Sick of having to be paid late because of payroll mistakes

[Baobuns]

I have a casual job in one place where my line manager submits timesheets on my behalf. It's my first month, i thought there would be some sort of communication to confirm my hours but the timesheets were just submitted.
He forgot to add in one of my shifts so as a result I've been underpaid £70 this month. It might not be a lot to some but it is for me.

I've emailed payroll and the answer is that I'll now receive the £70 next month.
This happened in a previous job where I was £200 underpaid and told, "You'll get it next month". I ask myself if they'd wait a full month for £200 and the answer is probably not.
They could literally do a BACS payment but it's too much hassle.

Stick to your guns and say that you need your money this month not next month. It is their problem and they need to sort it out. I run a small business and would never have one of my staff out of pocket due to a payroll mistake.

Filing payroll electronically makes it much harder for mistakes the be rectified immediately. An amended payslip has to be issued and the 'RTI' resubmitted so that HMRC have the correct amount recorded for tax and NI (both employee and employer). Hence why they are saying they will deal with it next month.

So I've just taken over payroll for my place and there is more to it than just making a BACs payment. I know it sounds logical to do it that way but it is more complicated.

It is shit though. If you keep on eventually they'll take care because they don't want to deal with your hounding them. Make sure you keep track of all your hours and be ready to keep on at them

Yes, this is infuriating.

Not the same thing, but I have a company car and the lease company keep screwing up my car allwoance vs car cost (we get paid for the can allwoance we don't use, and would have to pay extra if we exceed it) meaning continuous incorrect deducations that are then later added again and this goes on for months and months. It's not on.

Put in a grievance, every time it happens.

Ther is nothing to stop them making an advance payment to you of £70 that can be taken off next month's payroll.

Filing payroll electronically makes it much harder for mistakes the be rectified immediately. An amended payslip has to be issued and the 'RTI' resubmitted so that HMRC have the correct amount recorded for tax and NI (both employee and employer). Hence why they are saying they will deal with it next month.

None of the above is a good reason for either not re-running the payroll to correct the error for the member of staff or else issuing an advance to cover the shortfall.

Not the OP’s problem.

If the missed payment causes you to fall below minimum wage for the hours you have worked then contact ACAS.

The fact it is difficult for them to correct should be more incentive for them to get it right first time so the business is not inconvenienced, it's not an excuse for the employer to inconvenience the employee.

This isn't even a payroll mistake. It's your managers mistake. Have you actually asked for an advance?

This happened to me (well similar, more money). I said I couldn't afford it and would run up interest on my credit card. In the end they sent a bacs.

This is a problem with your manager, not payroll.

Where I work (and I imagine other places) emergency payments cost money so sometimes a low underpayment isn’t worth it (on an organisation, not personal, level).

Its not as easy as saying you’re missing £70 so they can BACs it to you, there’ll have to be calculations for deductions, balancing it next month, etc

Sorry posted too soon, I would talk to your manager about it as it’s their error, and if there is a charge for the payment then depending how it works, it may come out of the departments budget which a manager would have to sign off on

Only if they're using really crap payroll software.

I do dozens of company payrolls and use software where we can very easily re-submit a payroll run when there are corrections to be made. Literally a 2 minute job.

It's not the OP's fault if their employer is using substandard software that makes it hard for the payroll dept to submit corrections - she should stand by her guns and not accept such a pathetic excuse that "it's hard".

A former employer paid me 10% of my salary two days before Christmas. Payroll were not apologetic at all and seemed to think it was fine for me to wait until next month and that I was making a fuss over nothing. I insisted on being paid the different asap and they eventually agreed. Stand your ground. They messed up, they can put it right.

It’s not a payroll mistake; it’s your line manager’s mistake. I’m surprised you didn’t have to sign and check the form he submitted. However it’s done now. In our place, local authority, payroll would not simply send a BACs to casual staff underpaid; the line manager would have to request a payroll advance, generally 80% of missing hours. The hours would then be claimed the following month, and the advance deducted from the total pay.

It is shit though. If you keep on eventually they'll take care because they don't want to deal with your hounding them. Make sure you keep track of all your hours and be ready to keep on at them

How does payroll even know OP has done these hours if it wasn’t on the claim form that had to be submitted to a deadline. It really is up to her line manager to sort this out.