The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 47: Feb/March 2020 | Page 9

OUTSOURCING PAYROLL: Ten benefits to your business As an employer, payroll is among the most important tasks for your business - but running a payroll can be time-consuming, is highly regulated, changes frequently and is easy to get wrong if you lack up-to-date knowledge and experience. There is another option: outsourcing payroll. At Optimum, we have an experienced team led by Tahera Begum, who runs the payroll for many of our clients. Although, as an employer, they still retain overall responsibility for payroll, the practical side is now being handled externally. BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING PAYROLL There are many headaches and responsibilities that come with running your own payroll all of which can be alleviated by outsourcing this vital business function. 1. Saving time. By outsourcing your payroll, all you need do is provide information on standard hours worked, plus any variations such as days off for sickness or holiday, any redundancies, pay rises, taxable expenses and so on. 2. Keeping compliant. There is a hefty legislative side to payroll and many regula- tions that must be adhered to. These include pensions through automatic enrolment (AE), National Minimum Wage (NMW), National Living Wage (NLW) and GDPR. 3. Pension scheme compliance. Not all available schemes fully comply with AE rules. Here again, your payroll professional can help by reviewing the pension scheme you use and advising if necessary. 4. Accuracy. Using a payroll professional reduces the risks of errors, as they are experienced in reviewing the output of payrolls 5. Queries. Any queries from employees and HMRC can be dealt with by your payroll team. 6. Access to information (such as payslips). For employees, through an online portal. 7. Employee retention. Paying wages accurately and on time will enhance your reputation as an employer people want to work for. 8. Professional support. At Optimum, our payroll is one service line of our business, so our payroll clients also have access to accountancy and legal services. 9. Cost. It is a commonly held myth that outsourcing your payroll will be a large expense. In fact, when you factor in the time saving for example, then it becomes a very cost-effective option. 10. Finally and most importantly, peace of mind. By outsourcing your payroll you take a weight off your shoulders. If you have a limited company and you are your only employee, you might feel outsourcing payroll is unnecessary. However, it has been demonstrated that mistakes can be made, even where there is a single payee. At Optimum we have been assisting new clients who historically have been paying themselves and inadvertently omitting to register their full National Insurance contributions. We are now helping them Optimum Director Rob Stokes: “Outsourcing payroll brings peace of mind.” to make up for this, by topping up their NI. However, had their pay been dealt with by an outsourced payroll team the NI contributions would be up-to-date. If you are struggling to make time for your payroll, or have any concerns about being compliant, or simply want some help and advice, please get in touch with Tahera and the team here at Optimum. Call 01793 538 198 or email [email protected]. IMPORTING & EXPORTING IN A POST-BREXIT WORLD At the time of writing this, it’s mid-January 2020, a week or so before the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019-20 receives Royal Assent. Once this happens the UK will be seperate from the EU in a legal sense but will enter a period of transition ending on 31st December 2020 – unless an extension is agreed. This means that UK businesses will need to comply with EU rules until at least 1st January 2021. Significant changes to the VAT requirements on intra-EU trade goods took effect from Wednesday 1st January 2020. These were designed to combat fraud and the UK is bound to these until Friday 1st January 2021, although a practical, fair approach to enforcement is hoped for. During this transition period, businesses also need to start preparing for trading with the EU under the new proposed framework of a Canada- style free-trade agreement, which involves complex VAT applications and procedures. If you are a UK business that relies on importing and exporting goods or services, do you understand how the new rules affect you? Have you started creating a plan for 2021 and beyond? Robert Hina runs Customs Bureaux Ltd, a specialist consultancy which helps organisations prepare for Brexit. Robert is a customs, import, export and international logistics expert. He is skilled in trade compliance, import/export controls and procedures and global freight forwarding. He said,“Many companies will be looking at advice from HMRC on the GOV.UK website and its newsletters. Unless you are an expert, the information is very hard to get your head around. I work with clients to break the process down and make it easier to understand and implement. “This year, SMEs that have not traded outside the EU need to examine how they will make customs import and export declarations post 2020 and how they will recover their VAT for EU sales.” Before setting up Customs Bureaux, Robert gained over thirty years’ experience in customs and trade compliance. He was an officer of HM Customs & Excise for 15 years and after that worked in both the commercial and private industry sectors. In his career, Robert has worked for JPMorgan on the Ford Europe contract, covered 3M Robert Hina UK, Ireland & Healthcare as their customs specialist and commenced their Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) programme and worked for Fisher Scientific UK Ltd as the European Trade Compliance Manager. We asked Robert if businesses should wait for any particular announcements before making a clear judgement on how they should move forward. He said, “It is a chicken and egg situation. SMEs don’t necessarily know what they need until some clarity emerges as to the post-2020 compliance landscape. Perhaps AEO will be helpful, along with Customs Warehouse and Inward Processing Relief, but they can take some time to obtain and a simple cost- benefit exercise needs to be undertaken, albeit that there are immediate cashflow benefits. In order to cover all contingencies, SMEs should examine what a ‘No-Deal’ would mean for their sector and goods.” “I think that a lot of scaremongering CUSTOMS BUREAUX is going on and that the future is bright. Companies just need clear plans in place to move ahead. We are only returning to the situation prior to January 1993, where customs entries were required at each Member State (MS) border, such as the German-Luxembourg border which I worked on in the summer of 1992 as part of a Matthaeus Exchange with a German officer. There have been vast leaps and bounds in terms of Electronic Customs Systems and it should be possible to get systems running for the end of 2020.” If you buy or sell goods within the EU or further afield and need help with documentation and or VAT expectations get in touch with Robert and find out how he can simplify the process. Email: [email protected] or call: 07968 849671 THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2020 9