Any accounts around, furlough question.

[Imtoooldforallthis]

I have just received a bill from accounts for processing furlough claims. Two claims for one employee, (now back at work) for £240.00. Does that seem right.

No sounds outrageous amount We paid ££55 + VAT for 3 employees which I thought was a bit OTT on top of normal payroll cost

Thanks, just emailed my accountant to query it.

I think we are charging £125+VAT per calculation, but I haven't been involved personally and that's just from memory.
More importantly we have been quoting for the work before doing it, and getting and engagement letter in place to cover it.
Depending on the situation the calculations can be quite involved and probably done at a more senior level than payroll processing.
£240 would be about 2.5 hours of my chargeout rate.

Blimey, that is a lot

Our accountant hasn’t charged us any extra on top of our normal payroll charge.

We pay £60 per month for them to run payroll for 13 of us.

That should say 1.5 hrs of my charge rate.

It really depends on the complexity of the calculations. For some of our clients, it's only taken 15 minutes per month, but for one in particular with just 3 staff, I spent a total of 2.5 hours for the first month (split month part work, part furlough, one based on same period last year, other 2 based on average wage for prior year) and then 2 hours for the second/last month which again was a split month, and again, different base period, one same period last year, and another average (different way around). Then you have to proportion the employer workplace pension contributions to make a claim for those too. So, whilst it seems a lot, I can certainly see how the time can mount up, especially for staff with variable hours and a workplace pension scheme in place. So it depends.

My experience is as above. Some cases very straight forward, some have required multiple complex calculations and a few required lots of contacts with HMRC to correct errors on their record or deal with initial IT glitches.

Furlough claims don't go through payroll- it's a completely different system. So, for each claim (yes, every month/week), you have to enter the employers details again (name, tax reference, address, bank details, etc)., plus each employee details again (name, NI number), plus you have to calculate the furlough claim (gross, pension, employers nic) - the furlough system does none of that. So even the simplest claim is going to take 10-15 minutes each time as a minimum. That's just for a single employee with a simple/basic standard pay - you can double/treble that for more complicated scenarios, such as variable/hourly paid, etc.