Senior Manager - Payroll and Management Accounts in Derby

Job Description

Senior Manager - Payroll and Management Accounts

Full or Part time – HYBRID offeredOur client is a well respected Practice which are fast growing and well established. Completely independent they offer a great career path and unlimited career opportunities.

If you are ACCA or ACA qualified, you have delivered payrolls in practice, and you would rather interrogate a payroll than produce one, this is the ideal role for you.

Our client offers fully flexible hybrid working arrangements for all our team. The role can be full-time or part-time.

ABOUT THE ROLEThis is a review and advisory role. It is not a processing role

Our client are automating their monthly payroll compliance process end to end using AI-enabled payroll software, with a first-pass review carried out by our own AI tooling before anything reaches a person. What arrives on your desk is therefore already prepared and already checked once. Your job is the judgement layer above that: is this right, and is it the right thing to be doing at all? The payroll clients are mostly overseas businesses employing people in the UK, and UK subsidiaries and branches of overseas groups.

Alongside standard UK payrolls run direct payment schemes, shadow payrolls, modified payrolls and short-term business visitor arrangements, so the technical range is wide. This is a hybrid role, split between the payroll department and our accounts and management accounting team. The two halves reinforce each other: the payroll feeds the management accounts, and someone who understands both catches what someone who understands only one will miss. The review layer

• Reviewing the prepared payroll before anything is released to a client or to HM Revenue & Customs, and reviewing to a documented standard, against the workpapers, every time
• Owning the monthly and annual compliance calendar, and the accuracy and timeliness of every submission
• Real Time Information (RTI) reporting, year-end reporting, P11D and P11D(b) returns, PAYE Settlement Agreements (PSAs) and Employment Related Securities (ERS) returns
• Reconciling PAYE accounts with HM Revenue & Customs and resolving allocation and charge disputes
• Auto-enrolment and workplace pension duties: assessment, re-enrolment, declarations of compliance and salary exchange arrangements, including recognising when a client has a duty it has not yet met
• Managing the payroll team's capacity, workload and deadlines, and setting the standard they work to
• Managing fees, work in progress, recoverability and billing, and managing scope creepThe advisory layer (the reason the role exists)Every payroll run raises questions. We want someone who sees them, understands them, and raises them. For example:
• Expenses reimbursed: is anything in there not deductible, classified inaccurately for the bookkeeping and VAT, or in fact taxable pay?
• Travel and subsistence: is this a temporary or a permanent workplace, does detached duty relief apply, and has the position changed?
• Items that are taxable but better handled through a PAYE Settlement Agreement, for example private mobile telephones used for business
• Employees crossing the £100,000 threshold, the effect on the personal allowance and on entitlement to childcare support, and what the employee can do about it
• Employees crossing the High Income Child Benefit Charge threshold
• Net pay that has moved unexpectedly, and why
• Tax code changes: what the code actually means, and whether it is accurate
• Pecuniary liabilities, and how they are treated in the payroll
• National Minimum Wage risk, including where a deduction or salary exchange takes pay below the rate
• Termination payments, post-employment notice pay and settlement agreements
• Employment status and off-payroll working questions arising from how people are actually engaged
• Share options and restricted stock units, particularly awards from an overseas parent under a scheme that is not tax-advantaged
• Where an A1 certificate is needed and how to obtain it
• Section 690 notifications, Appendix 4 and Appendix 8 short-term business visitor arrangements, Appendix 5, and modified payroll arrangements under Appendix 6 and Appendix 7AYou will raise these with the client, or with the relevant service line, and see them through to an answer. Accounts and management accounting
• Reviewing monthly management reporting prepared on Xero and QuickBooks
• Payroll journals, and the reconciliation of the PAYE, net wages and pension control accounts
• Making sure payroll-driven items are classified correctly for the bookkeeping and for VAT
• Bank file exports and payment runs
• Bringing a payroll perspective into the management accounts, and an accounts perspective into the payrollOTHER

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Taking the initial call with a prospective client to identify which type of payroll they need, explain the options and the obligations, and set the scope
• Working with our HR advisory team so that payroll and employment advice reach the client as one joined-up answer
• Working with our global mobility, corporate tax and VAT teams where a payroll question opens a wider one
• Coaching the payroll team
• Staying up to date with relevant legislation and sharing that knowledge with the team
• Contributing to the firm's payroll know-how, templates and written client guidanceWORKING HOURSFull-time working hours are 37.5 hours per week, excluding meal breaks. Part-time and family friendly working hours, which are flexible across the week, are offered. ABOUT YOUThe single thing we are looking for is critical thinking. We need someone who can stand back from a task, work out whether it is the right task, and say so. Technical knowledge can be extended.

Qualifications

• ACCA or ACA qualified
• Practical experience of delivering payrolls, gained in general practice
• A payroll qualification is welcome, but it is not a substitute for the accountancy qualificationTechnical experience we expect
• Running a UK payroll portfolio end to end, including RTI, year-end, P11Ds and PSAs
• A working understanding of how a tax code is constructed, what changes it, and what makes it inaccurate
• When an expense is deductible, when it is taxable, and how each is treated
• Temporary and permanent workplaces, and detached duty relief
• Payroll journals, and the bookkeeping and control account entries that follow from them
• Payrolling benefits in kind
• Bank file exports
• Auto-enrolment and workplace pensions, including NEST, and recognising when a duty has been triggered
• Reconciling PAYE accounts with HM Revenue & Customs
• Pecuniary liabilities and their treatment in the payroll
• Monthly management reporting on Xero or QuickBooks
• Managing people, capacity and workloadTechnical experience that will set you apart
• Shadow payrolls and modified payrolls
• Section 690 notifications
• Appendix 4 and Appendix 8 short-term business visitor arrangements
• Appendix 5 arrangements
• A1 certificates: when one is needed and how to obtain it
• Share options and restricted stock units, particularly awards from an overseas entity under a scheme that is not tax-advantaged
• Gross-up and tax equalisation calculations
• Direct payment schemes for employees of overseas employers with no UK presence
• National Minimum Wage compliance
• Termination payments and post-employment notice payOther skills and abilities
• The judgement to review rather than redo, and the discipline to let the team do the work
• Working from and to workpapers as a matter of course, not as an afterthought
• The confidence to raise an issue with a client and explain it in plain language, including to a reader whose first language is not English
• An active and open-minded attitude to AI-automated compliance, together with the professional scepticism to check what it produces and the willingness to say when it is inaccurate
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• The ability to read legislation and guidance and reach a supportable answer
• Comfortable holding several matters at once and working to fixed deadlines
• Meeting fee and recoverability targets, and managing work in progress

This is a fantastic opportunity for a career orientated person seeking a great work life balance.

Keywords: Payroll Director/ACCA/ACA/Senior Manager/Bingham/East Bridgford/Grantham