Umbrella company software in the cloud

Umbrella Company Software for Contractors

Accentra Umbrella Suite comprises of a state of the art Web Portal powered by a robust Payroll, Financials and CRM system – all integrated into one system. A system that you can depend on to transform your business into an enterprise reality.Armed with our extensive knowledge of working with umbrella companies and our years of expertise in Payroll & Financials systems, we have produced a comprehensive solution, that completely removes the hassle associated with the Umbrella back office processing. The software automates the process of registering the contractors, processing timesheets, expense claims and running the complex circular calculations with 100% accuracy and compliance.

Standard Umbrella

Target Market

Contractors who get get paid around £10.00 per hour and can legitimately claim £15 a day worth expenses.

How does it work?

• Timesheets processed and Agencies Billed automatically.
• ERNI Cost & Your Margin taken off from the Timesheet Earnings.
• Holiday Pay Calculated on the salary component.
• Expenses Paid as Non-Taxable Reimbursement.
• NMW Protected
• VAT on Expenses paid claimed for you automatically

Hybrid Umbrella

Target Market

Agency PAYE Candidates with zero or fluctuating expense claims.

How does it work?

• Objective: Protect the interest of the Contractor and the Agency before charging a fee.
• Calculation: System auto-calculates required “Rate Uplift” based on each week’s earnings & expenses and adjusts your fee.
• Low/No Expense Scenario:Contractor takes home guaranteed net pay, agency pays ERNI as usual and no/small fee charged.
• High Expense Scenario: Savings shared between Contractor, Agency and Umbrella Company as per set ratio

Personal Relief Minimum Wage Umbrella

Target Market

Contractors paid at just the National Minimum Wage Level.

How does it work?

• No deductions made for Fee or ERNI.
• Expenses are recorded for the purpose of providing tax relief as opposed to treating as non-taxable payment.
• Though such tax relief may reduce the taxable pay below NMW, there is no NMW breach as the gross timesheet earning remains unaffected.
• Reduced Tax & NI benefits the low paid contractors and the Agency alike.
• Holiday Payments made on request by the contractor.
• Agencies billed for the PAYE service by you

Sole Trader Umbrella

Target Market

Payment Solution for Self-Employed individuals with no risk of ‘Transfer of Debt’ Legislation.

How does it work?

• Timesheets processed and agencies invoiced as usual by you.
• Contractor’s expenses recorded and approved.
• Tax & Class 4 NI calculated by the system after allowing business expense relief.
• Contractors paid after retaining the Tax & Class4 NI and deduction of your fees, using self-billing method.
• Annual Earnings & Expenses statement produced to assist with self-assessment services at the end of the year

Agency PAYE

Target Market

Agencies looking to get away from AWR, Auto Enrolment & RTI responsibilities.

How does it work?

• Uses Agency Timesheet Data to process Contractors Payments, but payrolled under your PAYE scheme.
• Auto calculates Holiday Pay for relevant rates and Pays out or Retains as required.
• Bills the Agency at the end of the week for ERNI, Holiday Pay and your fee.
• Complies with AWR, RTI and Auto Enrolment Legislations fully.

Features at a glance - Umbrella, CIS & Self-Employed Solutions

Web Portal – Payroll – Financials – CRM

1. Contractor Payment Options

Control precisely when you want to pay your contractors

Contractor payment options provides the ability to control precisely when you want to pay your contractors, by choosing one of the options

• On Full Cash Receipt from the Agency Contractor will be paid only when the full invoice amount is paid by the Agency.
• Pay in proportion to the Receipt from the Agency Contractor will be paid in proportion to the cash received from the Agency.
• Pay on Invoicing Contractor will be paid as soon as the Timesheet is approved and invoice generated.
• Ability to set up the Payment Term Policy at multi-level: •  By Contractor •  By Agency •  Globally for all contractors

2. Admin Fee Options

Flexible Admin Fee structure allows you to tailor your fee policy for indvidual contractors or the Agency

Flexible Admin Fee Options

• Fixed Fee per Period Charge a flat fee per tax week/month.
• Fixed Fee per Timesheet Week Charge once for each calendar week worked by the contractor.
• Fixed Fee by Table Charge a fixed fee depending on the Timesheet Value. Example: £5 for value up to £300; £10 up to £800 and £15 for above £800.
• % on Timesheet Value Apply a percentage on the total timesheet value.
• Table based % on Timesheet Value Apply a different % depending on the Timesheet Value. Example: 3% for up £500 and 2% up to £1000, 1.5% above £1000.
• Charge per Timesheet Charge a flat fee per timesheet produced by the contractor.
• Charge per Hour Worked Charge a fee per hour worked by the contractor.

3. Timesheet Processing

Well thought out work flow allows you to reconcile and control the way Timesheets are processed and paid

Online Timesheet Processing software – the benefits:

• Assignment Validations Timesheet processing – Timesheets are processed against valid assignments. Assignments control the Payment Rates, Invoicing Parameters, Contractual Terms and Agency Discounts where relevant.
• Multiple Payment Rates Ability to set up as many payment rates as required per assignment.
• Multiple Timesheets per Period Flexibility to allow multiple assignments per week across different agencies.
• Admin: Bulk Import Timesheets Ability to process payments for hundreds of contractors within minutes by bulk importing timesheets from spreadsheets.
• Attach Timesheet Image Attach scanned timesheet images to the timesheets. Timesheet images will be automatically attached to the Agency Invoices.
• Contractors: Memorise & Submit Options Contractors can enter the timesheet and memorise them before finally submitting to the admin for approval

4. Expense Processing

Sophisticated Expense processing system automates the Mileage Calculations, NMW Contro and VAT 100 reclaim

Online Expenses Processing

• Expense Groups & Nominal Mapping Set up as many Expense Groups as required such as Subsistence, Accommodation, Travel, Professional fees and map them to nominal accounts.
• Mileage Rates & VAT Mileage Rates are auto calculated as per HMRC guidelines including 10,000 miles rate shift. VAT is auto calculated on fuel rates and reclaimed via Purchase Ledger.
• Receipts Management Attach expense receipts (PDF, image files supported) to each claim line.
• Approve/Reject Expense Lines Approve or reject individual expense lines or the entire claim form.
• Contractors: Memorise & Submit Options Contractors can enter the expense claims and memorise them before finally submitting to the admin for approval

5. Holiday Pay Calculation

Minimum required statutory holiday pay is automatically calculated as a percentage of the salary component (equivalent to 5.6 weeks annual leave)

It can be processed in two ways:

• Calculate & Pay Immediately Holiday Pay will be calculated and paid to the contractor each period and taxed at the time of paying. You can set the system to calculate the holiday pay only on National Minimum Wage or the entire earnings.
• Calculate & Retain Holiday Pay will be calculated on the National Minimum Wage and will be retained by you each week. You will pay the contractor from the accrued funds when he/she requests.

6. Invoice & Payslip Options

Tell us how you want your Agency Invoices and Payslips to look and we will design it for you before you go live with the system

Choose the invoicing method for each Agency

• One per Timesheet One invoice will be generated per timesheet with the details of the work location, dates worked, etc. printed on the invoice.
• Consolidated Invoice A single invoice for a batch of timesheets will be generated – usually one batch per week. List of all contractors included in the batch can be printed as additional sheets to the invoice.

Payslip Styles

• Consolidated Salary vs. Split Salary & Bonus Show the entire earnings (after expenses & holiday pay) as a single Salary figure or split it in to NMW and Bonus.
• Timesheet & Expense Breakdown Reduce your contractor pay query calls by including the breakdown of timesheets and expenses in the payslip.

7. Document Management

Maintain & manage all employment related documents from your web portal. Quickly access them from the relevant contractor record for viewing, downloading or printing.

• Generate Contractual Documents Generate directly from the system contractual documents such as Employment Contracts, Expense Claim Forms and auto email them to contractors.
• Generate Pay Illustration Sheet Generate custom designed Pay Illustrator and auto email them to your enquirers.
• Upload Identity, Proof of Address etc. Upload and archive as many documents as required such as P45, Attachment Orders, Sickness & Maternity Records to the contractor record directly.
• Agency Documents Records relevant to Agencies such as Overarching Contract, COI, etc. can be uploaded and attached to relevant Agency record.

8. Call Tracking

Manage your valuable sales enquiries, contractor pay queries using the simple to use Call tracking system. List the outstanding calls, review them, assign them to relevant staff for efficient call management.

• Universal Call Tracking System Single interface to manage the calls for Agencies, Enquirers and Registered Contractors alike.
• Logging in Calls Record calls made/received, assign or escalate it to a colleague and tag an action required – all using simple dropdown lists.
• Call Analysis Analyse calls by Status, Action Required, Call Owner, Call Type or any combination of them.

9. Bulk Email & SMS Tools

Send bulk emails to your Enquirers, Contractors and Agencies for Marketing, Announcements, Follow-up and reminders. Use the sophisticated email designer facility to build as many designs as you like – complete with HTML formatting, pictures, logos, signature and external links.

• Building Recipient Lists Build quickly your target audience list by applying internal filters or writing your own filter criteria or simply re-using one of the saved criteria.
• Email Attachments Specify up to 5 standard attachments such as brochure, expense claim policy to your email design. When you send bulk emails, the programme will auto attach them for you.
• Sending one-off Emails Simply open the relevant Contractor or Agency Record then select one of the pre-built email designs and send the mail.

10. Why Accentra Umbrella?

• We are the only the provider who offers a completely automated solution for umbrella companies, encompassing a sophisticated Web Portal, fully featured Financials, Payroll & CRM — all integrated seamlessly.
• With our solution, you will never have to export/import or re-key in any data. An approved timesheet will see its way through to P&L and balance sheet instantly and an expense claim will get through to payroll and P&L automatically.
• You will benefit from our extensive knowledge of umbrella companies and our years of expertise in providing Payroll & Financials systems.
• Easy upgrade options to CIS, Self-Employed, Agency PAYE modules.

Compare editions

Standard Edition

• Umbrella Payroll Calculations
• Standard Payroll Calculations
• NMW Control
• Expense Capping & C/F
• Holiday Pay (Rolled-up & Accrued)
• Payslip Emailing
• SMS Notification on Payment
• Payroll EOY (P14/P35) Online Submission
• P45/P46 Online Submission
• BACS/Faster Payment

The Umbrella Basic solution is built around the robust Accentra Payroll software that fully complies with the HMRC Test Requirements. Besides handling all Umbrella specific calculations, the software handles all statutory payments and deductions such as Tax, NI, Student Loan, SSP, SMP, SPP, SAP, etc.

Dual Payroll System (Umbrella Payroll & Standard Payroll)

The Umbrella Payroll software not only allows you to process pay for ’umbrella employees’ it also allows you to process the pay of Directors’ and other normal employees of the Umbrella company. You can set-up up to 25 companies and each company can be set up as either Umbrella Payroll or Standard Payroll, this removes the need for separate software packages.

End of Year without the hassle

Most payroll software programmes require the user to complete their End of Year returns before moving onto the new tax year. This can pose a serious problem for an umbrella company as the umbrella company relies on being able to process pay for a significant number of employees on a weekly basis. Being able to process pay quickly and efficiently is fundamental to the survival of the umbrella. Accountax Umbrella payroll’s revolutionary design gives you the freedom to move on to the next tax year without completing the previous years return. You can re-open the previous year at a later date in order to complete the End of Year formalities. There is no need to restore or create a separate folder, there are no clumsy procedures to follow therefore reducing the risk of human error.

BACS Support

Available as a standard feature the software has the facility to support a wide range of BACS formats.

Flexibility with Protection

Should there be a data entry mistake which is not noticed until after the payroll has been run, you can amend the entries and re-run your payroll without hassle. However, in a multi-user busy environment, if you wish to avoid unintentional amendments, you can set an automatic lock to the data. To make changes, the top level user will have to unlock the period.

Close the Period with Peace of mind

When you decide to close the period and move on to the next period, the last thing you want is an uncertainty about the status of the data. To eliminate this, you can choose to verify & confirm the control totals for Net Pay, Tax, NI, etc. before closing the period. This feature ensures that, between the time you last run your payroll and the time you close the period, there have been no unexpected changes to the data input.

Powerful Control Report

The uniquely designed control report contains 4 sub-reports provided in one report giving you all the information that you need to print and retain for each period for your future reference.

• Part 1 (Net Pay): Summary of payments, deductions and net pay
• Part 2 (Tax) : All P11 figures related to tax
• Part 3 (NI) : All P11 figures related to NI
• Part 4 (Pension): Pension breakdown

Professional Edition

All features of Basic Edition, plus:

• Assignment Setup
• Timesheets Entry & Approval
• Expense Claims Processing (Mileage, Subsistence, etc.)
• Automated Agency Billing
• Agency Receipt Processing
• Contractor Payment Options
• Sales Ledger
• Purchase Ledger
• Nominal Ledger
• Bank Reconciliation
• VAT Reclaim on Expenses
• Statements, Aged Analysis, Credit Control Functions
• Financials Reporting (TB, P&L, Balance Sheet)
• Management Reports.

The Professional Plus edition of the Umbrella Solution seamlessly integrates the Professional solution with a powerful period based Financial Ledger system. The system is pre-configured with all relevant accounts and common pay elements that enables you to get up & running with your umbrella business instantly upon installation.

Umbrella Payroll

The Umbrella Payroll module has been built around a robust Payroll Application that fully complies with the HMRC Test Requirements. The payroll handles all Umbrella specific calculations, performs all statutory calculations such as Tax, NI, Student Loan, SSP, SMP, SPP, SAP, etc. For more detailed information on the Umbrella Payroll module, read about Accountax Umbrella Basic solution.

Agencies, Assignments & Timesheet Entry

Each umbrella employee can be linked to multiple assignments and agencies. The assignment data can be set up with all contractual details such as the Client Name, Start Date, Work Location, Pay Rates, etc.

Each week, you will simply call-up the employee’s assignment and fill-up the number of hours, date, etc. Upon authorisation of the Time Sheet, the programme automatically calculates and generates the agency bill including VAT. The client bill instantly updates the integrated Sales Ledger & Nominal Ledger accounts.

Agency Receipts

When the agency pays, simply call-up the relevant agency bill and confirm the payment receipt. The programme automatically updates the employee’s period payment and updates the integrated Sales Ledger & Nominal Ledger accounts.

Financials

The financials modules enables you record, analyse and report all non-umbrella related transactions besides automatically capturing every umbrella business related transactions.

The sophisticated financial engine is designed on powerful period based system making it possible to work with several years data contiguously. The design doesn’t require any complex year end processes associated with date based accounting.

Enterprise Edition

All features of Pro Plus Edition, plus:

• Admin. Login
• Enquiry Management
• Contractor Records
• Agency Records
• Assignment Records
• Configurable Pay Rates
• Configurable Expense groups
• Flexible Admin Fee Structure
• Flexible Contractor Payment Rules
• Right to Work Tracking
• Timesheet Entry & Approval
• Expense Claims & Approval
• Mileage Claim Processing
• Timesheet History
• Expense History.

The Enterprise edition offers all the benefits of the Professional edition plus an integrated, state of the art Web Portal that will give your organisation a competitive edge and flexibility.

With the enterprise edition, you record and manage the Contractors & Agency Records, timesheets, expense claims, etc. directly on the website. The data will automatically flow through to the Payroll & Financials generating the entries automatically for you. You have the option to let your contractor login to their records to enter timesheets & expense claims or simply view their transactions.