Payroll Q & A

Good evening everyone, and welcome to the latest ASN FREE Q & A session with Mark Staton from Premier Training on all things to do with Payroll. If you have any questions, please post as a comment below. Please be aware, if any questions are left unanswered, then they will be answered at a later time. And thank you all for participating…..now over to you, who has the first question?

Natasha Everard's photo.
Natasha Everard So what are the main aspects of a role within a payroll department and how important is accounting with this?

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard Anyone have any payroll questions?

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter Hi Mark, I’m thinking of studying payroll once I finish my AAT level 3 before I take the journey into Level 4. I’ve had two information packs through one for CIPP & one for Sage 50 Payroll.. Can you tell me the main differences and if you would recommend which is the better route? It looks to me that possibly CIPP includes the sage 50?? Thanks Clare

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton I haven’t investigated the sage one to be honest but CIPP is great, I am campaigning to get some RTI in the qualification which will make it near perfect hopefully. Payroll is pretty well tied up in legislation and EU work directives so any qualification will have to teach the same basic aspects. The CIPP learning material is good also.

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter Thank you 😊👍🏻

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard The CIPP course is split into two sections…you will have one exam on the manual section and the other on computerised with Sage Payroll.

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter Thank you 😊 Natasha

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard I am actually studying it….well i started it lol.

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter Lol…how you finding it? Would either you or Mark know the average timescale for someone completing it?

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Yulia Taylor
Yulia Taylor I am sorry for silly question but what is CIPP. I am also interested to study payroll.

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard Most complete it in less than 6 months. Runs the same format where each section has assignments and mocks and you have two exams which can be taken at home 🙂

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Yulia Taylor
Yulia Taylor I am on level 2 AAT. Is it too early for me to start CIPP?

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard Yulia Taylor CIPP is payroll qualification but deals with both manual and computerised. 🙂

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard No start whenever you like 🙂

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Yulia Taylor
Yulia Taylor Thank you, Natasha

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter Yulia Taylor it’s a payroll qualification Chartered Institute Payroll Professionals 😊👍🏻

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Yulia Taylor
Yulia Taylor Thank you Clare

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter Great, thank you, I’m hoping to complete Level 3 at Christmas, but may enrol on CIPP when/if it’s on offer beforehand..lol.. 😊

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Natasha Everard

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Jo Ingram
Jo Ingram Hi just joined

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Tamara Salter
Tamara Salter Is there a qualification you would recommend if you wanted to have a good knowledge and understanding of Payroll? In particular for those looking to set up their own practice and possible offer Payroll?

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton There are precious few qualification around unfortunately, which was my driving motivation for studying AAT, ten years ago I couldn’t find a CIPP or similar to study so I had to go the AAT route. CIPP is a good all rounder covering manual and computerised, you may find some manual more efficient with a small practice.

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Natasha Everard

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton I was payroll manager for a large company in Scarborough and there was only me in the office. Firstly I had to source my data as accurately and efficiently as possible. Collecting timesheets and dealing with the fingerprint timekeeper machines was my morning routine with other reconciliation and admin in the afternoon. Once you had your weekly or monthly data it was a case of getting it into the payroll software and adding my holidays, bonuses, expenses and stat payments. After this we can move to HMRC stuff and update tax codes and other deductive information. Finally we process payroll and produce our gross to net reports and journals, which is where the accounting came in for me and why I had to do my AAT to contextualise my role.

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Thomas Andrews
Thomas Andrews Supposing an employee were awarded a arrears of pay under a court order, relating to a number of tax years. At what point are the earnings received, under s.18 ITEPA 2003?

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton I will have to investigate, I have only had one experience with that provision and the solicitor helped me, can’t remember what we did now.

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Natasha Everard

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard What is your advice on auto-enrollment?

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton The hardest part for any employer will be choosing the right scheme, ie – one that is going to give it staff some benefit one day. I used to work in financial services before payroll and believe a good stakeholder is a prudent part of a balanced retirement portfolio. Dealing with pensions salesmen can be tiring though and it is important to look at some key criteria, which I will do a little post about.

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Natasha Everard

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Yulia Taylor
Mark Jonathan Staton
Natasha Everard
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Sharon Hart
Sharon Hart if a cipp qualification was done after completion of level 4 aat would this meet cpd requirements

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton I will check for certain but it should do.

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Natasha Everard
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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard Would you suggest cloud based software or pc based??

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard What is your preference and why?

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton I was suspicious about “clouds” as I am at that awkward age where I like actual things that you can touch. I am won over though now, I use a cloud for music production as well as accounting and they are wonderful and often backed up and maintained by a reliable third party, rather than my unreliable use of a memory stick.

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard I have used SAGE payroll for years but very expensive….any other suggestions? Suitable for multiple clients?

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton There are some fantastically inexpensive and versatile bits of kit on the market. Quik books is a classic but if you search on line and look at some reviews you will be amazed at the value for money and free year end update offers etc. I shall post some info later.

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Natasha Everard
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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard What steps need to be taken before you process year end?

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton Any week 53 payslips and final adjustments are made, then we can print our P60 reports and do a first run of our P35. In my old excel orientated universe I would dump all my monthly cost reports into one spreadsheet from my month ends throughout the year, add them all together and check against my P35 (end of year employers report). It never balanced, so I would go back and find out why, laborious but made easy with some cunning excel exception formula. Once I was fully reconciled I could submit my electronic data to the government gateway. All this must be so much easier now with RTI as you have to be much more careful with adjustments. I was never slapdash but mistakes happen and RTI makes you check everything at month end so it absolutely must balance at year end.

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Natasha Everard
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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard Any other questions??

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Tamara Salter
Tamara Salter Do you know what the approximate cost is of the CIPP qualification?

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter I think it’s roughly £750 with Premier Training, plus exams 😊

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard Clare Hunter it includes exams 🙂 and CIPP membership

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Tamara Salter
Tamara Salter Natasha Everard Thank you 🙂

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard £799 plus postage

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Clare Hunter
Clare Hunter Aww Natasha I couldn’t remember whether it did or didn’t from when I last looked 😊 so an extra bonus exams included👍🏻

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Natasha Everard

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Aran Taylor
Aran Taylor Hi mark i want to be able to offer payroll services do i need to do additional courses as well as AAT? if so what are they I want to expand my skill set and be able to offer as many services as possible when i start my business. Any advice for a a newbie starting out? Thank you

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton Hi Aran, I have no specific payroll qualifications yet I have done freelance work with only my work based experience. If you don’t have this CIPP or similar will give you a great grounding and working knowledge which will quickly become second nature o…See more

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Aran Taylor
Aran Taylor Brilliant thanks mark will look at doing that once i have finished AAT level 4 and wait untill im competent to offer such services as i have zero experience in payroll at the moment

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Natasha Everard
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Nancy Webster
Nancy Webster How long does it take to complete the course for cipp. Thanks

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard approx 6 months – depends on you really 🙂

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Nancy Webster
Nancy Webster Sorry just seen the answer further up the page, thanks.

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Natasha Everard
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Sharon Hart
Sharon Hart do hmrc still run the free paye courses , i did one when i first started doing payroll, they are very helpful

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton I would have to check but I did one too back in the day, very good, first time I got tax tables on excel, revolutionary at the time.

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard https://www.youtube.com/user/HMRCgovuk/videos

HMRCgovuk
This YouTube channel supports HMRC’s Learning Together programme with Tax…
YOUTUBE.COM
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Sharon Hart
Sharon Hart I dont need one, but the girl who took over my job at a charity could do with one,

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Natasha Everard
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Yulia Taylor
Yulia Taylor I never heard before about HMRC courses. It is interesting

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton There are lots of interesting training opportunities out there. When I was self employed I called a big accountancy in Leeds and asked about there year out/year in seminar, it cost me £95 but we had an exquisite breakfast with some top professionals on my table and I took away all the new tax year data in an array of wonderfully organised folders and pen drives. It was value for money.

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Yulia Taylor
Yulia Taylor Thank you. I will do some searching

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Natasha Everard
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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard Does anyone have any further questions for Mark this evening?

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Sharon Hart
Sharon Hart thanks , that was great

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Tamara Salter
Tamara Salter Thank you, that was very helpful and has given me something else to think about 🙂

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Natasha Everard
Natasha Everard If no one has any further questions then i would like to thank Mark Jonathan Staton for his time this evening and for everyone who participated 🙂 Thank you all 🙂

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Mark Jonathan Staton
Mark Jonathan Staton Yes, ditto, thanks everyone, very enjoyable.

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Yulia Taylor
Yulia Taylor Thank you. It was good and helpful