A new client in October
A client joins you in October. Their previous provider, an in-house payroll person who has left or another bureau, sends a year-to-date report, a list of employees, and possibly a backup file for a package you do not use. Somewhere in there are the gross pay, tax, National Insurance, student loan, pension and statutory payment figures for every employee since April.
An administrator types them into your software, employee by employee. It takes days. On the first run, some tax figures look strange and one employee's student loan deduction is wrong, and nobody is sure whether the error came from the old provider or the retyping.
Why mid-year takeovers are risky
Year-to-date figures drive the calculations for the rest of the year, so a mistake carries forward. Every provider's reports lay things out differently. Some figures, like National Insurance category history or pension earnings, are easy to miss. And the old provider has no reason to help much, especially if the parting was not friendly.
Setup also includes the client itself: PAYE reference, agent authorisation, pension scheme details, pay elements and pay dates. All of it has to be right before the first run.
What a messy takeover costs
Errors in the first runs undermine the new client's confidence just when you want to impress them. Corrections mid-year take longer than getting the import right. Year-end figures that do not match can create problems for employees' records. And administrators lose days to retyping at the start of every new relationship.
| Item to bring across | Common problem |
|---|---|
| Year-to-date pay, tax and NI | Retyped figures with small errors |
| NI categories and changes during the year | History missed |
| Student and postgraduate loan plans | Plan type or start missing |
| Pension earnings and contributions | Figures from the wrong period |
| Statutory payments in progress | Ongoing entitlements lost |
| Attachment orders and deductions | Orders not handed over |
How we build a takeover routine
- The previous provider's reports, as spreadsheets, PDFs or exports, are read into a structured set of employee and year-to-date records, with a model handling PDFs and an administrator confirming anything uncertain.
- The records are mapped to your payroll software's import format, including NI category history, loan plans, pension figures and statutory payments in progress.
- Totals are reconciled: per employee and in total against the old provider's summary, and where available against the figures the old provider submitted to HMRC.
- Every difference is listed for an administrator to resolve before import, with the source document linked.
- A setup checklist covers the client-level details: PAYE and accounts office references, agent authorisation, pension scheme link, pay elements and the pay run calendar.
- After the first run, a comparison against the old provider's last period flags anything that moved unexpectedly.
Where the old provider's figures look wrong, the routine flags them. What to do about a previous provider's error is for the client and your team to decide.
Starting a new client properly
Takeovers become a predictable piece of work rather than days of typing. Differences are found before the first run, not after it. The client's first pay day under your bureau goes cleanly, which sets the tone for the whole relationship. And the routine works the same way whoever does it, so takeovers do not depend on one experienced person.
Are takeovers painful for you?
- Year-to-date figures are typed in from the old provider's reports.
- First runs for new clients often need corrections.
- NI category or loan plan history has been missed before.
- You have no standard checklist for new client setup.
- Takeovers are left to your most experienced administrator.