Payslip confusion when provider has changed 13 January at 7:35AM in Employment, jobseeking & training 5 replies 212 views

YBR

Hi,
My employer has changed payslip provider at a couple of days notice and there are a couple of things that look odd. Before I reveal my ignorance and confusion at work, I'd like to see if I'm missing something so obvious that strangers on the internet can help! 

The most obvious thing is that the stated annual and hourly salary amounts have been rounded down (reducing my salary by 30p per year and maybe a few pence in overtime each month!). It's tiny, before you say it - not worth sweating over. Presumably this new provider doesn't allow as many decimal places so can't replicate the old one exactly. I'm annoyed that I had to spot this for myself and I think they should have been aware of this and let employees know. 

Having seen that I made sure to check everything and my pension payments look odd. The summary boxes are confusing in comparison to the old provider's format:
Can anyone translate "GCH" - can't be "Gas Central Heating" in this context ? 
It looks like the Employer's pension contribution, but the Employer's NI is shown in a different box and the Employee's contribution is missing. 
Also the amount of "Year to date" pension payments is the same as "this period" while other year to date amounts look OK - Would you be concerned about that, or wait to see if it resolves next month?

Thanks.

penners324

Some payroll software works to 5+ decimal places, some only works to 2 decimal places. This has probably caused the very minor difference in pay.
Not worth spending time and money trying to explain this to employees when the vast majority won't notice a couple of pence difference in their take home pay.

No idea what gch is, try asking the new payroll company 

YBR

penners324 said:

Some payroll software works to 5+ decimal places, some only works to 2 decimal places. This has probably caused the very minor difference in pay.
Not worth spending time and money trying to explain this to employees when the vast majority won't notice a couple of pence difference in their take home pay.

On the contrary, I think it's worth sending a single email out in advance, to head-off the fall-out if just 1% of thousands of employees try to make contact and ask. Some of them will stand on principle and make a disproportionately big noise about it.

I've also noticed that it's the first payslip I ever received without my NI number on it. Seems "wrong" but doesn't seem to be mandatory so another thing not worth chasing.

baser999

In what context is GCH being shown? An amount, a deduction from gross or net? A date - could H stand for holiday perhaps

JReacher1

This sounds very similar to what Richard Pryor did in superman 3

tizerbelle

Sounds like they have changed payroll system but not implemented the change very well (in my opinion).

The YTD figures on your pension should have been migrated into the new system but looks like it hasn't been done (or has been assigned to a different pay element total than that which is being displayed on your payslip.  

I would send an email to your payroll team asking them about the differences - it is the only way to know.