Big enough that a mistake is expensive. Not big enough to want a call centre, a ticket number and a different account manager every quarter.
We run weekly and monthly payrolls for UK organisations at this size, with a named payroll manager who knows your business rather than a queue. Making payroll happen is the whole job.
Why organisations your size come to us
Most of the finance directors who ring us are not unhappy with payroll in the abstract. They are unhappy with something specific. Usually it is one of these.
- The person who knew how the payroll worked has left, and nobody ever wrote it down.
- They have outgrown a provider built for much smaller clients, and the service has not kept pace.
- They moved to a large bureau and became a small account inside it.
- Payroll is run in house on goodwill and a spreadsheet, and the risk has started to feel uncomfortable.
- An acquisition has left them with two payrolls, two systems and two sets of rules.
- Errors keep appearing, and every one of them costs a morning to unpick.
What changes when you move to us
A named payroll manager, and a named deputy
You know who runs your payroll. They know your organisation, your pay elements and your quirks. There is always a second person who knows them too, so a holiday or an illness never becomes your problem.
We parallel run before we go live
Nothing moves until a full pay cycle reconciles against your existing output, penny for penny. You see the comparison before you commit.
We handle the parts that make payroll hard
Weekly and monthly cycles running side by side, multiple sites and cost centres, shift and enhancement rules, salary sacrifice, several pension schemes, holiday pay calculations, starters and leavers at volume, urgent off cycle payments, TUPE transfers and year end.
Your finance team gets the reports it actually needs
Journal files in the format your accounting system wants, cost analysis by site or department, and whatever your board asks for each month.
A service level agreement in writing
Cut off dates, turnaround times, response times and an agreed escalation route. Written down before you sign, not discovered afterwards.
Akon Security: accurate weekly payroll across multiple sites
Akon Security pays its staff weekly across multiple sites and events, so payroll has to be right first time, every week. Under their previous provider it was not. Errors recurred, each one needing investigation and correction, the administration team was losing hours to it, and there was no confidence that statutory requirements were being met.
They moved to us for a fully managed service covering weekly processing, pension administration and compliance.
4 to 6 hours
of administration time saved every week
100%
of weekly pay runs delivered on time
Very few
payroll queries from staff
Recurring errors have been eliminated, pension administration is straightforward, urgent payments are handled quickly and reporting is clear enough that nobody has to ask what it means.
Moving to Lite Payroll has been one of the best operational decisions we have made. The service is reliable, professional, and responsive, giving us confidence that our payroll is accurate, compliant, and delivered on time every week. We would have no hesitation in recommending Lite Consulting.
Marisa Tuff, Director of Accounts and Administration, Akon Security
Read the full Akon Security case study
How the payments themselves work
We produce the payment file and the supporting reports. You approve them and make the payment. Control of the money never leaves your business, which is what most finance directors and auditors prefer, and it means no third party can move your funds.
Everything around that we deal with. Submissions to HMRC, payslips through a secure portal, pensions and auto enrolment, and year end including P60s.
Moving to us takes about six weeks
We have done this many times and we do the heavy lifting. A typical timeline looks like this.
- Weeks 1 and 2. We meet your team, document how your payroll actually works today, and agree the cut off calendar. We contact your existing provider and request the data. You will need to give them notice, and we will tell you exactly when and what to say.
- Weeks 3 and 4. We build and reconcile. Employee records, pay elements, pension schemes, year to date figures and absence rules.
- Week 5. Parallel run. We process a full cycle alongside your current provider and reconcile every line. Anything that does not match is resolved before we go further.
- Week 6. Go live, with your payroll manager on hand through the first live cycle.
You can switch at any point in the tax year. April is tidy but it is not required, and waiting for it usually costs more than switching does. We carry year to date figures across so that year end is unaffected.
The questions your procurement team will ask
Where the data is held, our ICO registration, retention and access controls, business continuity, insurance and our processing terms. We answer all of it in writing, and if you have a supplier questionnaire, send it over and we will complete it. We have filled in a good number of them.
What it costs
Above 100 employees we price a fixed monthly fee rather than a rate per payslip, because at this size the work is not proportional to headcount. Tell us your headcount, your pay frequencies, how many entities you run and your pension arrangements, and we will put a number in front of you within two working days.
There is no setup fee and no onboarding charge. We would rather earn the relationship than charge you for starting it.
One more thing worth knowing
We are also an independent HR and payroll systems consultancy, and we have run more than a hundred selection and implementation projects for organisations of your size. That means when we take on your payroll we understand the system it sits in as well as the payroll itself. It also means that if your real problem turns out to be the software rather than the bureau, we will tell you so.
Let us have a look at your payroll
Twenty minutes on the phone is usually enough for us to tell you whether we can improve on what you have. If we cannot, we will say so.
We reply within one working day, and you will speak to a payroll manager rather than a salesperson.