How do you get payroll wrong?

Own_Worst_Enermy

Just looking at my bank statement and I realise latest payday it now looks like I've possibly been over paid - what ended up in my bank is wrong to what is showing on physical pay slip omg - I intend to tell work at the earliest, but meantime was wondering or just curious how do you get payroll wrong when as a department we sign in and out on automated machinery??


Can I ask to for a breakdown of how my hours have come to the amount shown on the payslip which seems under at this stage - I've got a couple of queries that includes being delayed to start the job which the employer said they would honour and pay as was their request which I'm now thinking may not have been clocked in and out obviously, neither was this put in writing and I can't tell if that is on the payslip plus we also had paydate changed (but not the cut off date as far as I can know).


Some work colleagues apparently had been underpaid all to varying levels oh boy - is it that they have got us all mixed up?

dawyldthing

You could be getting someone else's wages, happened to me once with overtime

Fionabell

Did you find out who's wages you got - you could see if they got paid more than you ha ha

asajj

Payroll is a complex process and can easily go wrong. Machines make little difference to it :P

andygb

asajj wrote: »

Payroll is a complex process and can easily go wrong. Machines make little difference to it :P

I do not agree.
Payroll is very simple, providing that you spend a bit of money installing the correct system, pay for the updates (from HMRC), train the staff correctly - send them away to a one day course, and then keep good, logical records.
I was trained on Sage 12 years ago, because I took over from an inept person who kept tax tables, and suggested to the senior partner that things had to change.
I went on a one day course, got back to the office, installed the software, input the employee details and everything went well, apart from the adjustments to pay, which were down to the previous person's incorrect calculations.

Own_Worst_Enermy

Fionabell wrote: »

Did you find out who's wages you got - you could see if they got paid more than you ha ha

Read again.. turns out most of my colleagues were underpaid considerably more than I received overpaid.


They said it was a system error, agreement quickly came to, because I lost any will to contest and no-body could explain how hours were tallied, I don't imagine it's the last we'll hear of it, I expect next payday I'll be double underpaid so intend to leave an address.


Sorry to disappoint, we are all on same hourly rate (except the supers) as we were all interviewed together, if there are any backhanders or rises going on it will be if I leave as I was dumb enough to work the undesirable hours so really Love really is all around!

pelirocco

andygb wrote: »

I do not agree.
Payroll is very simple, providing that you spend a bit of money installing the correct system, pay for the updates (from HMRC), train the staff correctly - send them away to a one day course, and then keep good, logical records.
I was trained on Sage 12 years ago, because I took over from an inept person who kept tax tables, and suggested to the senior partner that things had to change.
I went on a one day course, got back to the office, installed the software, input the employee details and everything went well, apart from the adjustments to pay, which were down to the previous person's incorrect calculations.

Entering the details on sage is relatively simple, as far as sage payroll can ever be straightforward ( many years of using it has left mental scars lol )

The difficult bit is getting staff to clock in and out And or fill in time sheets out correctly !
We outsource our payroll these days but the collecting and collating the information causes a few staff to bang their heads on their desks through out the month lol.

Mupette

well the global company i work for has either underpaid or completely miss off SSP twice in 6 months so yeah must be difficult, they cant even tell me how much ssp is left, all because i am part time, i think they find pro rata challenging

Own_Worst_Enermy

I only checked when an interviewer made some sort of reference to mucking peoples wages up as being the quickest way to lose workers.

asajj

andygb wrote: »

I do not agree.
Payroll is very simple, providing that you spend a bit of money installing the correct system, pay for the updates (from HMRC), train the staff correctly - send them away to a one day course, and then keep good, logical records.
I was trained on Sage 12 years ago, because I took over from an inept person who kept tax tables, and suggested to the senior partner that things had to change.
I went on a one day course, got back to the office, installed the software, input the employee details and everything went well, apart from the adjustments to pay, which were down to the previous person's incorrect calculations.

Surely albeit depending on the company size

engineer_amy

andygb wrote: »

I do not agree.
Payroll is very simple, providing that you spend a bit of money installing the correct system, pay for the updates (from HMRC), train the staff correctly - send them away to a one day course, and then keep good, logical records.
I was trained on Sage 12 years ago, because I took over from an inept person who kept tax tables, and suggested to the senior partner that things had to change.
I went on a one day course, got back to the office, installed the software, input the employee details and everything went well, apart from the adjustments to pay, which were down to the previous person's incorrect calculations.

Payroll is easy, except when:

• Company is very large and there is a lot of data to input
• Differing pay periods
• Variable hours week on week and /or commissions, not just fixed salary amounts
• Poor timekeeping system maybe not registering all clock in/clock outs so you have to go back and check manual records, or providing the data in raw format that needs some work before actually being processed
• Only receiving a large number of time sheets just before your deadline so your usual checking procedures are not always done to the standard that you want them to be
• Getting different versions of a paper timesheet for the same person for the same week and having to work out which is correct
• Variable hourly rates depending on shifts, department
• The person dealing with the payroll is also responsible for other aspects of accounts or HR and is getting pulled in different directions.
• The supervisors have agreed to pay Jimmy double time for working an extra shift but haven't passed it on to the payroll department
• You have to deal with numerous forms from HMRC, jobseekers allowance forms, providing details on individuals being investigated, attachment of earnings for CSA etc
• Spending time answering staff queries about payments, deductions, tax, NI, BIK etc and then do it all over again because they believe they shouldn't be paying tax!
• Doing various checks and balances, control accounts to ensure people are getting paid.
• Dealing with SSP, SMP etc and being able to explain to the employee how it is calculated, pro-rating entitlements and maintaining holiday records
• Having to administer the auto-enrolment for pensions and explain to the employees why they are having a deduction for it, because they haven't read the last six letters or memos you sent them.

Payroll is not just as straight forward as entering a few hours into sage.
I also disagree that a 1 day course is sufficient to prepare you for being a payroll clerk. the one day course will show you how to enter data onto sage, print your reports and get the info to HMRC. But what happens when you get a query on tax? Do you just say "well that's what sage says so it must be correct?" or could you manually work through someones pay record and show exactly where the figures for tax and NI come from? I bet your predecessor using the tax tables could.
You need to be able to keep on top of changes in legislation, software changes, big changes like pensions and be able to understand how they are calculated.