Payroll

We've worked in hospitality payroll since 1999, and when operators switch to us, they tend to give the same reasons. Here are the six we hear most often, and what each one says about the gap between generic and hospitality-specific payroll.

Reasons to switch your payroll

1. Our current payroll provider knows nothing about hospitality

Generic payroll providers aren’t set up for the volume and turnover that comes with hospitality: zero-hours staff, frequent starters and leavers, third-party Troncmaster services, and changing rules and regulations. And while they might be able to get up to speed, it’s a lot easier to have a bureau that specialises in hospitality, and does it every day.  

Pensions is one of the areas we often correct during onboarding. Specific mistakes include accounts with the wrong tax relief applied or salary sacrifice schemes not set up or loaded correctly into the pension provider.

Another example is holiday pay. It's simple enough for salaried staff. But when rotas change week to week, pay needs to be averaged out, and that's exactly where mistakes can creep in.

2. We can't get payroll reporting by site

If you run a multi-site hospitality business, getting a single payroll total isn’t enough. Staff may work across different locations, so their costs need to be moved between sites. And you’ll likely want to see labour costs broken down by location so you can build accurate site-by-site P&Ls or compare one site against another.  

If you can’t get payroll reporting by site, the workaround is often manually splitting numbers in spreadsheets after each pay run. The more sites you have, the longer it takes. Payroll should provide costs by site, department, and job title and handle these transfers for you.

3. The automation isn't working, so we check everything anyway

Payroll relies on automation for payment runs, HMRC submissions, and pension contributions. If any of that's set up wrong, it's hard to fix, especially with tech-first providers who don't have enough people on the phones.

This is where offers like "£20 a month and you can do it all yourself" don’t deliver. The software might be good, but someone still has to set it up and stay on top of things like new tax thresholds, minimum wage rates, and statutory payment rules. If the person setting it up doesn’t understand payroll, they may not notice problems until something goes wrong.

4. There's no one to call when something goes wrong

We hear this a lot, and it follows on from point 3. The systems might work well with external providers, but when something goes wrong there’s often no one to help. In-house payroll has the opposite problem: it runs well until the person in charge is off sick or leaves, and then there is no backup.

When you work with us, you get a dedicated UK-based payroll manager who knows your account. If HMRC comes to inspect, we’ll come to your site and support you through the process.

5. We’re going to need to charge extra for that

That "cheap" quote might not be cheap after all.  

We saw this with a pub group client. Their rota software provider quoted them for payroll, with a headline price of about £1 per payslip. But the extra charges weren’t mentioned upfront: £5 for every starter, £7.50 for every P45 when someone left, and an extra fee to send a BACS payment.

We include everything in one fixed price per payslip. The only extra charges are for gender pay gap reports, ad hoc reports, P11Ds, and reruns if there’s a client error.

6. Staff haven't been paid, or they've been paid wrong

Everything above is frustrating and time-consuming, but nothing breaks staff trust faster than being paid late or paid wrong. In hospitality, where keeping staff is already tough, that’s usually when operators start looking for a new payroll provider.

Recognise any of these?

Talk to us or visit our hospitality payroll page.

We run parallel payrolls during the switch, so your people get paid correctly from day one.  

Most operators can tell after just one call if we’re the right fit. And once they join us, they usually stay, with our clients averaging 10 years with us.

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