Wages, pension etc

For those that employ do you manage your staff wages and pension or do you use an accountant?

I only employ a chap doing 2 days a week and he’s currently under the auto enrolment threshold. My accountant is charging me £24 a month so do the wages and saying if i were to increase his hours/wages and he becomes eligible for pension then it’s another £26  a month to pay for the company she uses to control the pension. 

I think I’m being well over charged but think it’s due to minimum charges so if I had 4 employees it would be the same charge if you get what I mean. 
if you don’t use an accountant what software do you use?

Thanks in advance

I have a different business that employs my Wife and I and do wage returns to HMRC using Basic PAYE Tools. I think you can download it from HMRC. Takes me about 10 minutes a month to do it

Part Timer said:

I have a different business that employs my Wife and I and do wage returns to HMRC using Basic PAYE Tools. I think you can download it from HMRC. Takes me about 10 minutes a month to do it

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And it’s free, plenty of tutorials to help you along the way. Your able to pay HMRC contributions direct as well. It’s really good especially if you like to know exactly what’s going on money wise. 

Thank you for your replies. I didn’t realise they had downloadable systems. I will have a look as not going to pay £50 a month just for payroll services 

I know this one is a couple of weeks old and you may have sorted it but I'll throw my ten pence worth in...

My accountant currently charges £105 a quarter to run payroll. They wanted £350 to set up the nest pension scheme and £10 per month to run some reports on it. I looked and realised that Nest is a free service provided by the government. An hours research and I knew what to do to set it up. Once it is set up you just have to go online once a month and input the details of his earnings.

At that point I considered dropping payroll with the accountant all together. The government offer free software for up to 8 employees, quickbooks and sage are both less than £10 a month. I decided to stick with the accountant just because their advice around payroll may be valuable in the future but I asked them if they would consent for us to complete pensions in house which they did.

You need to work out pensionable earnings. It seemed a little confusing at first but looking a little closer it was easy. Basically the first £6240 isn't included in pensionable earnings each year (or £520 per month). I couldn't tell you if this figure is variable and likely to change in the future. The calculator on Nest does the rest of the work for you. Put in what they've earned that month, less £520, the calculator tells you what you'll be paying. They collect it by direct debit a few days later.

£50 per month doesn't seem too bad. 

We use sage one for payroll, and use nest pensions. Its maybe £100 for sage one. 

My wife is an accountant, so I am a bit fortunate there, but she has told me it would cost £1000 per year to have her company do it. They normally charge anywhere from £60-£100 plus per hour.

Bear in mind you'll have to pay employers pension contributions, I have one employee, and pay around £20-30 per month. I need to check the exact figure but it will depend on what your paying your employee.

I make the pension payments myself but leave payroll to my wife, It would take me more time than I have spare to learn it myself, plus if you get it wrong and underpay taxes, that accumulate, it could end up very costly.