Can you recommend a payroll course?

Monsoon

My administrator has been doing payroll for us, and I have trained her in our software and basic principles. However, I'm not a great teacher and we both think it would make sense to send her on a course just to consolidate her knowledge.

What I want:

Basic principles of PAYE and NI
Basics of admin (such as due dates for payments, due dates for returns etc)
Cheap!

What I don't want:

Detailed manual calculations
Sage training

Can anyone recommend anything? Possibly even the free HMRC course?

Rozzi Rainbow

I have been on the free HMRC courses for Directors' NICs (I know I still made a bit of a mess with this at last year end!) and Payroll Year End and found them really good. The class size was small so it was a class exercise rather than a lecture and we were given workbooks to go through and take away afterwards. There were some manual calculations in the Directors' NICs course but it helped us get our head around them. I haven't been on the general PAYE course but would recommend it based on the courses I have been on. At the end of the day it is free, and if you find it's not quite what you were after then you haven't wasted any money, and could look to build on it with other courses.

I also find the Employer Talk events (also run by HMRC and free) very useful but they are more lecture style to a hall full of people. But there are also individual stands about all areas of payroll where you can ask specific questions.

Gem7321

How do I find and book a free HMRC course? I have heard them mentioned a lot but have never been able to find one!

Thanks (sorry to hijack your thread Monsoon!)

payrollpro

Monsoon,

Now that AAT has all but pulled out of payroll education this is harder for members to sort out. I have been on the HMRC versions, but, sorry, I don't agree with them and found errors in the way they dealt with some practices. I also don't agree with the employer talk events as they only allow you to speak to someone, there is no real value to it from an education point of view.

I understand that in the world of the micro employer a lot of the true payroll practices are not needed but I would recommend the IAB's apprenticeship route for payroll here. They have a L1 which covers the very basics but they also have a L2 which I think would be appropriate for people doing such payrolls.

It's not as cheap, sorry Monsoon, but the advantages are obvious. We took on a payroll for a chain of three pubs last year and found that the previous provider have been using the end of the working week as the tax point, instead of the pay day. Simple to sort out, for me anyway, but guess where she went for her training?

I declare an interest, by the way, I have done work for AAT, CIPP and IAB on payroll education and training, but don't let that influence you.

Payrollpro

Rozzi Rainbow

Gem7321 wrote: »

How do I find and book a free HMRC course? I have heard them mentioned a lot but have never been able to find one!

Thanks (sorry to hijack your thread Monsoon!)

Try this link on the HMRC website Gem:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/bst/index.htm

Gem7321

Thank you!

babsa

I have been on a couple of these courses. I find them help, thank Rozzi Rainbow for the link.