In-house pay and bill capability give you complete control, visibility and capability without relying on a third party.
However, as worker volumes increase and compliance requirements become more complex, it may be worth asking: Is our back office scaling efficiently, or are our costs rising faster than our business?
If you’re currently evaluating an in-house pay and bill model, you’ll need to look at how much does it really cost to run pay and bill in-house, and compare it with the alternative – a managed service. With Workwell Outsourcing, you can have the best of both worlds. You can opt to use our market-leading pay and bill platform, Evertime, to power your in-house function, or you can outsource your entire pay and bill operation to us, and let us take full responsibility for delivery.
It’s important to understand the true cost of running pay and bill internally so you can decide whether this approach aligns with your long-term plans.
The cost of pay and bill software is just one factor to be considered. Software alone doesn’t run payroll – it requires people, processes, training, management and compliance expertise to turn that technology into a functioning operation. You’ll need to consider:
- Hiring People With Expertise
For most agencies, people represent the largest payroll and billing expense. Depending on your size, your pay and bill function is likely to require payroll administrator(s) including absence cover, finance personnel and people who can manage credit control.
- Employment Costs
You’ll need to account for costs associated with having staff such as Employer National Insurance, pensions, annual leave, sickness cover and employee benefits.
- Training & Development
Every new employee requires onboarding and training before becoming fully productive. Existing team members need continuous development to maintain knowledge and compliance standards. The larger your team becomes, the larger this ongoing commitment becomes too.
- Technology
Most pay and bill operations must be integrated with other systems such as CRM, finance, reporting tools and document management platforms, all of which can represent an ongoing investment as systems need to be maintained.
If you don’t connect your systesm effectively, your teams may spend valuable time moving information between platforms or databases, checking data and managing exceptions. This creates hidden operational costs that rarely appear in software budgets but can significantly affect productivity.
- Compliance
This is an increasingly important consideration. Pay and bill processes must be accurate, auditable and aligned with current regulations which means ongoing attention to payroll legislation, HMRC requirements, record keeping, process governance and data security. This means ongoing investment in the expertise and knowledge of your teams.
- Errors
A timesheet discrepancy, payroll adjustment or invoicing issue may appear minor in isolation, but the time spent correcting problems quickly adds up. This can impact efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Above all, pay and bill teams require management, oversight and support. The impact on fee-earning work must be considered when weighing up your options.
- Scaling
Perhaps the most important consideration is what your pay and bill function will cost in the future as you work towards your growth goals. You must consider costs associated with hiring additional payroll staff and scaling systems to support your growth. Most agencies find that back-office costs rise steadily alongside worker volumes.
In-house management of pay and bill may be the right fit for your agency, especially when powered by a market-leading platform like Evertime.
Cost of Pay and Bill: The Managed Service Alternative
For agencies that want payroll and billing expertise without continually expanding internal resource, outsourced pay and bill offers a sound alternative.
Rather than hiring additional staff and building larger support teams, you can access specialist pay and bill expertise and scalable, market-leading technology.
Because our approach is collaborative, our managed pay and bill service is designed to provide visibility, reporting and operational transparency while removing much of the administrative burden from your internal teams.
Making The Right Decision
An in-house pay and bill function can be a powerful asset for recruitment businesses that want complete control and are committed to investing in internal capability.
However, it’s important to add up the real cost of running pay and bill internally and consider where your business is heading. That will allow you to assess whether in-house pay and bill, underpinned by our market-leading platform Evertime, is the right solution, or whether our outsourced pay and bill service would be better.
