A recruitment agency’s main goal is to ensure that their workers are always paid on time. This is crucial to maintaining a good relationship with your clients and the candidates you send their way.  

However, managing payroll can be tricky, even for an established agency. When you join us, you’re assigned your own payroll account manager who will help you navigate these challenges and ensure success every time. They work hard for our clients, so we decided they are long overdue for some time in the spotlight. 

But first, let’s talk a little more about what payroll is and why payroll funding is such an important part of our service. 

 

What is Payroll? 

Your ‘payroll’ is a list of employees and how much they should be paid. For a temporary recruitment agency with hundreds of workers all on different contracts, schedules, and salaries, this can be difficult to keep track of even with systems in place.  

With holiday pay, SSP, pensions, IR35, and more all on top of their regular salary, that’s a lot of money leaving your business on a regular basis. So what happens if you don’t have the funds available to pay them on time?  

Don’t worry, that’s where we come in. 

 

What is Payroll Funding?  

Our 100% payroll funding service ensures that you always have the money available to pay your workers. This means you spend less time balancing the books and worrying about late invoices and are able to focus on what matters most – running your business.  

 

The Benefits of Payroll Funding 

For a growing temporary recruitment company, you might not have the personnel available to fully focus on payroll. By working with us, you are able to build your team more around bringing in new candidates and ensuring they are well looked after while leaving payroll to the professionals.  

Someone who is not only fully trained in handling payroll but will also dedicate 100% of their effort towards is the prefect person to handle it for you. You won’t ever be less than the number one priority either – all our payroll account managers and credit controllers are assigned solely to your company.  

They always strive for 100% accuracy with your payroll and invoicing. Everything is checked, checked, and checked again to be sure it’s spot on. This means nothing should ever come back for corrections which prevents any costly delays or frustrations for you and your clients.  

Having an expert on board helps with legislation too. Staying compliant isn’t easy, but by choosing us it’s a weight off your mind. We understand everything to do with tax law, employment law, and financial restrictions, and are happy to jump through the hoops on your behalf so there are no issues with the AWR or any other organisation who is keeping an eye on your business.  

  

The Best Approach for Payroll Managers 

We have a human-focused approach across our team. This is especially true for our payroll managers. 

 They care about the people behind the business, and work hard to get to know them and their goals. With this knowledge under their belts, every email, report, and phone call has the client’s best interests at heart, and their voice always shines through.  

But don’t just take our word for it! We asked Alicia, one of our fabulous payroll team leaders, to take some time out of her busy schedule to tell you more about how she works with clients: 

‘I always try and put myself in the client’s shoes to understand what is important to them and why they do certain things. I endeavour to build relationships with my clients, even little things like calling for a chat to see how their week’s been to keep an open line of communication. This helps give me an insight into what is going on with them and can prompt discussions about how we can improve or create new processes tailored to them.’ 

The relationship between us and our clients means a lot to us. We keep things professional when we need to, but a friendly catchup and finding out more about them is mutually beneficial. It builds trust and helps solve any issues quickly.  

  

How do you tailor payroll processes to align with a client’s specific requirements? 

‘I’ve recently had a client that had a new customer whose deadlines did not match up with our own. I was able to offer a few ideas to the client of how we could work around these deadlines, and we were able to reach a solution that works for everyone (client, customer and ourselves). We have our deadlines for a reason but are always willing to work with clients and offer flexibility and tailored solutions where we can.’ 

Sometimes 3’s a crowd, but we’re always willing to adapt to suit our clients and their customers. Again, by focusing on communication these solutions are much easier to find.  

  

How do you ensure communication stays seamless and clients feel supported, especially during busy payroll periods? 

‘I always ask how the clients are, how was their weekend etc, even when emailing about something payroll related & am always genuinely interested to hear their answer – there’s nothing better than receiving random photos of pets / holidays / life events to brighten up a Monday.  

We also have a big focus here on handover for clients during periods of annual leave – I like to leave little personal titbits of information to help with a smooth transition ‘they have a gorgeous dog called ‘XYZ’, ask for pictures!’ is a favourite.  

Above all, I never want a client to feel like they are bothering me or that I have better things to do so I try and ensure this comes across in my communication with them.’ 

 

No matter how busy things are in our office, we always go the extra mile. It’s often the little efforts that make the biggest difference too.  

Many of our clients are ‘switchers’ – meaning they left a different recruitment finance provider to work with us. Even if you aren’t happy with your current provider, switching to a new one is risky and time-consuming. By showing how much we care it makes the transition much easier.  

One of the main reasons we assign our payroll managers to one client is so that they always have the time to support them. We make this clear to the client too, so they never hesitate to get in touch if there’s something they aren’t sure about or want a quick update.  

  

How do you keep clients updated on payroll best practices or industry changes that may affect them? 

‘As a business, we send out a lot of mass communication emails with legislation changes, new tax year information etc but I will follow up with any clients I know will be specifically affected or might need a bit of support digesting some of the information.  

We always try and stay ahead of the game with regards to this as some of our clients definitely have their ear to the ground on industry changes and we want to reassure them that we’re right there with them.’ 

Multiple members of our team, in payroll and elsewhere, have a background in recruitment. This not only helps with understanding our clients’ needs, but also means we are passionate about the industry itself.  

When we hear news about recruitment, we know what impact it will have immediately and can relay it to our clients in ways that make the most sense to them.  

A lot of these changes affect all of us, so when they know that we’re all in it together and know how to handle things, they have much more confidence in the services we provide.  

 

The Best Payroll Managing Services 

Alicia and the other wonderful payroll managers are the lifeblood of Back Office. Without them, we wouldn’t be half the company we are today, and the support they provide for our clients can’t be understated.  

A big thanks to Alicia for her input, and we hope this blog helps to answer any questions you had about managed payroll – as well as showing you why when we say we’re the best, we mean it!