We can take over your existing payroll

Do you have doubts about your current payroll? Ask us for a second opinion. We may be able to take over your payroll.

But what is the right time to transfer your payroll to us? You can choose to do so during the year or wait until 1 January of the coming year. There are no legal rules forcing you to make a particular choice.

But how do you decide when to transfer your payroll?

This depends on a number of factors:

• The complexity of the payroll (e.g. the number of payroll components)
• The number of months already passed in the current year
• The quality of the payroll already taken care of
• The availability of a contact person within your organisation to guide the implementation

January 1 of the coming year is basically the best time to start a new payroll. This has everything to do with the annual statement, cumulative data and the introduction of new rules and laws. Taking over during the year is of course possible but this can lead to (considerably) more work and higher implementation costs. This depends on the answers to the points mentioned above such as complexity, number of elapsed months and quality.

One annual statement

To ensure that employees also receive 1 correct annual statement for the year when we take over an existing payroll during the year, we need to shadow run the previous periods.

Rolling cumulative calculation (VCR)

If we take over an existing payroll during the year, it is important to include cumulative data in the records. This is because we have to calculate the employee insurance contributions and healthcare insurance contributions according to the VCR system. We need the cumulatives of the previous salary periods of the same calendar year: the cumulative SV wage, the previously taken into account cumulative contribution and contribution earnings and the cumulative maximum contribution earnings. Our payroll will have to match the previous payroll administration exactly.

To get this done, shadow runs have to be run for the past periods up to 1 January this year. This can be labour-intensive, especially if several months have already passed. In fact, the work that has already been done from January is performed again. By starting on 1 January, accumulation is started again and there is no need to run shadow runs.

Furthermore, we regularly see that errors have been made in the payroll in previous months, which must therefore be deliberately recreated by us in the shadow administration. After all, our calculations have to match to avoid deviating payroll returns. Corrections can of course be made but this should then be done retrospectively from the moment we take care of the payroll entirely ourselves. However, it can sometimes be difficult to reproduce errors because it is not always clear what the reasoning behind this error is and to get our software to the point where this error can be entered into the administration.

New annual data, new payslip

In January, new employee contribution rates, payroll tax tables, deductibles, salary adjustments, etc. are applied. Changes in these amounts usually affect the net salary to be received about which announcements are often made in advance through the media. These changes combine well with changes in the layout of a payslip. Employees are used to there being changes in January pay anyway.

But the benefit of this is only limited. If the employees have been informed that the payroll will be taken over by us during the year, they will also be prepared for a different layout of the payslip. How the payslip looks, by the way, will not be the most important thing for the employee, what matters is that the amounts on the payslip are correct. And that is where we can provide our added value.

Switch now

Do you want to switch as of 1 January next year? Then keep in mind that we may need about 2 months of preparation. This period is used to list and set up all the data in the payroll package required for correct payroll administration. Moreover, you can also use this period to inform your employees about the changes in advance.

Do you want to switch over earlier? Then take into account a possible longer implementation process, higher costs and more time to invest by you as an employer.

The earlier you switch over during the year, the shorter the implementation will be.

We will be happy to help you.

Other points of attention

Retention obligation

As an employer, you must keep all records – which are important for taxation purposes. This therefore also applies to the physical and digital
payroll records. This fiscal retention obligation applies for a period of 7 years.
A different retention period applies to some payroll records data.

You must keep the following data for at least 5 calendar years after the end of employment:

• payroll tax statements or forms with data for payroll taxes
• copies of identity documents
• copies of decisions or statements you have received from your employees
• received from your employees

In the event of a tax audit, records must be be accessible and verifiable. Even if an employer provides the payroll records through an external payroll administrator, the data are covered by the retention obligation.

Therefore, make sure that you have all data for the past 5-7 years.

Correcting old years

As an employer, you are obliged to correct if you, the payroll administrator or the tax authorities discover an error. This is subject to a deadline of 5 calendar years after the end of the tax year to which the payroll return relates.
You should be able to correct returns submitted by the previous payroll administrator. We cannot take care of this, as we do not have access to the payroll records of previous years. If necessary, make arrangements with the previous adviser so that they can send correction notices for another 5 years, if necessary.