It is useful to hold an overview of the payroll implementation as a three stage process undertaken in manageable pieces. Each piece connects another part of your business with our payroll platform and puts you on track for your first pay runs.
During these stages it is vital that you are meticulous and refer to our support articles.
Set up Phase
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Create the business
You create your business in our platform, enter the details and the name. You need to make sure you have your tax details and banking details added correctly. -
Set up the business
The key settings you will want to focus on when first setting up your business are:
Bank settings, Super Settings, Tax Settings, Pay Slips and Opening Balances.
You will also need to review and possibly add Pay, Leave, Deduction and benefit categories. For more complex pay roll models and depending on the needs of the business you may also want to use functions such as timesheets and rotas. These should be set up at this time. In the case of a change to current processes, this is the time to liaise with other areas of the business that may be impacted. -
Integrate the business
The Integrations page allows you to configure an external service (or file export) for your business to integrate with.
The settings for Integrations can be accessed and updated by clicking on Payroll Settings > Business Management > Integrations.
You can connect to one integration per integration type at a time: One accounting integration, one payment integration and one timesheet integration.
This also consists of mapping your General ledger and creating your chart of accounts. -
Add employees
It is important to enter all your employee payroll information correctly. We make this as easy as possible by providing various methods of importing employee data. This includes the ability to import specific file formats from other pay roll providers (including the FPS) as well as a generic flat file tool for data which is pulled as a non-specific data dump into a spreadsheet. We have video tutorials here. Since this is a critical part of setting up the system, we encourage you to fully check the data and familiarise yourself with the employee record within the platform. -
Add opening balances
If you are migrating your payroll, you will want to set the opening balances for the leave entitlements and the year to date (YTD) payment figures for your employees. If someone is paid cumulatively then it will use the opening balances/year to dates to add to the figures in the pay run and work out the PAYE and National Insurance on the whole amount. Opening balances are for the initial year only. -
Add employee specific conditions
There may be instances where an employee has a statutory payment or court order in your previous pay roll system which must continue to be accounted for. This may also include future approved leave and historical data for 52 week averaging. These conditions must be given due consideration and included where necessary.
Test Phase
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Parallel run the pay run
In order to ensure yourself of the process and as a way of checking the accuracy of the data transfer, a parallel run it highly recommended. Make sure that the opening balances are up to date and that you are in test mode for RTI. This will make sure that HMRC notices can be included as part of the parallel run. Then, check that any internal training or process changes are included if possible. -
Make Adjustments
Following the parallel run there may be adjustments you need to make. Something may have been entered incorrectly or you are simply still learning the capabilities of our system. We recommend that you make any adjustments and re-calculate the pay run until you are happy with the outcome. You can then finalise the pay run.
Go Live
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Go live
You're ready: You have prepared your data to start running payroll with us.
There are some last simple steps that remain, check the opening balances are up to date, turn off the test mode for RTI, allow access to the employee portal for employees if you are using it and inform the business of the switch-over to any new processes. Then finalise a pay run.
If you are a Bureau, Partner, Accountants or Bookkeeper, you will have to repeat this process for each of your clients.