Payroll

findingrights

Hi everyone,

I use an electric wheelchair and hire personal assistants (carers) who assist me with all aspects of my life. I have been using a payroll company but they have made some major errors the past year so I was looking to explore alternatives.

How difficult is it to run payroll for oneself? I have no experience in this area, so any advice would be appreciated.

Alternatively, is this something an accountant could help me with?

Hopefully this is the right section to post this in

Robin9

Are you hiring the carers directly or via an agency ?

Using an agency would take this problem away together with ensuring they are trained

findingrights

Hi Robin,

I hire them directly - agencies charge a lot more than the amount it costs to hire someone directly (Usually £10ph gross PAYE cost vs £14-18 ph agency) and my budget cannot cover this.

There are also quite a few other reasons and problems with agencies, even if it would solve the payroll issue.

00ec25

running payroll for a single employee is relatively straight forward BUT you must use software to do it,

HMRC list free versions that you can use, be careful though that some are simply free trials
https://www.gov.uk/payroll-software/free-software


perhaps your better bet is HMRC's own "basic tools"
https://www.gov.uk/basic-paye-tools

you may want to do some familiarisation / study as well...
https://www.gov.uk/running-payroll

Savvy_Sue

I'd say that if you have a methodical approach and can put the time towards doing it without fail when it needs to be done, then it's absolutely possible to do it. However, you MUST also be familiar with some aspects of employment law - which presumably through providing contracts to your staff you are?

For example, when anyone leaves, you must pay them for any leave they've accrued but not taken. And if they've taken more leave than they've accrued, you can only deduct it from their final payment if their contract says that can happen.

We're considering taking payroll in-house (35 employees) and elsewhere someone recommended BrightPay. We haven't made a decision yet but certainly the cost of that isn't prohibitive - and you might find the HMRC free tools entirely adequate.

Mistral001

findingrights wrote: »

Hi everyone,


Alternatively, is this something an accountant could help me with?

Yes. Many accountant's will provide this service. They might be more expensive than the payroll company, but I would certainly investigate it.

I used my accountant when I employed staff and they sorted out problems in minutes which took me hours to sort out om my own. They charged me on a time basis and I think I got value for money.