As a charity or not-for-profit organisation, every donation counts; it not only goes to fund your cause but also keeps the lights on, wages paid, and storefronts open. Making sure that your costs and outgoings are well managed is essential to ensuring that your donations reach where they are needed most.
If your charity or CIC is operating on a tight budget, outsourcing your payroll to a managed payroll provider might seem like an unnecessary expense. In the world of charity payroll, the financial and reputational costs of getting things wrong far outweigh the cost of bringing in a payroll expert.
At Ascend Payroll, we put our money where our mouth is with our customer promise and triple lock pricing guarantee that ensures our prices will never rise more than inflation (CPI), our price will be at least 10% cheaper than “the big 10” managed payroll providers, and if you prefer a fixed term contract, we will happily lock in the price for the duration.
This commitment to our customers means that outsourcing your charity payroll might not be as expensive as you think.
Charity payroll – the good, bad and the complicated
Charity payrolls differ greatly from standard business payrolls, and they can get complicated fast if they are handled by an inexperienced in-house team that isn’t well-versed in compliance. Because of this, mistakes and non-compliance are almost inevitable, eating into your bottom line and damaging your reputation both as an employer and publicly in the event of a tribunal.
With charity payroll, you aren’t just paying a set salary to a fixed group of people; you’re often dealing with a unique set of payroll challenges that would even trip up experienced but generalist payroll providers.
Charity workforces are often complex, managing a high volume of small employee payments, alongside temporary contract workers, and non-UK national workers. You also need to deal with funding allocation issues, which creates an administrative headache of allocating payroll costs accurately to specific funding streams or grants.
On top of this, you need to be able to deal with unique payments, such as processing payments for commission-based fundraising and managing the payment of trustee expenses, while managing the stress that comes from navigating the constant changes that come with working in an industry plagued with high staff turnover rates.
What started as a cost-saving exercise of doing in-house payroll can quickly spiral into a minefield of compliance issues and stress.
Ascend Payroll is a trusted and safe pair of hands for your payroll needs. Our handpicked team of payroll professionals is well-versed in charity payroll compliance and all of the issues that can arise from it.
National living wage – no margin for error
With the national living wage now at £12.71 per hour for employees aged 21 and over, it is critical that your lowest-paid staff, casual workers and temporary fundraisers’ wages never fall below the new national living wage. Trying to manage these changes in-house alongside the already complex challenges of charity payroll is a fast track to compliance errors.
As a charity, a fine from the HMRC for underpaying your employees doesn’t just take away from the power of your donations, it damages your reputation with the public and erodes the good will that encouraged them to donate to you in the first place.
If in-house charity payroll is starting to sound more stressful than cost-saving, it’s time to reach out to a managed payroll provider with expertise in the charity sector.
Suffering from payroll headaches at your charity?
This is where partnering with a specialist managed payroll provider makes all the difference. At Ascend Payroll, we act as a safe pair of hands to take away the worry of payroll compliance liability.
We take on the heavy lifting and the regulatory burden, freeing your team to focus entirely on your core mission rather than grappling with spreadsheets.
Plus, we don’t just talk about supporting our communities, we put our money where our mouth is. Our entire business is built around the simple premise of “do the right thing, always”.
To show our appreciation for the amazing work charities do every single day, we permanently discount our managed payroll price by a whopping 25% for UK-based charities.
If you are looking for ways to ensure more of your money goes towards providing your core services, while keeping your payroll 100% compliant, it’s time to ascend. Let’s have a chat about how we can transform your charity’s payroll.
