National Payroll week was established in 1998 to celebrate the payroll profession and those individuals who keep the UK paid. It raises the profile and importance of those working in payroll and demonstrates the impact that payroll professionals have. In 2021, £249 billion was collected in Income Tax and National Insurance contributions (‘NICs’) through payroll to support government initiatives.
Payroll is a business-critical function. When employees are not paid correctly, it can cause great anxiety, it can plunge an employee into debt and it damages both individual well-being and company productivity.
As reported in The Guardian in mid-July 2022, the FTSE 100 retailer, Next, apologised to staff for underpayment of salaries, both for weekly and monthly paid staff, that dated back to February 2022. Next had engaged a new payroll services provider and they had problems with implementation of the system that had resulted in underpayment of the salaries of some of its 43,000 staff.
Earlier in the year, it was reported that the external payroll provider of the supermarket chain, Asda, had made nearly 11,000 errors in previous months. The salaries of 5,500 employees were affected by the error.
How PayCaptain makes payroll easier for employers
PayCaptain is built on Automated Intelligence Technology to capture payroll changes and ensure that the types of mistakes that effected Next and Asda employees can’t happen.
Says Simon Bocca, CEO and Founder of PayCaptain, “The number one rule of payroll is to ensure all employees are paid accurately and on time. The reality is this is the minimum requirement we should expect.”
PayCaptain is a payroll services provider that puts employees front and centre and supports the employer during the whole process. The company was founded and the solution built because Simon believes that being paid is about more than just a business administration task.
Payroll shouldn’t simply pay money into an employee’s bank account once a month and produce a poorly designed payslip, which recipients often can’t understand. Many employees struggle to have their payslips relate to their needs and many can’t access their payslips online. PayCaptain has changed this.
PayCaptain is a fully outsourced Cloud-based payroll services provider. Payroll outsourcing is where a company engages an external service provider to manage all their payroll services. The payroll company will be staffed by professional payroll experts who are up to date with the legislation needed for managing employees and the business.
Outsourced payroll companies make sure employees are paid correctly, on time and that the correct deductions are made from their gross pay. They can also make payments to HMRC and to any service providers for employee benefits, such as private healthcare, pensions or gym memberships. It is imperative that outsourced payroll companies build in checks and balances to capture changes to employees pay including salary increases and deductions.
How does PayCaptain help employees?
PayCaptain was designed and built to provide payroll services to all employees, but has some specific functionality that is designed to help those who are on lower incomes to manage their money better and build financial resilience for the future:
• On demand pay – where companies can give their employees access to payments when they need them, even if it’s outside of the regular pay period
• Payment splitting – where employees can make payments direct from their net pay to family members, landlords, loans, credit cards, etc – eliminating risk of missing an important payment
• Interactive payslips – these are graphical payslips which break down payments and deductions for employees. Employees can click on Help icons for more information on how their deductions have been calculated so they know exactly how their pay has been worked out. Help icons explain tax, NI, student loan and pension calculations directly on the payslip
• Savings - employees can pre-plan the amount to save and is automatically transferred from net pay. This builds some resilience for times of financial hardship
• Money planning tool – where employees can create a personal budget
• Personalised financial guidance – trusted, impartial and confidential financial guidance from Money Helper can be accessed directly through the PayCaptain app
• PayCaptain has an AI Chatbot that can answer the most frequently asked questions raised by employees about their pay. If the employee needs to speak to an expert, they can be transferred to a member of the PayCaptain team for more guidance and support. When the employee calls PayCaptain, their last payslip automatically comes up on screen for the advisor so they can handle the enquiry quickly and efficiently
• Pensions – to make provision and build better financial resilience for later life
In summary, PayCaptain is a solution that puts employees front and centre in the payroll process. Instead of payroll being a faceless administration task that happens in the middle of the night, employees have more visibility of the process and how their pay is calculated. PayCaptain enables employees to take control of their pay and with helpful functionality incorporated in the payroll app, it allows them to make better financial decisions and build more resilience for the future.
To learn more about how PayCaptain can help your business and improve the financial well-being of your employees, please contact us for an informal, no-obligation chat. We’ll be happy to demo PayCaptain for you.
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