Advice please

Marg22

Hi

I would like any advice about payroll, I am currently working towards technician level by distance learning, which I have paid for by myself, so I am not prepared to spend on any more courses.

Any advice on the sage study bundles would be great as I don't know anything about them. Also any help with the knowlegde that employers require regarding ssp, redundancy, maternity pay etc would be a great help and where to find the information.

I don't intend to work just on payroll, but would like to be able to do it for a small company.

Any advice will be gratefully received.


Marg

CathG

Marg22 wrote: »

Also any help with the knowlegde that employers require regarding ssp, redundancy, maternity pay etc would be a great help and where to find the information.

Marg - try the HRMC website - it's a mine of information for all of the above, all aimed to help the employer. Sorry I don't know anything about the Sage study bundles. :thumbup1:

looking at payroll course

In my opinion you need to know more if you do payroll for a small company than you would if you worked in a payroll department of a bigger company. You have to know everything about everything! I work for a building company and run both weekly & monthly payrolls all by myself as well as doing all the accounts. I also do the year end stuff like P35 and P14s, expenses, etc so need to know everything, or at least where to find out (or who to ask)

I'm just finishing AAT level 3 payroll to give me the knowledge I need. I've also got the Sage study packages for levels 1 & 2 and they seem quite straight forward (I use the same software at work so am very familiar with it anyway). They show you how to use the software rather than why you need to do certain things, so the combination of the AAT and Sage courses works well. You can do online exams at the end of each level and the certificates are valid for 2 years (Sage told me that's because the software is updated every year so would be out of date quite quickly)

As above post, the HMRC website has downloadable booklets for all situations, ie processing payroll, maternity leave & pay, statutory sick pay, benefits & expenses, so you'll probably find you don't need a formal qualification if you're not aiming to do it full time. Unfortunately I want to specialise in payroll so I'm looking to progress to the IPP foundation degree in payroll management once I've finished AAT Technician.

hope this is helpful and not too much gobbledegook (it is 1am!)

Michelle

Marg22

Thanks you for replying Cath & Michelle I really do appreciate your advise and will look into HMRC website and the sage software.

Thanks

Marg