PAYROLL

brianb10

i have a recruitment company in which i charge a set fee to find employees for locum work. the companies now want me to put them through a payroll system also. i want to keep costs low so i am thinking of getting sage payroll.

has anyone used sage payroll, is it complicated?

i understand i would have to pay gross wage + employers prsi + holiday pay - statutory deductions.
how do you know how much employers prsi to pay as i understand this varies according to the amount of money the employee has earned.

does sage payroll let you print out p45's and p60's.

one thing i worry about in this situation is that i would become the employer (even if it is just odd days). how many days does someone have to work for you before you are open to have to pay maternity leave, redundancy etc?

any help i could get on this would be much appreciated.

seco

Seek professional advice and possibly outsource. You need a decent level of competance in dealing with employement and tax matters or it could potentially cost you in the future if matters are not handled correctly.

oxysept

Sage is a fine system and there are different levels you can enter at that can be scaled up later, its popular so you should be able to network with other users, my finance team use a version of it for +900 people, and I've seen it used for as few as 10 people, there are other systems equally as good.

But another aspect of your post caught my attention...

brianb10 wrote: »

...... the companies now want me to put them through a payroll system also.
......one thing i worry about in this situation is that i would become the employer

It sounds as if that's what you clients want, why are they asking you to run payroll? is this shift in your business taking you into the realms of becoming a Payroll bureau - processing payroll on behalf of your clients or to become an agency employer. Either way you need to research both thoroughly, if you haven't already these sites will get you started, but I'd also recommend strongly getting professional / experienced advice
Employment law & Payroll taxes are not an area you want to take chances on the consequences if wrong for you &/or the employee are serious.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/business/paye/guide/index.html
http://www.employmentrights.ie/en/
http://www.djei.ie/sitemap/employmentrights.htm
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/

Herbalist

Sage have two payroll packages Quickpay and Micropay. Micropay is the more advanced of the two and will offer features such as holiday entitlement calculation and emailing of payslips as well as the basic functionality that Quickpay provides.

Sage payroll packages won't physically print the P45s for you. It will create a file that you use to upload the P45 details to revenue online (www.ros.ie). Once you upload the file to www.ros.ie you can print off the P45 from the www.ros.ie website but you must use the heavy cream perforated paper which you get from revenue yourself. You must also provide your employee with a certificate of cessation with their P45 - you can print this certificate on plain paper from the Quickpay or Micropay package.

P60's can be printed directly from the payroll package. You can print the P60 on plain paper as the template is within the software. They will only print for employees that are still on the system at the end of the year. If an employee has recieved a P45 during the year the system will not print them a P60.

I am connected to the company.

OP bear in mind that a payroll package automates the payroll function meaning that you do not have to repeat data entry, manually calculate figures or pay someone to run the payroll for you. If you have never done payroll before then purchasing a payroll package will not train you on this or enable you to do so.

I would strongly advise to organise training before starting to do payroll. You could arrange training from the company who you purchase a package from or you could attend an independent course such as IPASS or one run by a college / adult education centre / other training body. It will be important to get training both on how to run payroll and how to use the package you choose to buy. Training will be vital to give you the confidence and peace of mind to run the payoll and handle different queries.

Most software companies will include a customer support package with your payroll. This will be important not just for you to make sure you get the budget updates each year but also so that you can ring in and get advice on any questions you have.

Gerard93

You could also check out Collsoft www.collsoft.ie reasonable priced and allows a free trial period plus a demo company. I,ve been using it for years and am happy with it, does comprehensive reporting etc.

thesimpsons

+1

and prints payslips on plain paper so no cost involved of having to purchase pre-printed slips

however, I'd be more concerned with you becoming the employer and all that that involves (employment law, payments, redundancy, maternity rights, hol and sick leave rights, etc). check it all out carefully.

starfish30

as far as i know health and safety at work wise etc.. the companies that they work in would be responsible rather than you... maternity, social welfare will pay it..., redundancy you may be liable alright, it would always be chancey anyway, even if they sign a short term contract etc.. courts can always decide that the employee was in a fixed term employement based on individual work situations...

Doing the payroll is the fairly easy part of it... employment law is the hard part... you might consider getting a yearly HR advice support contract... someone you can ring and they will tell you the law for certain situations... there a few of these around i think.... and they are cheaper than paying a one off consultant every time you have a question