Schools have started outsourcing their payrolls to devote the time saved for educating pupils, which is their sole purpose. Many school payroll service providers have sprung up and it is a difficult task to find and hire a good provider. The points given below can be used a guide when you want to hire a school payroll or bookkeeping service.
1) The first thing that you need to do is to contact the school payroll services provider and ask them to send one of their professionals to meet you. Every good school payroll service provider will send a representative, if the provider says that they cannot spare a someone, then be warned, it means that the provider is not professional and it is better not to hire their services. When the contact does arrive meet them and detail your requirements. A good payroll provider will ask you for a lot of information. They will try to understand the requirements of the school and if there are any specific needs to be incorporated when they start managing your payroll.
2) The payroll provider should not be selling their service as the one solution for all schools. The provider should know that each school is different and hence the service needs to be customised to meet your schools requirements. A good payroll service provider will put in time and effort to do this as it most important.
3) The payroll provider should ask you everything about the payroll as each and every details needs to be looked at. To set up a new payroll system the provider needs to check, double check and even triple check the information so that there are no errors before the first payroll run.
4) A payroll specialist should be made available at all times right from the first time the payroll is set up. If a payroll provider ensures you that a team member will be there to answer queries then you can surely hire them. When a system changes then a lot of questions are bound to need to be asked and it is important that all queries are addressed competently.
An important point to be noted is that a school payroll provider will be more expensive than other payroll services. Schools have many different processes and all these need to be incorporated, so paying a little extra for a good service should not be a problem. You can also use your Local Authority for the payroll service but they are more expensive than other school payroll service providers.
Professional school payroll service providers will not only provide a competent quote for their services, they will provide that much extra in their services. However, it is better to get price quotes from a few providers before you select one that suits your school. Also get a few references and make it a point to contact them and understand the problems they face if any and if not you can get to know the level of satisfaction that they have got by outsourcing the payroll service.