As HMRC continues to progress their PAYE computer system with the National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS), they are expecting to issue 14 million P2 Coding Notices to employers in tax year 2011-12 as Pay and Benefits magazine recently reported.

The problems associated with incorrect tax codes were well highlighted in the national press during 2010, due to the introduction of this new system. These problems have been attributed to a mismatch of information between employers HR and payroll software systems, pension providers and HMRC. The system had to be updated to make sure PAYE will work well in time for the introduction of Real Time Information (RTI).

In readiness for the tax year 2011-12 and in light of previous problems, HMRC issued largely electronically P9s. For those unable to receive P9s electronically in time for the new tax year, HMRC advised they follow the P9X procedure, the main crux of which was to add 100 to any tax code ending in L to reflect a change in allowance. Perhaps ironically, those who couldn’t receive this electronically, thus perhaps the least technology savvy of their audience, were told the full details of how to follow P9X procedure were available on the HMRC website.

Pressure to modernise to leaner greener paperless electronic systems leads organisations such as HMRC to increasingly direct people and organisations to more electronic means. The large HMRC website for procedural information can make it difficult for payroll managers to keep up to speed with all the latest updates and impossible to those who still use paper based systems and manual approaches to payroll. HR software, payroll software, also other payroll solutions such as time and attendance software can all help with compliance through digital updates. However there will still be companies who can’t afford that level of investment, but need that level of processing power. For those, payroll bureau services, or fully managed payroll outsourcing could be the best solution to keeping HR payroll activities up to date.

To find out more about Safe EMS HR and payroll software and bureau or managed services visit www.safe-ems.co.uk and click on ‘enquire online’, or call us on 0844 583 2134 quoting ref ‘HMRC RTI’ to arrange a free demonstration.

Safe Outsourcing offer payroll, invoicing, credit control, all via an online portal. In these times of economic uncertainty and legislative changes, it can be tricky to always ensure compliance with in-house practices. Outsourcing seems to be falsely feared as a solution within the recruitment marketplace Safe Outsourcing is one of the few that is Safe in name and nature for your career. You retain full control of your payroll processes via our secure web portals. All correspondence is white labelled, so appears to come directly from your in-house resources. By outsourcing to us, you save the physical time calculating, printing, mailing your payroll, allowing you more time to focus on developing your business. By utilising the Safe Outsourcing model, you can rest assured that your payroll will be powered by award winning software made by Safe Computing, the company behind Safe Outsourcing.  

Should your business also be considering funding to bridge the gap between worker payments and client receivables you can even benefit from our preferential rates with our funding partner, Leumi.

Use the links below to register to attend one of our seminars, where you can see our web portals in action and meet our funding partners:

London 27 May

Intellect, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Sq, London, WC1B 5EE

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingLondonMay    

Birmingham 17 June

Novotel Birmingham Centre, 70 Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2HT

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingJune 

London 8 July - extra London date due to popular demand for this location!

Intellect, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Sq, London, WC1B 5EE

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingSeminarJuly  

Manchester 14 July

The Swan, Bucklow Hill, Knutsford WA16 6RD

http://conta.cc/SafeOutsourcingManchester   

 Agenda

9.30      Coffees and registration

10.00    Manage your pay and bill processes from the golf course - Our web portals allow you full automation and control from anywhere! 

11.00    Coffees

11.15     Funding and how it can help your business - Leumi ABL

12.15    Close and lunch

Or to find out more now, go to www.safeoutsourcing.co.uk.

Fair employment monitoring
The Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 (FETO), as amended by Fair Employment and Treatment Order (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 , makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of religious belief and/or political opinion in the fields of employment, the provision of goods facilities and services, the sale or management of land or property and further and higher education.  We created this solution specifically to serve the above legislative requirements.
This module can be added to track religions of those you employ in Northern  Ireland, and works totally transparently to your employees.
For your HR teams, this module allows for data collection, so your business is able to demonstrate equality in terms of employment.
This allows your business to anonymously track levels of one religion and of another, so you can keep and demonstrate when questioned, a healthy balance.
To find out more about adding our FETO module to your Safe EMS solution, please contact your account manager or visit www.safe-ems.co.uk and use our ‘enquire online’ link. 

Penserver interface
Our penserver interface solution for Safe EMS assists with calculations of pensions for government agencies employees. This tool provides an interface for files of data relating to pensions, and the interface allows the product user to extract the correct information in the correct file format as requested by law. Laws surrounding government pensions are very specific, and file formats are defined within the law. Our penserver interface automatically populates the Safe EMS solution with pension deductions per employee. Captured information through the interface is sent to pension administrators who are usually external to our customer’s business, in a format easily accessible to all, namely Microsoft Excel files.
Some information will need to be manually inputted, for example spouse contact details, however we do provide you with a form screen to make this data entry easier.
You are able to choose the frequency of reports you can run for pensions administration, so if you pay a financial adviser to check these daily, monthly, or annually, you are able to run reports in time to match this agreement. Similarly, if you wish to run reports based on how often the information is likely to change, for example if you run two major recruitment events each year, you are able to customise report dates to suit.
To find out more about adding our penserver interface to your Safe EMS solution, speak to your account manager or visit www.safe-ems.co.uk and use our ‘enquire online’ link. 

LGPS (Local government pension scheme) module

The software is able to calculate average pension contributions within legislation specific to educational institutions.
Our software can calculate contributions based on any point in the year and salary.
Local governments will usually set bandings as rules for schools to follow, and our software helps you comply with these.
Our LGPS optional extra can calculate employer contributions on a salary basis at any given point during the year, giving you flexibility to hire new staff and start their pensions all year round.
We are also aware that part time workers can be entitled to the same pension contribution as a full time worker in these sectors, and our software is able to calculate contributions on this basis.
To find out more about adding our LGPS functionality to your Safe EMS solution, please contact your account manager or visit www.safe-ems.co.uk and use our ‘enquire online’ link. 
 

Safe EMS HR and payroll
Get every facet of your people management business facing in the same direction with Safe’s integrated HR, payroll, recruitment, and training solution.

Human resource management
• new Starter wizards and checklists
• ‘out of the box’ document management
• full HR history tracking
• recruitment management
• training administration
• absence administration
• leaver processing
• org charting
• integrated self service functionality

Payroll management
• UK and Irish Payroll modules
• integrated with HR
• statutory and occupational absence schemes
• hourly, weekly and monthly configuration options
• pensions management
• HMRC on-line ready
• integrated modules P11D and BACS
• variable data management tools
• bureau, in-house and hosted

System wide tools
• integrated Cognos reporting
• integrated EasyAsk, English language reporting
• Microsoft Office integration
• Microsoft SQL server based
• task and workflow automation
• configurable and customisable to key requirements

‘The time we have saved through using Safe EMS is incalculable’ commented Irene Stannard, Anglian Group.

www.safe-ems.co.uk

'Can't I just fill out a standard form from the HMRC website?'

Taken from the Safe Computing travel subsistence (TS) and agency workers regulations (AWR) seminars.

'Will I need to change my front and back office systems, or invest in additional software?'

Taken from the Safe Computing travel subsistence (TS) and agency workers regulations (AWR) seminars.

2011 is a tough legislative year for recruiters

Hello bloggers, Renata Jones here, lead generation manager for Safe Computing.  I hope you enjoy reading my blogs, and in this most recent instalment I explore why I believe this year seems to be a tough one for recruitment agencies. It is only February and 2011 is shaping up to be a year of moderate discontent, especially for recruitment companies, perhaps their toughest yet.

Well publicised in the world media is the period of austerity we are all experiencing to some degree following the impact of a global recession. Essentially a fancy way of saying we are all watching the pennies and tightening our proverbial belts. The recruitment industry has long experienced increasing regulation as a minority of less ethical companies gave the industry as a whole a bad name. Increases in regulations to travel and subsistence schemes and from the new agency workers regulation that come into effect from October, make 2011 no exception to this rule.

Navigating these macro economic factors and remaining a profitable recruitment business can be an arduous task with limited in-house experience, so why not let some recruitment agency specific software take some of the pressure off your organisation? Recruiting software can for instance manage applications, parsing CV information received automatically from web based portals, also known as cloud computing, for candidates to basically do information inputting for you, without a tedious form for them. Recruitment management software can help your business manage multiple employments of your employees within the same timeframe. Pay and bill software can help you process timesheets, pay accordingly, and manage correctly your national insurance (NI) payments. So what are all these miraculous software tools called? Well actually they all have one name, Safe Tempest. From one basic system specifically engineered for the recruitment agency market, Safe Tempest can be customised with modular optional extras to archive all of the above recruitment management functions of your business, letting you do what you do best, focus on the people. Cut down your administration and interview more candidates, and meet with your customers more, building your relationships and your business. Safe Tempest recruitment software is used by most of the top 50 recruiters in the UK and Ireland, and will scale to the size of your business as it grows. There is even a range of optional extras which can enhance this software, and Safe can create custom built bespoke additional modules on request. Safe also offer software for smaller users numbers and businesses.

To find out more speak to your account manager, or visit www.safe-tempestsuite,co.uk and click on the ‘enquire online’ link. If there is a topic you’d like me to explore in a future blog post, please contact me using info@safecomputing.co.uk.

Proactive rather than reactive credit control?

An ability to manage cash flow is crucial to business success, and the control and management of debtors is often a painful task, as a result of manual and repetitive processes. Recent external economic factors resulting from the impacts of a long term global recession, only adds to headaches of a credit control team. An introduction of effective tools to improve the collections process, is arguably more important today, than at any time in recent history.

Credit controllers are traditionally regarded as an essential element in business to chase late payments, and respond to customer queries. However, why just be reactive in this field when you can be proactive? Proactive businesses are generally regarded as market leaders, and those who are reactive are more likely to be ‘me too’, or market followers. The traditional style of credit control is a purely reactive process. You wait for non payment, and chase. Just because that is the way it has been done, does not mean that is the way it should work in the future. There is a better way.

Software is available now which can manage credit checking, credit insurance and risk analysis, through to promised payments. There is software which can even produce and automate chase letters and copy invoices. By proactively contacting the customer at various points in their lifecycle, rather than simply awaiting non payment, this software can automate a more proactive customer conversation. Throughout all phases, every event or process is tracked through credit controller’s workflow with in-built escalation procedures, and excellent supporting management reporting. This allows the credit controller to be freed from the everyday, and time to concentrate on really exceptional cases.

A major benefit of this pro-active approach is that the relationship between credit control team and the customer becomes positive. Most credit controllers traditionally ring up only to complain that the account is overdue for payment. By actively managing the account, it becomes possible to see any difficulties in advance, and work them out with the customer before they turn into a problem.

Safe credit control has taken these concepts of customer relationship management (CRM), and applied them to the credit control function, providing a softer, service orientated team of customer service representatives. If your current processes could be improved using our software and outsourcing services, why not get in touch?

Eddie Stanley, Commercial Director for Financials and Credit Control