Payroll & People
Payroll Bureau Support
Payroll is the least forgiving work in a practice. It runs to a fixed date, it affects people's pay, and an error is visible immediately to everyone. It is also highly systematised, which makes it well suited to a disciplined delivery team with a second checker on every run.
- Accountancy practices
- UK businesses
The problem
Zero tolerance, every single cycle
A payroll bureau cannot have a quiet month. Every pay date is a hard deadline with an FPS attached, and the consequences of missing one land on the client's staff. Holding enough in-house capacity to absorb illness, holiday and turnover across every pay cycle is expensive — and single-person dependency is a genuine business risk.
- RTI penalties apply from the first late submission for most employers.
- Auto-enrolment duties, re-enrolment and pension uploads add a second compliance layer.
- April brings a hard cliff-edge of year-end forms and new-year rate changes.
At a glance
- Service line
- Payroll & People
- Delivered for
- Accountancy practices and UK businesses
- Typical cadence
- Standard run — Draft reports returned within 24 hours of receiving complete input data. Approval gate — Nothing is submitted or paid until your named approver signs off the draft. Year end — April cycle planned from February, with rate changes applied and tested in advance.
- Engagement models
- Available per job, on ad-hoc hours, or through a dedicated resource. Compare models.
Scope
The payroll cycle we run
Scope is agreed in writing before work starts and reviewed at each service review. Anything outside it is quoted separately rather than absorbed quietly and invoiced later.
Processing
- Weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly, monthly and annual payroll runs
- Starters, leavers, P45s and new-starter declarations
- Statutory payments — SSP, SMP, SPP, ShPP, SAP and neonatal care pay
- Attachment of earnings orders, student and postgraduate loan deductions
- Salary sacrifice, benefits in kind and payrolled benefits
- Holiday pay, overtime, bonuses, commission and back pay
Submissions and compliance
- Full Payment Submission and Employer Payment Summary filing under RTI
- Auto-enrolment assessment, postponement, opt-outs and triennial re-enrolment
- Pension provider uploads — NEST, The People's Pension, Smart Pension, Aviva and others
- CIS verification, monthly returns and subcontractor statements
- P60, P11D, P11D(b) and Class 1A National Insurance
- Employment Allowance and Apprenticeship Levy handling
Outputs
- Branded payslips distributed by portal or secure email
- Payroll journal posted directly to the accounting ledger
- BACS payment file prepared for approval — we never hold payment authority
- Departmental cost analysis and payroll reconciliation report
Software
Platforms we work in for this service
We work inside your existing systems under named user accounts. If your stack is not listed, tell us — we will confirm honestly whether we can support it immediately or need a ramp-up period.
- BrightPay
- Sage Payroll
- IRIS Payroll
- Xero Payroll
- Moneysoft
- Staffology
- Capium Payroll
The boundary
What stays with your firm
This matters more than the task list. A delivery partner that blurs this line creates regulatory exposure for you, so we state it explicitly on every engagement.
Yours, always
- The client engagement and engagement letter
- Professional judgement and final review
- Sign-off, submission authority and the fee
- Client advice and the client relationship
Ours
- Preparation, processing and documentation
- Internal second-person review before release
- Turnaround against the agreed timetable
- Rework at our cost where the error is ours
Questions
Payroll — what firms ask
Do you have access to client bank accounts?
No. We prepare BACS files and payment schedules for your approval, but payment authority never sits with us. This is a deliberate control boundary and we will not vary it.
What if an error reaches an employee?
We correct it immediately at our cost, including any additional submission required, and issue a written incident note explaining the cause and the control change made. Payroll errors get a root-cause response, not an apology.
Can you run payroll under our bureau brand?
Yes. Payslips, reports and employee communications all carry your branding. Employees and clients see your bureau, not us.
Related
Services that usually move together
Most firms start with one service line. These are the ones that most often follow.
HR & Training
Employment policy, people risk and structured technical training — the governance layer around your workforce.
Read moreBookkeeping
Daily, weekly or monthly bookkeeping kept reconciled and review-ready — so year-end starts from clean data instead of a clean-up.
Read morePractice Support
The unbilled work that consumes your fee earners — records chasing, onboarding, workflow hygiene and deadline tracking.
Read moreNext step
Talk to us about payroll.
Bring a real example — a live job, a difficult client file, a cycle you are behind on. A concrete case tells you far more about a provider than a capability slide ever will.
What to expect
- No obligation and no minimum commitment to talk
- A written proposal within five working days
- A paid pilot before any long-term arrangement