Getting Ready for the AE Surge with BrightPay
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BrightPay understands that auto enrolment is a daunting task for bureaus. Payroll Bureaus don’t need to shy away from servicing these payroll clients. With the right auto enrolment tools, they can form the core client base of a profitable bureau. Discover how to increase the speed involved in these types of jobs with BrightPay. Avoid inefficient or expensive AE software and save time and money. Simplify your payroll process and let BrightPay take the grunt work out of Auto Enrolment for you. BrightPay offers a tailored and automated approach to these tasks. With BrightPay’s combined payroll and auto enrolment solution in place, bureaus will benefit from greater efficiency, increased value and improved cost savings. BrightPay is an easy to use solution that can allow you to streamline AE processes to provide a profitable service to your clients. BrightPay offers a simple solution to a complex problem. Agenda: Auto Enrolment as a Service? Automate & Streamline AE Task BrightPay’s Approach BrightPay Demo 7 Steps to Profit from Auto Enrolment For more information visit www.brightpay.co.uk. Guest Speaker: Mike Foster - Expand your offering and grow your business in 2016 What are the opportunities to grow your business without having to attract new clients? The Entrepreneurs Mentor and co-founder of The Bookkeepers Alliance, Mike Foster, will share his observations and experience by presenting the opportunities available to grow your practice in 2016. About Mike Foster - Entrepreneur, Mike Foster, is a mentor, speaker, author and business growth adviser helping business owners to consider, start up, develop, market and grow their own business and achieve success as by their own definition. Agenda: What are the common barriers to growth How can you implement 7 systemised steps to grow your practice Understanding the value of your existing client relationship What are the opportunities to expand? Making it happen with effective goal planning and high pay off activities
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Getting Ready for the AE Surge with BrightPay
- 1. The webinar will begin shortly... Getting ready for the AE surge with BrightPay Expand your offering and grow your business in 2016 By Paul Byrne By Mike Foster
- 2. By Paul Byrne Getting ready for the AE surge with BrightPay
- 3. By Mike Foster Expand your offering and grow your business in 2016
- 4. Q&A Session Questions Tab or #BPWebinars Competition Two BrightPay 2015/16 bureau licences On Demand This session is being recorded REC Q&A WIN
- 5. Getting Ready for the AE surge with BrightPay
- 6. • Accountancy Practice for 20 Years • Payroll software development • Expanded into the UK – BrightPay & Bright Contracts • 80,000 employers across the UK & Ireland use our products Paul Byrne
- 7. • Auto Enrolment as a Service • Automate & Streamline AE Task • BrightPay’s Approach • BrightPay Demo • 7 Steps to Profit from Auto Enrolment Agenda
- 9. Auto Enrolment as a Service
- 10. Auto Enrolment as a Service
- 11. 60,861 Employers completed declaration of compliance 1,800,000 Employers who have yet to reach their staging date Auto Enrolment as a Service
- 12. Auto Enrolment as a Service Employers with less than 50 employees of an accountants client base is made up of: 90%
- 13. Auto Enrolment as a Service • Large and medium employers: HR personnel to help with auto enrolment • Small and micro employers: lack of in-house expertise • Majority of employers yet to stage will not have the knowledge or experience to make informed AE decisions • Information overload - confused, bewildered and overwhelmed
- 14. • Are you ready or prepared to take on auto enrolment business? • What level of support / information will you offer? • Are you prepared for employers coming to you last minute? Auto Enrolment as a Service
- 15. Auto Enrolment as a Service • Number of benefits for your clients • Time savings • Cost savings • Focus on core areas of their business • Training / Expertise
- 16. • By offering a complete end to end solution, bureaus can generate income and enhance client relationships. • If you offer other services, auto enrolment will provide a new platform to reach and upsell to. • Employers will be happier to consolidate all their outsourced services to one person or advisor. Auto Enrolment as a Service
- 17. Automate & Streamline AE Tasks
- 18. 1. Set up a pension scheme 2. Assess employees 3. Communications 4. Ongoing duties 5. Declaration of Compliance Auto Enrolment Responsibilities
- 19. • Modern innovative solutions exist that can automate AE duties • Pre-staging – correct tools in place, register with pension provider • Staging – 1 or 2 hours should be sufficient to deal with auto enrolment staging tasks • Ongoing duties – some payroll software can automate the AE ongoing tasks Streamline Auto Enrolment
- 20. Streamline Auto Enrolment • For large, repetitive or time sensitive tasks, the speed of automated AE offers significant cost savings to bureaus. • Especially relevant when employers approach you close to, at, or even after their staging date. • With the right tools, auto enrolment should become a seamless part of the payroll process.
- 21. Streamline Auto Enrolment • With some payroll software providers, you may face additional costs for auto enrolment functionality and support. • Alternative software packages exist that have auto enrolment features included without an increase in the price and no hidden support charges.
- 22. Does Your Payroll Software… 1. Assesses your workforce automatically? 2. Allows the use of postponement? 3. Customise employee communications? 4. Calculate and deduct pension contributions? 5. Handles opt-in and joining?
- 23. Does Your Payroll Software… 6. Handle opt outs and refunds? 7. Notify you when actions need to be taken? 8. Keep records and provide reports? 9. Integrate with various pension providers? 10. Provide free support?
- 25. Payroll Software • Weekly, fortnightly, 4-weekly, monthly payment schedules • Basic, daily, hourly and statutory pay • Payslips can be emailed to employees – password secure payslip attachment • RTI submissions – automatically creates Full Payment Submissions (FPS) • Auto enrolment functionality
- 26. Employee Assessment • Assessing employees can be time consuming • Based on employees wages and age, BrightPay will automatically assess each employee and let you know who needs to be enrolled • Alert you to what your AE obligations are for each employee based on their worker category
- 27. Enrolling Employees • Ease of enrolling employees – fundamental to AE process • Individual employee information must be submitted to your chosen pension provider • BrightPay makes enrolling employees and processing opt-in requests straight forward • Process opt-out requests, refund all deductions made and show this refund on the payslip
- 28. Communications • Communications – how auto enrolment affects each individual employee • Right information, right employee, right time • TPR – specific requirements need to be included • Free templates – time consuming • BrightPay – automatically examines each employee and produces a tailored AE letter, ready for printing or exporting
- 29. Postponement • Option to postpone AE for up to 3 months • Additional communications required to notify employee that they have been postponed • Deferral date – must reassess employees and enrol eligible employees in a qualifying scheme • BrightPay – automatically produces postponement communications and alerts you when postponement period expired.
- 30. Ongoing AE Duties • Monitor any changes to employees age and earnings • If an employee becomes an eligible jobholder, they must be enrolled into a qualifying scheme • BrightPay will recognise this change, alert you of your AE obligation, and produce the necessary communications • Payroll software should continuously monitor employees in case enrolment is required
- 31. AE Contributions • BrightPay – automatically uses phased minimum contribution levels • There is also the option to use custom contribution rates if desired • BrightPay makes relevant contributions and deductions at each pay period and includes these on employees payslip. • BrightPay keeps up-to-date with minimum contributions rates
- 33. Records & Reporting • Proof of compliance – records must by law be kept for a minimum of 6 years • For example, communications in relation to opt in, opt out, and joining notices • BrightPay easily generates customisable reports for analysis
- 34. Pricing & Charges • Pricing varies across the industry with each payroll software provider • Some charge extra per employee per month – can quickly add up • Some charge additional fee for Auto Enrolment functionality • Make sure to read the small print – be aware of hidden costs, such as support
- 35. Limitations • Some providers have limitations to AE features and functionality • BrightPay has no limitations – it handles and automates the AE employer duties for you • No restrictions to the number of employees • Performs necessary tasks for non-eligible jobholders and entitled workers
- 36. How BrightPay Handles Auto Enrolment
- 37. By Mike Foster Expand your offering and grow your business in 2016
- 38. Expand your offering and grow your business in 2016 Mike Foster Tuesday 8th December 2015
- 39. About me • Background – mentor, trainer, business development • Area Manager for Barclays Start Up Team • Start up of Leisure business in South Oxon • Started my own 4 businesses including: • Own bookkeeping business - Set up 2003, Employed team, Franchised model, Sold 2013 • ICB Head of Member Development in 2014 • Author & Presenter @StartUpDVD • Co-Founder of The Bookkeepers Alliance
- 40. What we will cover • Avoid the common pitfalls and barriers to growth • 7 systemised steps to grow your business • The value of your existing client relationship • The opportunities to expand • Making it happen with effective goal planning and a focus on high pay off activities
- 42. Common Pitfalls and Barriers to growth
- 43. Common pitfalls & barriers to growth Research has indicated that there are some common reasons for businesses failing and for not growing. Be aware and plan to avoid. So what are they?
- 44. Common pitfalls • Not enough capital • Growing too fast • Lack of experience – skill & resource gaps • Too few customers – recruiting or over reliant of a few • Prices too low • Bad Debts / Poor credit control • Poor control of overheads • Poor market research • Competition activity – awareness is key • Poor communication (with staff, customers, suppliers) • Bad management and supervision of people & processes • Health issues of key people • Bad luck
- 45. Barriers to growth • A lack of strategy • The economy and market conditions = demand • Lack of preparation of what is expected • Not finding the right people • Poor / no leadership & people management • Lack of ability of owners to let go • Change management & reaction to change • Lack of working capital / cash • Raising finance • No marketing plan or product positioning • Do not listen to their existing customers • Too busy recruiting new customers, so not retaining existing
- 46. What stops the majority of us from taking action and growing?
- 47. Research tell us: 1. Time 2. Lack of a system 3. Attitude & motivation
- 48. Plan to manage the growth • Need more staff? If so, recruitment or outsource & management • Different premises? • Keep control of the quality? • Relationship management with clients • Working capital & cashflow need?
- 49. The 7 systemised steps for growing your business
- 50. Growing your business "The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together,“ Sir Dave Brailsford Explaining the marginal gains philosophy that is perhaps his greatest British Cycling legacy
- 51. 7 systemised steps for growing your business 1. Number of leads marketing 2. Conversation rate sales 3. Number of sales cross sales 4. Value of sales prices 5. Margin cost management 6. Buy more often sales & service 7. Increase customer lifetime retention
- 52. 1. Number of leads marketing • Strategy – know the ideal clients you want • Tactics – tips how to attract them • Be Proactive • Create lead flow systems
- 53. 2. Conversion rate sales • How clear is your USP to the buyer – what is truly ‘important’ to them • What is your USP? Your differentiator • Know the influencers
- 54. Know the influencers Husband / Wife Partner Business Associate Trusted Employee Business Partner / Shareholder Existing provider Other? Accountant Business Adviser ?
- 55. 2. Conversation rate sales • Test different approaches – say, wear, time, handout, offer • Review & know why you are not converting • Market awareness – know it & demonstrate it • Remove the risk, give a guarantee • What Guarantee could you offer? • Listen & Match – pain & gain • What is the pain & gain of using or not using you?
- 56. 3. Number of customer sales cross sales • Uncover all needs not just first sale – buying mode • Ensure they are aware of all your offer • Credibility pack – what you do, pain & gain, why you do well • Package your products – joint price offering • Link your core product or service to another offering – Internal or external
- 57. 4. Value of sales prices • Review your pricing strategy • Be aware of market movement to subscriptions, technology delivering time savings thereby reducing chargeable hours • Pricing model – fixed, value, menu pricing, • Can you increase your prices? • Set good habit & expectations with an annual increase • Research shows you rarely loose an ideal client • Even losing clients you can gain – new turnover level, time
- 58. 4. Value of sales prices • Up-sell clients where possible – Bronze, Silver, Gold • Reposition your service to review the price or Package with a higher value – from buyers perspective * Water, Lettuce, Shares • Offer payment options / plans
- 59. 5. Margin cost management • Review your resourcing – who does job, need to visit, how often, software used, • Can you cut any related costs – Fixed – rent, wages, professional fees, line rentals, – Variable – software licences (change), travel, insurance, stationery (eg payslips), postage (sending your invoices), cost to recruit,
- 60. 6. Buy more often sales & service • Add easy purchases – software upgrades, stationery, tax investigation protection, seminars / events, • Sell more to your client base – monitor, remind yourself
- 61. Client name Book’s Payroll Credit Control Manag’t acc’ts Pers’l Tax Software upgrade Insurance ABC & co X X X J Bloggs X X XYZ Ltd X X X Son & Daughter X X X X Other & partner X X X
- 62. 6. Buy more often sales & service • Ask more often! • Quarterly client review meetings – wants, needs • Remind them what you do – newsletters, seminars, offers, have a planned purchase path (one purchase to another) • Third party knowledge of your customer • Exceed expectations – use you more • Share expertise with client – engage you for more • Train & Develop your team – to maximise their relationships
- 63. 7. Increase customer lifetime retention • What is your retention policy & goals • Are you communicating • Are you listening & collecting feedback • What are your clients, wants, needs & demands • Delight with greater value than the promise • Keep it personal – not just a number • Obtain testimonials from them • Just do a good job
- 64. 7 systemised steps for growing your business 1. Number of leads marketing 2. Conversation rate sales 3. Number of sales cross sales 4. Value of sales prices 5. Margin cost management 6. Buy more often sales & service 7. Increase customer lifetime retention
- 65. The value of your existing client relationships • Your clients trust you – passwords, codes, financial information, cash, • You are likely to be undercharging most of them (in their eyes) • You may have been referred by another person they trust & respect • You have been asked to deliver a task that has to be accurate and completed in a timely manner, that they trust you to do • You undertake a role they have already decided they have no desire, time or skill to undertake • You have their ear and are extremely likely to buy from you again
- 66. The £ value of your relationships • You invoice your client monthly – Average £200 pm • You invoice every month - £2400 pa • You average retention of that client is 6 years - £14,400 lifetime value • This is before any additional cross sales or referrals from them that create a greater value to you • How much are you prepared to invest to gain this value?
- 67. The opportunities to extend your offering in 2016 • More of the day to day data management – unless do everything already! • Software & Technology – cloud move, recommendation, implementation & set up, training, upgrades • Credit control • Payroll • Auto Enrolment administration and management • Advisor role – help your clients understand the real number for success • Management accounts – but with relevance, personalised KPI’s, sensitivity analysis, • Seminars or Webinars – share your expertise or encourage to buy • Complimentary products or services – delivered by you or a partner with return value
- 68. Employees or Outsource BUT Keep focused on what you already do well
- 69. Run your business like Clockwork 1. Know and analyse your starting point – skills gap analysis 2. Making the time for your priorities 3. Your mission, vision, goals and objectives – with clarity 4. Know your ideal customers 5. Positioning your business 6. Your marketing tactics 7. How to win more customers 8. Make your numbers work – success drivers, KPI’s, 9. Maximise your people investment – Commitment, Ownership, Responsibility, Excellence, 10. Making your business work like clockwork – your role, delegation, systems,
- 70. Effective Goal Planning … you will arrive, but where?
- 71. 1. Define the goal (SMART) 2. Today’s date and planned achievement date 3. Benefits of achieving the goal ‘the gain’ 4. Losses if the goal is not achieved ‘the pain’ 5. Obstacles your envisage 6. Solutions to those obstacles 7. Who needs to know about the goal? 8. Action steps 9. Schedule actions and diarise reminders 10.Tracking methods Effective Goal Planning
- 72. Know your High Pay Off Activities
- 73. Mission, Vision, Goal & Objective Targets High Pay Off Activities
- 76. Tuesday 12th January @ 11.00 am https://www.brightpay.co.uk/events/1026/ Essential Questions to ask your Payroll Software Provider By Paul Byrne, BrightPay How to choose a quality scheme and not get lost trying to navigate the auto-enrolment jungle By Griselda Williams, Smart Pensions
- 77. Switch Today To Get 50% Discount * * Offer applies to new customers who switch to BrightPay from another payroll software provider for the first year subscription only. This offer applies to BrightPay 2015/16 bureau licence only and does not work in conjunction with any other offer.
- 78. 99.3% Customer satisfaction rate 99.5% Describe interface as user friendly 98.8% Would recommend BrightPay 98.5% Satisfied with Customer Support
- 80. Accredited by ICB - Read here “The BrightPay user interface is superb and makes data capture painless.” “The language used is easy to understand and minimises the use of payroll jargon.“
- 81. Questions & Answers For more information visit www.brightpay.co.uk or phone 0845 3004 304
Editor's Notes
- Hi everyone and thank you for joining us today. Just a small bit about myself to start off…
- My background is as a practising accountant. I started my own practice back in the 80s and eventually grew it to a 3 partner practice with 10 staff. While in practice, I provided payroll bureau services for about 30 clients so I have some idea what it is like in the front line. In 1992, I got into payroll software development - A large part of my reasoning for this was make better software than what I was using at the time. Eventually, I began working in software development full time, allowing us to focus on a wider range of software packages for both Ireland and the UK. Eventually, we introduced BrightPay and Bright Contracts. Unfortunately, I can’t claim full credit for BrightPay, as it is written by someone younger and better than I (my fellow director Ross Webster). Today, 80,000 employers across the UK and Ireland use our products, a figure that we are improving on every year.
- So, here is the agenda for my slot today which I hope you will find useful and give you plenty of food for thought. When talking I will often refer to Auto Enrolment or Automatic Enrolment simply as AE. For those of you who have tuned in to any of our previous webinars, apologies if I end up repeating some of the points previously made. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable.
- Auto Enrolment is a vast and complex subject. It would take days (even weeks) to cover the subject properly. At the end of the day, you should not need to have an in depth knowledge of AE. It is up to your pension provider and payroll software provider to filter out all the noise for you.
- The key question for accountants, bookkeepers and payroll bureaus is how you can provide auto enrolment as a service in an efficient and profitable manner. And that is what we are going to cover today.
- You will see from the slide that January 2016 is when the bulk of small and micro employers start to stage. This is the start of the so called tsunami and things will definitely heat up from there on.
- By the end of September this year, over 60,000 employers had completed their declaration of compliance, enrolling 5.4 million eligible jobholders into a workplace pensions scheme. The Pensions Regulator estimates that, over the next three years, around 1.8 million small and micro employers will need to act as a result of AE duties. It is predicted that 78% of these will turn to an accountant, bookkeeper, or payroll bureau. So, you have a gift wrapped business opportunity! And this is business you don’t have to go chasing.
- It is estimated that 90% of an accountant’s or bookkeeper’s client base is made up of employers with less than 50 employees – and it is from now onwards that these employers will be affected by auto enrolment.
- A lot of the companies staging before now will probably have had their own HR people or in house accountants to help them through the enrolment process. The vast majority of those staging from January 2016 will have no in-house expertise. The majority of these employers will not have the knowledge or experience to make informed decisions when it comes to their AE obligations. With the vast quantity of information available, employers are fast becoming confused, bewildered and overwhelmed.
- Payroll bureaus need to decide if they are ready to take on AE business. With many shying away from offering this as an extra service, bureaus will need to determine what kind of information and support they will offer to help their clients comply with these new AE duties. Advisors will find that a large portion of employers will contact them very close to or even after their staging date. If a client does contact you after their staging date and has done nothing, if their staging date has passed by less than 6 weeks, get them to issue postponement letters to all employees immediately. Otherwise they will need to backdate AE back to the staging date.
- There are a number of benefits for your clients who outsource to you for auto enrolment: Time There will be significant time savings for your payroll clients. By outsourcing AE to a payroll professional, your client can avoid investing huge amounts of time researching how to comply with AE. The implementation of AE could also be very time consuming if your client doesn’t have the correct technology or software in place to automate a lot of the AE admin tasks. Cost Time is money as the saying goes. Without your help your payroll clients might choose payroll software that doesn’t have AE functionality. Even if it does some payroll providers are charging an additional charge for AE functionality and a further charge to support your clients through the process. With a bureau your client can avoid costly mistakes and save time that otherwise would have been taken out of their normal working week. Focus on Core Areas Especially for small and micro employers their time is extremely precious. Time away from their business is money. Outsourcing AE to a payroll professional frees up their energies and enables them to focus on the core areas of running their business. Expertise Implementing AE may require skills that staff do not possess. Outsourcing will provide a level of continuity to the company while reducing the risk of possible non compliance.
- By offering a complete end to end solution, bureaus can generate income and enhance client relationships. If bureaus offer other services such as bookkeeping, tax returns, audits, management accounts, etc. they will have a new platform to reach and upsell to this new audience. You will find that employers will be happier to consolidate all their outsourcing services to one person or advisor.
- With AE comes a number of employer responsibilities: A pension scheme must be set up with a qualifying pension provider and this should be done in advance of your staging date. This should not require a great deal of time, for example registering with NEST should take only 30 minutes on average to complete. Interesting to note TPR’s latest advice if no eligible jobholders … Next, the workforce must be assessed at your clients staging date and all eligible jobholders must be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme, unless they are using postponement. All employees must receive communications within 6 weeks of the staging date, not just those who hove been enrolled. You must notify eligible jobholders, non eligible jobholders, and entitled workers including those who have been postponed of AE and how they have been affected. Apparently, some employers believe that if they choose to postpone all employees for 3 months at their staging date, then nothing needs to be done in that 3 month period. This is not the case as all employees must receive a communication within 6 weeks of the staging date relating to the postponement and explaining when they will be enrolled. If this communication is not issued then the postponement effectively never happened and enrolment must be completed retrospectively back to the staging date which will in itself be a nightmare. There are also a number of ongoing employer responsibilities such as handling opt outs (and opt ins), making deductions and contributions, monitoring employees each pay period, and sending a contribution file to the pension provider. Employers, or you on their behalf, must complete a Declaration of Compliance within 5 months of the staging date to notify the Pensions Regulator that they have complied with AE.
- Fortunately, modern innovative solutions exist that can automate AE chores. Armed with the employer staging date, bureaus can now simply enter the date to assess each employee’s eligibility for AE at the staging date. Before staging, the employer, or the bureau acting on their behalf, should register with a pension provider. Again, this should not take long. Registering with NEST, for example, should take no more than half an hour. Before staging, you should also research software solutions to find one that will make your life easier. Staging is the most hands-on task involved, and although it can take an hour or two, it will become easier and faster for bureau providers for every new client that is staged. Tasks at staging include enrolling all relevant employees, communicating as required to all employees, and setting up and commencing employee deductions and employer contributions. Good payroll software will have print-ready employee AE communications based on each employee’s individual eligibility. From that point on it is just a matter of monitoring employees, submitting contribution files to the pension provider and managing employees who opt in and opt out. Some payroll software monitors the ages and earnings of employees in each subsequent pay period to see if any further enrolments are required and if any new employees should be enrolled. Each of these enrolments should only take minutes to process.
- For large, repetitive or time sensitive tasks, the speed of automated AE offers both significant cost saving and time saving benefits to bureaus. This will be especially relevant when these employers approach their bureaus close to, at, or even after their staging date. AE does not need to be a major headache for bureaus and their clients provided they take some time to make sure the right tools are in place to deal with it. AE should become a seamless part of the payroll process.
- Beware of possible additional costs …. If automatic enrolment is not already included with your current software provider as standard, you may have to pay additional costs for AE functionality and support. Bureaus obviously have the option to consider an alternative software package that has AE features included and no hidden support charges.
- Things you need to check with your payroll software provider: Does your payroll software: assess your workforce allow the use of postponement automate employee communications calculate pension contributions handle opt-ins and joining
- handle opt outs and refunds Notify you when actions need to be taken keep records and provide reports integrate with some or all pension scheme provider systems provide free support If you are selecting new software, you should ensure that it is compatible with your existing systems.
- So now we are going to have a look at how BrightPay handles auto enrolment tasks. BrightPay is an integrated payroll and auto enrolment solution that works to automate and simplify the AE process. We try to make it as easy as possible for you to help your clients achieve compliance, while saving you both time and money. We have helped many employers with their AE duties over the past year. We have learnt a thing or two about what is important to bureaus who have payroll clients and how we as payroll software providers can make it easy for you to complete these employer tasks.
- Firstly to cover the basics, BrightPay can handle Weekly, fortnightly, 4-weekly and monthly payment schedules. Also, Basic, daily, hourly and Statutory pay are easily dealt with. Payslips can be emailed directly from the payroll to your clients employees with a password secure pdf attachment. BP handles all RTI submissions. BrightPay automatically creates Full Payment Submissions (FPS) as you progress through the payroll year. The list goes on when it comes to Payroll. Today with Auto Enrolment, what’s very important to note is that BrightPay has auto enrolment functionality as standard and AE is included in the price.
- Generally, the process of assessing each and every employee can be time consuming. From your clients staging date, all eligible jobholders will need to be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme. BrightPay accesses employees’ PAYE information and based on the employees’ wages and age, BrightPay will assess and calculate who needs be enrolled. BrightPay will further alert you to what your AE obligations are for each employee based on their employee category.
- Once you have a pension scheme in place, the ease and speed of enrolling employees is fundamental to the AE process. Eligible employees will have the option to opt-out of a pension scheme within a month of being enrolled. Equally non eligible jobholders will have the option to opt-in to the workplace pension scheme. BrightPay is capable of enrolling eligible employees, processing opt-out and opt-in requests, refunding all deductions already made, and showing this refund on the payslip. A useful feature in BrightPay is the option to process more than one employee at the same time which can save a lot of time if your clients have a large number of employees.
- Communicating with your clients employees is a mandatory part of auto enrolment. The letter must explain to each and every employee how automatic enrolment affects them. In addition, it is important to make sure each employee receives the correct communication based on their individual work status. TPR has also outlined specific requirements that needs to be included in the content of these letters to employees. While there are a number of free letter templates available for bureaus to process manually, this would be quite time consuming to customise each letter to each individual employee with their contribution rates, staging date and personal details. BrightPay automatically prepares tailored automatic enrolment letters, customised to each individual employee, ready for printing or emailing.
- Employers have the option to postpone automatic enrolment for up to three months for some or all of their staff. If your client chooses the option to postpone, a letter must be produced informing employees that they have been postponed. On the last day of the postponement period, each of the postponed employees will need to be re-assessed to determine their work category and enrol if necessary. The option to postpone AE is built into BrightPay, including alerts when the postponement period has expired. Again, it will save you time if the employee communication that details the postponement is automated within the software compared to manually producing this documentation. BrightPay also allows you to postpone multiple employees at the same time.
- Once a client has reached their staging date and automatically enrolled employees, your AE responsibilities do not stop there. AE means you must also monitor any changes to the employees work status. For example, if an employee's income exceeds the threshold or if an employee reaches 22, their worker category will change. BrightPay software will recognise this change to the employees work status and automatically inform you of your AE obligation and produce the necessary communications. There is no need to run or export a report each pay period. Payroll software should continuously monitor staff to ensure that employees are automatically enrolled when they become an eligible jobholder. BrightPay does alert you to such events and prompt you to perform the necessary action, be it enrol or postpone, making your job easier.
- It will be important to maintain a schedule of contributions and ensure you can make the correct payments to each employee. BrightPay will automatically set up the phased minimum contributions levels for you. There is also an option to set up custom contribution levels if you decide to change the percentage contributions for employees. At each pay period BrightPay will automatically make the relevant contributions and deductions for each of your clients employees based on the chosen pension scheme and the percentage contributions the employer has decided on. These contributions and deductions will then be included on each employee’s payslip. BrightPay can make these deductions and keep up-to-date with the contributions.
- Integration with AE pension providers will also be a key consideration to think about when weighing up the various payroll solutions out there. BrightPay is currently compatible with 14 different pension providers.
- There are certain records that must by law be kept, by both the employer and the pension scheme, as proof of compliance. Employers must record this information about their employees and their chosen pension scheme. These records must be kept for a minimum of six years. For each employee you must keep communications containing opt-in, joining or opt-out notices. These records must be kept in a certain format for The Pensions Regulator. BrightPay’s reporting function is customisable to your own requirements for any other analysis that you should want.
- The way payroll software providers are pricing their auto enrolment functionality completely varies across the industry. Certain solutions are choosing to charge extra per employee, per month which could quickly add up, especially as the demand for auto enrolment grows. Others have decided to charge a completely separate fee for an auto enrolment feature, add-on or module. Some packages on the market do have auto enrolment included but the functionality can be basic or limited. It would be cost effective to select a solution such as BrightPay where there are no additional charges per employee or per payroll client. Make sure to read the small print and be aware of hidden support charges too. These hidden costs can add up and ultimately affect from your bottom line.
- Some payroll providers have limitations to the auto enrolment features and functionality they offer. BrightPay can handle and automate the employer AE duties for you. Additionally, a number of providers only allow you to process a certain number of employees or payroll clients before the cost increases significantly. While a large portion of the employees might be eligible, there are still duties that need to be completed for non-eligible and entitled workers. Check that there are no limitations when it comes to AE functionality, and ensure there are no restrictions with the number of employees or employers that can be set up.
- I would now like to hand you over to Vicky for a quick demo showing you just how easy auto enrolment can be with BrightPay. In this example we are assuming that the employer (or you on their behalf) has already registered with a pension provider, in this case NEST. Registering with NEST should take only 30 minutes on average to complete. Over to you Vicky.
- Hope you love what you do We know you are good at it Pays well - Where marketing and the right strategy comes in – the right clients, who value us and willing to pay for our expertise
- Objective is to increase the clients buying lifetime What is your retention policy & goals? – keep for life or train the client to do themselves? How do you retain the habit of buying from you Communication – Direct (call them) and InDirect (email newsletter with all contacts) Collect feedback – know in advance they are still delighted Deliver more value than you promised If given you a testimonial and declared their support to you, then more likely to stay loyal to you (or could be embarrassing for them!)
- So who has the urge or desire to grow the business further May be the market is growing fast for you OR your business is stagnating
- So who has the urge or desire to grow the business further May be the market is growing fast for you OR your business is stagnating
- First plan before we look at how to drive growth. Are you structured to manage the growth. Last thing want is for it to collapse the business Control & manage the quality – controls & checks = right people in the right places – are you best in sales, admin, with clients etc How will you continue to manage relationships with your clients – ensure with your business, not the bookkeeper you employ has the relationship What will be your cash requirements – forecast the impact of growth as it surprises many people Word of warning – good to diversify, but if growth due to your core business, then keep focused on this
- So what was covered last year? What is your marketing plan How effective is your marketing – test and measure How do you generate leads AND for your ideal customers What resources are needed Improve the number of enquiries you receive
- Are you testing different approaches Time – do your customers buy more before distracted from days activity or more relaxed at end of day or prefer a lunch? Keep testing until you find what works and use it with practise Do you know why you are not converting leads to sales – review each activity, what could you do differently? If entering a different market, such as a new location or product area, then ensure you are fully aware of this market place, its needs and wants If you know the market and can demonstrate knowledge & experience, then buyer has comfort Listen to what they say they want and match your service to them – use pain & gain
- Increasing the number of purchases a customer makes with you at the ORIGINAL point of sale Don’t be satisfied with JUST the first sale, want more and plan for more! Uncover all their needs now – they are in buying mode Can you make additional cross sales All you offer – may have been referred for bookkeeping, so not told you can do X, Y or Z? Package your products with a retainer offering – so you want Bookkeeping, so can we help with payroll? Link up (not as a package, but an offer) - Is there something you can sell direct or from a third party with a commission that links to your main product or service
- Get your customers/clients to spend more money per transaction
- Can you quote above your desired price to allow for negotiation or to receive a premium Reposition – increase the perceived value Up-Sell – can you offer a range of services and price related and move them up the charge chart Can you package your products and services together to increase the value Perceived value – way it is packaged Bottle of water – bottled, packaged and sell at £1 instead of minimal cost from a spring Lettuce – cut up fresh and washed – packaged for convenience at a higher price Shares – single share of a few pounds, purchased, framed and packaged as a gift Buying more may be concern with cashflow - Payment plans to make more expensive packages more affordable eg a forecast, quarterly management accounts spread over monthly payments Your ideal customer is likely to value you and pay the higher prices
- Review your resourcing and look at cost savings available e.g. I know many bookkeepers that have changed their preferred software packages
- What can you do to help the customer buy more regularly from you? Not just the once Similar to encouraging the number of sales earlier – however strong link to service this time Your product range – add easy purchases such as reselling software upgrades? your investment
- My simple tool to keep focused on the opportunities
- Remind them - Communicate with newsletters, customer only offers, plan a purchase path for your clients so they buy one thing and then the next, make presentations to your existing clients on your offering Third party – referral does not end after first purchase – your client may not tell you as they may not think you can help, so will someone like the accountant think of you? What are you doing to ensure they do? Meet the referrer regularly to share with them case studies of your work and discuss your mutual clients Exceed expectations – I had a meeting with a client and said honestly it would cost him more for me to do that compared to his accountant. Respected the honesty, that exceeded his expectations and I now have more than I was asked to speak about first time around
- Objective is to increase the clients buying lifetime What is your retention policy & goals? – keep for life or train the client to do themselves? How do you retain the habit of buying from you Communication – Direct (call them) and InDirect (email newsletter with all contacts) Collect feedback – know in advance they are still delighted Deliver more value than you promised If given you a testimonial and declared their support to you, then more likely to stay loyal to you (or could be embarrassing for them!)
- Exercise – What activities do you need to undertake to achieve your targets? Profits are then a consequence BUT keep the focus that a business is about making money
- Here are a few interesting statistics from a recent customer survey.