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Payroll beginner - training and advice?

Gemma

| 0 Posts

30 Mar, 2017 12:53

Hi all,

I recently took on a new role as HR Manager (UK) for a tech sector employer with 100+ employees in the UK and a HQ in NL. Although there was no mention of payroll in the job description, and even at offer stage, it became clear when I took on the role that I was expected to take on payroll responsibilities for the UK.

We have two payrolls, one for 2 staff and one for everyone else.  Prior to this role, I've never operated Payroll before and was clear at interview that I had no Payroll experience.  I have taken over from an HR Director who had Payroll experience and ran the Payroll through an outsourced bureau for a few months.  

The main duties are putting together a big salary spreadsheet with all the starters, leavers, overtime, commission, and any changes and then checking the reports which are returned from the bureau.  We don't have an HR database so I have to use a range of different documents and data to ensure the data I am inputting is correct. I also have to check my own work when the reports are returned from the bureau and forward on reports to various other people such as our Finance team and pension provider.  On a personal level, I find this to be a very time-consuming task (it takes me about a day a month to do the processing and about another day or so a month to check the files and deal with any queries out of 20 available days) with the attention to detail it needs a really poor fit for my skills.  Additionally, I have a major concern about the risks inherent in allowing an essentially untrained person to carry out an important task with no checks and balances in place.

I have a couple of questions I'd appreciate an objective view on from you, my lovely Community colleagues:

1.  Is this normal or am I making a fuss over nothing?

2. Is there some training I could do which would help me in this task?

3.  How typical is it for a small employer with an HR team of 0.8 and a Finance team of 6 to delegate this task to HR?

4. Is there any other advice you can offer me to help me feel less stressed about this task?  Every month I have an absolute horror that I will make a mistake.  The first month I did it, I had a horrendous night's sleep as I was so worried about it.  I have made a few minor errors and I am constantly discovering new aspects to Payroll that I knew nothing about.

Thanks for your time in reading this post and please be gentle, this is probably the first time in my HR career I have taken on a new task which has made me feel so vulnerable and inexperienced!

Kind regards,

Gemma

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  • Steve Bridger

    | 0 Posts

    Community Manager

    5 Apr, 2017 13:26

    In reply to Gemma:

    Gemma - I think people responded to your openness from the 'off'. Nice one... and good luck :)
  • Elizabeth Divver

    | 0 Posts

    5 Apr, 2017 14:34

    Would it be feasible to put the data collation and entry into the hands of your HR Assistant and for you to be the person who carries out the checks?
  • Gemma

    | 0 Posts

    5 Apr, 2017 14:37

    In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

    Hi Elizabeth,
    Yes, if I can't get more technically minded colleagues to join in that is my Plan B and then train us up to a level where we can be better at understanding the rules.
    Gemma
  • Liz

    | 0 Posts

    18 Apr, 2017 11:57

    HI
    I have worked in Payroll for approx 20 years now ( OMG!), feel free to message me at any time if you want, I have run both big and small payrolls, weekly, monthly and fortnightly.
    Happy to help if you need that go to person.
    L
  • Gemma

    | 0 Posts

    18 Apr, 2017 12:09

    In reply to Liz:

    Thanks Liz, that's incredibly kind of you! I haven't really worked out how the new contact feature on this works but if I'm able to give you my email it is gemma.beardsmore@ctt.co.uk.
    Gemma
  • Maria

    | 0 Posts

    12 May, 2017 14:34

    Hi Gemma,

    I can understand your frustration and as an HR of 1 vs 5 people in Finance, I often feel inclined to grumble when I hear someone say "HR team did this" and "Finance team did that" when my team has just me in it.

    In my current role as a standalone HR Advisor (100+ staff), UK only, I've been tasked with doing the HR part of the payroll as well. I would refer to it as "HR part of payroll" because it is not the entire payroll that comprises HR as well as Finance parts. Ours isn't outsourced, so I do the HR changes and a Finance person carries out the Finance part.

    The reason why they give this part to HR, in my opinion, is that we know best whose salary is changing, who the new starters are, etc. as we were potentially involved in these negotiations or otherwise were informed by the manager, or at the very least issued contract changes and other paperwork to this effect. Finance people wouldn't normally know anything about it, at least no to the level of detail HR does as the central point for all matters staff.

    HR here is seen as the central hub to collect all salary, pension, benefit, hours and other changes and then pass on these in a unified format to Finance in my case and to the outsourced payroll provider in yours. This is quite typical for the organisation to hand over this task to HR, and because this is not the "actual" payroll (Finance part which requires training) it is seen as something any HR person can do without specialist training, and this could be why your organisation didn't bother mentioning it earlier.

    I'm afraid there's just no way around it and it is unlikely that you could deleagate it. What you can do, though, is optimise the way you do it - I certainly have to save yourself some time and effort.

    When I started in my organisation, I was asked to do the payroll 11 days into the new job without any handover, training or explanation whatsoever. I was petrified! All those shift workers, sleep in, part time work patterns etc, it was not straightforward at all! But I managed it somehow and it got better with time.
  • Gemma

    | 0 Posts

    12 May, 2017 14:53

    In reply to Maria:

    Hi Maria,
    I think a lot of it comes down to expectations. Having never worked in a company where HR undertook Payroll (in sizes from 35 - 3000+ staff), my experience has always been a sensible way of HR passing the information you describe to the Finance team in more or less automated ways. Here, where I am assembling the data and in some cases making manual calculations (for example, working out over-time rates, or leavers' holiday entitlements), it doesn't feel like an HR driven task but a mathematical and data input exercise. This is aggravated by a lack of HR or Payroll database making everything very manual and time consuming. Also, until the first HR person started last year, for the preceding 17 years the Finance team had managed the whole process themselves.
    Thankfully, since my last message, the Finance team have become more involved and are starting to look at the big spread sheet I use to see what can be simplified. We don't yet have a process where they are involved in checking, but I am hoping this will be in place by June.
    Yours sounds very complex - do you work in the care sector?
    Kind regards,
    Gemma
  • Maria

    | 0 Posts

    17 May, 2017 12:08

    In reply to Gemma:

    Hi Gemma,

    I suppose while the task remains for HR to collate this data, you may have to be the one to drive a shift to using an HR system because experience shows that nobody else really cares how you get it done, as long as it's done. So, sadly, you might be the only person interested in impoving this process by implementing an HR system but you will have to get the buy-in from your manager and the wider senior team to justify the investment.

    I am currently in a similar situation, in that we do use a "blended" HR & Payroll system where I input HR changes and Finance carry out the Finance part. However, the system is not fit for purpose, and, frankly, ghastly where we still have to do lots of manual stuff (e.g. it won't accept salary changes from mid-month and only puts through the new salary from 1st of the month, so we have to manually calculate the difference for, say, 13 days and put it through as deduction which looks odd on their payslip).

    The system is also full of bugs, constantly crashes, messes up the servers, etc, etc. So I am using all my "skilled influencer" powers to try and at least put the proposed change of system on the senior leadership team's agenda by costing how much paid time we waste when dealing with manual calculations and the system's many hiccups, so that it makes financial (as well as common) sense to change it.

    To your question about the care sector - I work in a charity where most staff are office based, however we do have two residential houses and a college with very specific work patterns, shifts, overtime, sleepins etc. which can be a huge pain when dealing with a system this inefficient.
  • Ishbel

    | 0 Posts

    17 May, 2017 13:18

    In reply to Gemma:

    Hi Gemma

    I feel your pain! I had a payroll of 250 dropped in my lap when my boss left unexpectedly, and I had zero payroll experience! (Add in to this equation pension exit calculations for all members of the final salary scheme when we were TUPE'd out around the same time!!)

    One of the things I found useful was being able to do a "dummy run" of the payroll which let me check things before the payroll was finalised, but your system may not be able to accommodate that.

    It does seem strange that you are having to manually calculate overtime, I would've thought it would let you do "8 hours at time & a half" etc so long as there was an hourly rate on the system. Might be worthwhile having a look around for a new provider, particularly if your current one isn't very helpful or user friendly!

    Hope it all works out.

    Ishbel
  • Gemma

    | 0 Posts

    22 May, 2017 14:50

    In reply to Ishbel:

    Hi Ishbel,
    Yes, it's getting a bit more familiar but I still worry about making errors.
    Our "system" is merely a big Excel Spreadsheet which doesn't even have hourly rates for some staff. I think you can see what kinds of issues I'm dealing with and quite how manual our Payroll operations are.
    My manager is now looking into a combined HR and Payroll database for the group so although that will take some time to implement, I'm sure it will be a huge leap forwards for us.
    It's difficult because being totally new to this area of work I have no idea what "good" would look like for a Payroll provider!
    Thanks for your support,
    Gemma
  • Alex

    | 0 Posts

    3 Apr, 2019 14:35

    Employees need to complete Form W-4 to document their filing status and keep track of personal allowances. The more allowances or dependents workers have, the less payroll taxes are taken out of their paychecks each pay period. Note that for each new employee you hire, you need to file a new hire report.
  • Steve Bridger

    | 0 Posts

    Community Manager

    3 May, 2023 08:07

    In reply to Steve Bridger:

    Maybe someone on this thread could advise Chris over here?

     "I have now taken on the full responsibility for payroll..."