Name my company?

[Oblomov26]

Please would you all help me come up with suggestions for a company name. I know many of these threads have been done on Mumsnet before. You are all so witty and creative!

So this is only at the planning stage.
I'm going to set up a side business, a little hussle, alongside my main job, which is accounts.

I'm going to offer monthly payroll only , to neat and tidy companies, who are compliant and organised, so I don't end up with tricky payrolls, nor hospitality nor eg nursing homes that have high staff turnover, unorganised late submissions etc.

I am qualified and have been doing accounts and payroll for like 30 years!! So I reckon I can do this.

I wanted the first word to be Payroll.
So It was obvious what the service was.
Payroll Precision - only that's no good because precision is too hard to spell.

something similar?
suggestions please?

Payroll Nyfans

I think the difficulty with having payroll as the first word is that it doesn’t sound ‘high end’ and isn’t likely to attract the sort of clients you want. I think either you just use ‘your surname Associates’ or similar to keep it general and then have a tag line referring to payroll. Or you go for something more ‘fun’ - I like ‘Count on Me’ that was recommended but perhaps Us instead of Me. Or a pun like ‘Pay, Book and Roll’ but that risks being seen as not serious and therefore the nice tidy compliant companies you want will avoid you. I agree with a PP that the sort of clients you want will be hard to find as they’ll generally have someone already/have it sorted.

Payroll Vibes

Why would people pay a premium for your service when you’re only doing the ‘easy’ accounts? Surely loads of companies could do it for less?

Thank you, I totally take on board what you have all said. Maybe I'm totally naieve as to how easy this is going to be.

I appreciate the questions that a number of posters have asked, including May about why anyone would pay for a premium product, and McSpoot query the marketing being confusing.

As Sleeping said payroll itself is not hard, and the market is saturated. Changes to for example statutory sick pay from April 26, is not complicated.

As I already said I can do complicated Group accounts, Tax Returns, and be a Fractional CFO aswell (my Mentor suggested this as one of the highest paid and most lucrative paying service atm).

There is a huge shortage of Qualified Accountants with lots of the USA of retirement age and not many young people qualifying. This drip has already filtered through to the UK and there are shortages in Accountants, book-keepers, payroll.

I've dealt with so many messes over the last 20+ years, with people in trouble with HMRC, or Pension Ombudsman, because whilst compliance does seem easy, payroll and accounts is fundamentally easy, if you get it wrong , it can snowball quickly.

Maybe will take complicated clients, (I do actually really enjoy solving big accounting messes!!) and more complex issues. I might be forced to? But I plan to at least try and streamline them and whip them into shape of providing me the information I need. Because I've done messy payrolls for years. For clients, local accountancy firms, ( I know personally many of the partners of my local Accountancy firms) and it's not the drama I want, as it's stressful trying to make someone who is disorganised, structured and organised.

That's why engagement terms need to be clear, eg further late pay runs incur a charge, or the business owner can give notice if the client doesn't comply.

You may all be right. Maybe the need isn't there. This is all only an idea currently. Hmmmm..... 🧐

People will pay for a guarantee. I am the checking the human checking, eg after using AI or not knowing what you're doing. I am the qualified accountant who is checking to ensure compliance.

Will someone pay for that? We'll see! Many people who run businesses don't like accounts , can't grasp accounts, can't get their head around accounts. (Richard Branson).

It comes naturally to me. And I'm hoping that my skill at pattern recognition and being able to look at payroll, or a TB, or a set of accounts and instantly know when something is wrong, Gives me an advantage to be able to provide a service of guaranteeing compliance, Providing the final human check to people who want the guarantee that this is not going to come back and bite them on the bum!

Does that make sense?

I already have a job which I enjoy very much, but I have a lot of spare time as I only work part-time. so I could do this as a sideline and even if it doesn't materialise into much, or even if it doesn't produce very much it wouldn't be a problem.

Went for ones that promote the made to measure aspect and my favourite is the first one cos you could do some good stuff with imagery on the marketing

Payroll Tailor
Custom Payroll
Bespoke Payroll

Professor Payroll?

You could use a PP’s
suggestion of payroll panda, and then use panda as an acronym for p - payroll, a - accounts n - ??? d - ??? a - ???

Just remember - Octopus Energy. We don't think anything of that, we don't question why an octopus. So the panda idea was valid, even if it is already taken.

So why not make Payroll the second word, with something quirky or unexpected first?

they don’t want the responsibility, deadlines, or HMRC risk.

this is handled, correctly, every month. By me!

I run a controlled system that removes hassle and risk.

not everyone will pay me. Good. That's ok.
I don’t want everyone!!

Cheers everyone. For your thoughts.

I still can't get over the current Mumsnet obsession with panda's! 🐼

🤣

Precise Payroll

Payroll Doctor

Unparalleled is more difficult to spell than either Precision or Prestige imho.

Payroll Made Simple

I think you need to go for a broader name because it doesn’t sound like you just want to do payroll. We run a company which ticks all of the boxes you have listed and are pretty uncomplicated with the odd exception of a some FX issues now and again. High end I suppose although I think you just mean uncomplicated. We outsource all of our book keeping (and the same person does our payroll) and I wouldn’t bother looking for someone to do payroll alone - it’s pretty easy now to do payroll so I wouldn’t outsource it separately to the other things we need, accounts wise. I also don’t want a gimmicky name, I want a solid name like Oblomov Accounting Services or whatever. We also use recommendations to find ours as for obvious reasons it’s so important to have the right person doing this.

Are you sure this is a gap in the market? High end compliant clients can run their own payroll, it’s not tricky with all the software available. I pay my accountant to sort my mess, not do the easy stuff. I wouldn’t want a pay roll only service as then I’d need a different accountant for everything else.

I would do so market research before limiting yourself to payroll based branding

I am also a qualified accountant (FCA) with similar experience to you. I run a small accountancy practice and would love to do payroll only as an “easy” semi-retirement idea (in 50s now and thinking of retiring in the next five years).

In reality though, I don’t think there is much of a market for high-end quality stand alone payroll. I do payroll for some clients and others do it themselves. I think most businesses would go to their accountant or bookkeeper in the first place for payroll services. Those accountants who don’t want to do it will outsource, but we tend to want to do the cushy ones ourselves.

While I like the idea, I don’t think it’s a winner to be honest.

What about bookkeeping and payroll together, I think you’re more likely to get clients. But also I think you may struggle to keep to the lower bookkeeping level and not end up doing the accountancy bits too, I know I would!

Good luck, let us know what you end up doing.

Simply Payroll. Payroll Resource, Payroll for SMEs

Using your name or initials in there somewhere is a good idea and I think you can always use your own name without infringing anyone else.

Payroll & Chill sounds like a coded way of communicating that you're offering far more than just professional financial services!

You may as well call your firm 'Sexy Payroll' or 'Payroll & Perv' or something!!

Hmm, true. Maybe just a single portmanteau word like 'Unpayrolleled' would be simpler?

Did you deliberately say 'our purpose' instead of 'our bond' - or did you fall at the last hurdle there?!

I'm just waiting for our old accountant at my old firm to pop over to my house. Hopefully he'll have loads of good suggestions. He might want to be my new side hustle business Mentor ? and he might provide me with a link to any clients that he doesn't want. Client supply. so I'm looking forward to seeing him.

Ask Chat Gpt

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