Why choose a UK based payroll company?

Outsourcing your payroll to a high-quality company with a good reputation not only makes financial sense, it also means that you can rest assured that your obligations to both your employees and to HM Revenue & Customs are guaranteed to be met on time.

All of that said, choosing a payroll services provider isn’t always quite as straightforward as it might seem. One of the biggest considerations when choosing the right provider is whether to choose a UK payroll company or consider whether an offshore company might work for you. In response to this consideration, in our view, the definitive answer is that it’s essential to plump for a company that is UK based in order to get the level of service you expect and deserve.

What exactly is an offshore payroll company?

An offshore payroll company is a payroll services provider that promises to look after your payroll at a distance. The difference however between a UK based and an offshore payroll services provider is that the offshore provider could be based in India, Africa or the United States. Does that really matter, you may ask? In our view, and most cases, “yes”, it really does matter.

Technology has made the world a very small place, but no matter how good technological links have become, they don’t overcome cultural divides, language barriers and global time differences. It may well be that these countries offer cheaper labour and cheaper premises which mean significant cost saving opportunities for the payroll services provider, but these savings aren’t always passed on to you, the end user as compensation for the cultural, language and time challenges you’re likely to come up against. Add to this, the lack of any guarantee that an offshore payroll services provider is fully conversant and up to date with UK payroll legislation and it becomes clear that the trade off between a slight cost saving and the potential downside becomes hard to justify.

The advantages of a UK based payroll company

There is no doubt that with a well-reputed, UK based payroll company, you’ll be able to rest assured that they’re up to date with UK payroll legislation, that they’ll speak your language and that you won’t suffer from global time differences. What’s more, you can be more certain about the capability, training and expertise of a company that’s trading on home soil, with all the necessary insurances and procedures in place to make sure they deliver. In short, working with a homegrown company means that you won’t risk nasty surprises when it comes to misunderstandings and missed deadlines. That said, not all UK payroll companies are the same, so do invest the necessary time to track down the company that truly speaks your language and truly wants to understand your business. For example, if you are responsible for a school or academy then Payplus has a specialist team dealing with school and academy payrolls.

If you’d like to explore the possibility of outsourcing your payroll to Payplus, why not get in touch? At the end of the day, it costs nothing to chat and you might just be pleasantly surprised at what you’ll get for your investment.