over £15k, I would not need to worry about an accountant as would only need to do self-assessment once a year.