Payroll beginner - training and advice?

Gemma

Congrats on the new job !

My first remark is that whilst payoll principles are simple, their detailed application can be extremely complex, because data comes from various sources, is used by different people (internally and externally) for different reasons, and must be subjected to serious checks and balances to ensure that the possibility for fraud is eliminated as much as possible. It is somethings that has a direct and sometimes massive impact on people's lives when mistakes are made. If HR can't get payroll and admin right, then no credibility will be possible in other areas. You are right to see the serious side of it. 

If all your staff are on similar and simple conditions, then it's likely that the payroll activity can go smoothly, and once you have got over your steep initial learning curve it could become an "autopilot" activity - except of course for when laws change to impact payroll processing  (auto-enrolment for example).

Having had payroll responsibilities during company startup for the UK, France and outlying offices in Germany, Holland, Belgium and Spain I can sympathise with you - it can be daunting.

Practical suggestions?

1. Get on a training course as soon as possible. I believe the CIPP provides a good two day introductory course for nephytes. See here 
2. Make sure you understand what is happening inside the "black box" of the payroll system. You can go some way to achieving this by manually calculating a few payslips. 
3. Ensure that someone else is trained  - firstly to provide checks and controls on your work, and secondly as cover for your holidays, sickness etc. A shared problem is a problem halved
4. Be firm with access to your time when the payroll input and output days arrive - padlocks on the door and "go away" signs are not a luxury. This type of work calls for sustained concentration, and you must get the support of your management to keep your door closed on these days. 
5. Make use of your payroll bureau as much as possible, and ask them for contacts in companies with similar situations to your own - you can draw on a wealth of experience of other people who are using the same service and same tool...
6. Once you've grasped what information is available in your payroll system, put your HR and management hat on to think about how it could be analysed and used to support the business in a broader sense. Too often payroll is a seen as chore with no useful business outputs - make use of the data. This approach shouldn't be on the top of the priority list now, but you should be sure to put it there in a year or so.

Good luck with the new challenge

HI Gemma
Congrats on the new job. I have looked after payroll at my last 3 places of work and its similar to what you describe, where payroll is outsourced but I have to do all the work of putting the reports together to send out then check then when they come back in and pass on to relevant departments. We operate three payrolls UK and Euro monthly and UK weekly and have approx. 85 employees and 0.5 HR with 4.8 in finance.
I find it time consuming as well and even yet I still dread the phone ringing a day or two after payday encase its an employee with a pay query.
However the difference is that I was aware prior to starting that I would be responsible for payroll. My first job which entailed payroll was a maternity post and the HR manager was supposed to do a hand over which would have involved training but she went off early with complications so I had to just get on with it and hope for the best. I spoke to our payroll provider for guidance and also looked at past reports and crossed my fingers and toes.
Eight years on I just accept it as part of the job and I think a lot of company's would view this as HR rather than finance role, we know when someone is off sick, on maternity, leave of absence etc so it makes sense to them for us to adjust payroll. My GM doesn't want some employees in finance to have individual salary details or details of bonuses so makes more sense to keep it with me.
RE training I got no formal training but did speak in detail with our payroll providers when I started this post 3 years ago and also as you do the job every month you gain more confidence and can adapt the reports to suit you to make it easier if you have to copy the info into other reports. I found that our payroll provider needed need a detailed report each month and we devised a form with all employees names, employee number and cost code so that only adjustments were included. Speeded up things at her end too
Good Luck
Tracey

Hi Ray,
Thanks for your advice and your congratulations. The rest of the role is going well, if hectic, but this is one area where I feel very uncomfortable.

I think part of my frustration stems from the knowledge that 3 of those 6 Finance colleagues have run a Payroll before so I cannot understand the sense of giving it to me rather than one of them from a risk perspective. It was the current Finance Director who gave me three hours of "training" but does not seem interested in volunteering herself or her team to undertake any checking. I also feel that as I have managed to muddle my way through it for the last few months, everyone is assuming I am competent whereas every time a colleague comes with a query I realise further depths to my ignorance.

I do have the advantage that everyone has the motivation of being paid, so working from home one day a month has been totally accepted by colleagues.

Thanks again for your suggestions and support.

Gemma

Hi Tracey,
Thanks for your comments and support, I really appreciate them.
I haven't found our Payroll bureau to be very helpful so far and their attitude hasn't always been the most cooperative. Fear of pay queries is a big one for me too!
Yes, I think it is a big issue to me that I wasn't seeking a role with Payroll and had in fact actively deselected roles that had Payroll in them because I didn't think it was a good fit for my skills. I am still negotiating with my manager whether there is any lee-way for Finance to become more involved but they are reluctant despite the comparative team sizes. Finance have access to all salary and bonus information as they process the payments, so there is no confidentiality aspect to sharing data with them - they receive the processed reports every month for their accounts!
I'm sure you are right and in time I will gain confidence - unfortunately for this situation (although fortunately for me) I will be on maternity leave from August which gives me a few more months to struggle on before someone else takes over.
Thanks again,
Gemma

Hi Gemma

When is your year end? I would think your auditors would pick up on the obvious risks in your current system, and they may get a more serious hearing from your FD than you are currently getting. If you are getting all the information together and sending it to be processed, then I would expect someone from Finance to check the payroll reports against what was sent over to see that instructions have been followed.

Does your business have a risk register,and could you find out when and how it is up-dated? If this gets on the register and comes to board attention, that should get the FD moving.

I completely agree with Ray that you need to divert your phone and shut your door when you're working on payroll. You might also think about bringing the deadline forward by a day or two so in case of problems occurring. It will also make your life easier you stick to the deadline - if managers know that you can squeeze in late changes at the checking stage, that will become the deadline they work to. I would also be clear to employees that a change has not been made because you didn't get it in time.

If the payroll bureau you use is not very user-friendly, then I would look for another one. People on here will have recommendations.

It's a few years since I did the payroll - same set-up as you with an external bureau - and although it always felt like a chore, as Ray says, you do get some interesting data and I miss that a bit.

Once upon a time, once found this organisation immensely useful

www.payrollalliance.co.uk/

Hi Elizabeth,
Thanks for your helpful advice and support.
It surprised me that since reporting this element of my work as a high risk to both the our Security and Compliance Manager (who is compiling the first ever risk register for the Board) and my own manager, who reports directly to the CFO, that no one is taking it seriously. Also, our auditors were recently in (year end is March I think) and don't seem to have asked any questions about Payroll either. So far, the mistakes I have made have been pretty minor and easy to correct but they come from a lack of basic knowledge of Payroll principles and/or checking processes. Personally, I would far prefer that our Finance team did the inputting and I did the checking but they seem happy that the onus has passed to HR and reluctant to take back any kind of responsibility.
In terms of compliance with providing data, I had already set the dates early (Outlook calendar reminders every month) and so far all of the managers have been very good with providing me with the information needed and understanding if they have missed the deadlines. Payroll day is definitely my least favourite day of the month and I feel pretty knackered after 6 hours straight of inputting data and calculations. In Belbin terms, I have very low Completer Finisher so I am really having to try hard to concentrate and keep motivating myself. It is really the fear and potential consequences of getting it wrong for staff that keeps me going.
My manager seems happy for me to go on the course Ray kindly suggested so perhaps having a bit more knowledge will make me feel less anxious? I've taken on lots of new areas of work in the past and generally enjoy learning, but none so technical with so little instruction or hand-over.
Kind regards,
Gemma

Thanks David, I will look into that.
Kind regards,
Gemma

If you can't get Finance to get involved in the process, could you get your manager to check the payroll reports? This isn't just about catching errors you might make but also checking that the payroll bureau has interpreted your instructions correctly and acted on them. They are only human too. We had an instance where we put someone down on the payroll summary as a leaver and the payroll bureau paid them again the following month.

If things do go wrong, did you know there is a window after the BACS tape has gone when you can do a BACS recall? I am probably using hopelessly out of date terminology, but whoever is responsible for your bank account should be able to enlarge on this. I mention this because if your system works the same as ours, it is a safety net that you might not have been aware was there. Our payroll bureau sends or triggers the BACS but our Finance team can organise the recall.

As you have a Compliance Manager, are you FCA regulated? I ask because I'm wondering about what levers you have to pull on.

Hi Elizabeth,
Thanks for your suggestion. My manager is based in the Netherlands as Group HR Director so whilst she could probably check for accuracy and obvious omissions, she has less awareness of UK Payroll quirks than I do. I will shortly have an HR Administrator join my team so I am planning to split the processing and checking between us, but my concern is that as she also has no Payroll experience there will still be technical gaps in our knowledge. I'm worried it will feel a bit like the blind leading the blind...

We have undertaken a couple of reruns (at a small cost) but I wasn't aware of recalls so will discuss this with our Finance people and the Bureau.

Lastly, no we aren't FCA regulated but as parking technology company have access to credit card data and have to abide by the Payment Card Industry regulations. I believe our Security and Compliance Manager will be raising my concerns as part of her presentation of the risk register to the Board, but as I've already been doing it for three months, I don't appreciate a rapid intervention...