Tracey Ellis has been running payroll at Richard’s Chassis, the Rotherham-based Land Rover chassis manufacturer, for years. They first moved payroll outside the business around three years ago and they found a small, friendly bureau that delivered a good service, built on a trusted processor who knew the business and dealt with problems quickly and personally.
A good service that changed hands
That bureau was later acquired by a larger payroll provider. For a while, it made little practical difference, as Tracey kept the same contact and the same level of support, but over time things began to slip, and with her contact due to retire, they decided to look for a new provider..
Finding Ascend
A personal connection made Ascend an obvious place to start looking. Tracey already knew someone on the team, and that counted for a lot.
“I knew somebody and valued their opinion, so my gut feeling was that it was a good company,” she says. “The whole process was great. Everybody was happy to deal with whatever came along. It wasn’t a case of muddling along. I just got the sense straight away that people wanted to deal with me, and if there was a problem, they were happy to resolve it.”
Being UK based mattered too. Tracey’s payroll had never been processed offshore, and keeping it that way, with a company where everybody knew each other, was part of the appeal.
“It was the friendly, professional approach that I got from them from the start,” Tracey adds. “I didn’t doubt I’d be getting a good service. If I have a problem, I don’t even worry. I feel very confident.”
A switch on her terms
Switching providers after years with the same bureau could easily have meant starting from scratch. Instead, Ascend fitted around the systems Tracey already had in place.
“They were happy to adopt the principles and the documents I was already using,” she says. “They didn’t expect me to change to their processes and systems, and were happy to adapt to what I was doing, which made onboarding very easy.”
Twelve months on
Nearly a year into working with Ascend, Tracey is a firm fan of not only the personal service, but also the software behind it.
“I love Elementary. I love how it works,” she says. She’s particularly looking forward to a new feature that lets employers push updates directly to employees through the platform, replacing group emails with no way of confirming who’s actually read them.
“That will be a godsend,” she says. “I think it’s brilliant, over and above what you’d expect from a payroll bureau.”
She also appreciates all the updates and technical briefings she receives.
“And I like the newsletters. They’re well written and give you enough information to take on board without waffling, which makes a change from HMRC updates!”
Enhanced support when it counts
Richard’s Chassis recently opted to payroll benefits in kind a year early, moving all employee benefits onto the payroll system ahead of HMRC’s mandatory changes. The team at Ascend, helped her through the process even when the HMRC platforms were less than co-operative.
“They helped me out with the P11D submission. It was supposed to work on an upload and it didn’t, so we had to find another way, but that seemed to go a lot more smoothly than people had led me to believe,” Tracey says.
“Everybody is so approachable,” she continues. “I don’t worry. If I’ve got an issue, I send an email and I know somebody will get back to me and sort it out.”
Would she recommend Ascend?
“I would speak very highly of Ascend, and I’m happy to put that out there,” Tracey says. “I would recommend them to anybody looking to outsource their payroll.”
For Richard’s Chassis, the move to Ascend wasn’t about escaping a terrible service. It was about finding a provider who could match the personal relationship that mattered to Tracey from the start, backed by software that keeps getting better and a team that genuinely listens when something isn’t quite right.
If you’re looking for a payroll partner who’ll take the time to understand how you work rather than making you fit their system, we’d love to chat. Get in touch to find out how Ascend can take the stress out of your payroll.
