Payroll Assistant

ABOUT THE ROLE

You will have the opportunity to deploy and develop your payroll skills in a supportive and fast-paced environment. We provide professional services to dental businesses in the UK. We have a team of accountants, consultants and marketers that you will be able to learn from.

We focus solely on one industry, and our passion to educate and inform the dental industry shapes all that we do. Specialising in our niche enables us to provide bespoke, industry renowned advice to help our clients’ businesses thrive.

To fulfil this role you must have a natural ability to be efficient, accurate and at your best working within a team. You will be a key part of our payroll team, working alongside our Payroll Manager to process monthly payrolls for dental practices and their directors across the UK. Our approach is simple: get it right first time. Alongside payroll, you will carry out bookkeeping for our clients during the quieter points of the monthly payroll cycle. Full training will be provided on our systems and processes to get you up to speed and producing the excellent quality of work we are renowned for.

This is a remote role. You will work from home as an integrated member of our expert team, staying connected with like-minded professionals through video calls and shared cloud systems. We welcome applications from candidates wherever they are based, provided you can work reliably within standard UK business hours and particularly around monthly payroll deadlines.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The key responsibilities of the role are:

• Processing monthly payrolls for a variety of clients, from dental practice payrolls to director-only schemes. To include but not limited to:

• Maintaining accurate employee records, including starters, leavers and tax code changes

• Calculating pay and payslip entries using the information clients provide

• Calculating statutory sick, maternity, paternity and adoption pay

• Calculating holiday pay correctly, including for irregular-hours and part-year workers

• Assessing staff for workplace pension auto-enrolment and submitting contributions to pension providers

• Preparing and submitting Real Time Information (RTI) returns to HMRC

• Checking payslips and reports for completeness and accuracy before they are released

• Liaising with clients to resolve queries and obtain missing information

• Supporting payroll year-end, including P60s and P45s.
• Keeping our payroll checklists and processes up to date, and suggesting improvements.
• Bookkeeping for clients using Xero around the monthly payroll cycle, including bank reconciliations and nominal analysis.
• Performing ad-hoc tasks to meet the needs of our clients and of the team.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

The successful candidate should be able to demonstrate the following essential skills:

• At least 18 months’ experience processing UK payrolls on a monthly basis.
• A sound working knowledge of UK payroll rules, including PAYE, National Insurance, statutory payments, holiday pay and pension auto-enrolment.
• Experience using cloud-based payroll software. Experience with Paycircle or BrightPay is desirable.
• Good working knowledge of all main Microsoft Office applications, in particular Excel.
• Clear, professional written and spoken English, to communicate confidently with our team and our clients.
• A reliable internet connection and a quiet, private place to work, suitable for handling confidential client data.
• Availability during standard UK business hours, with flexibility around payroll deadlines.
• You should feel confident working independently, while supporting and working with the team as a whole to meet our deadlines and deliver work for our clients.
• A fine eye for detail. You take pride in getting it right first time.
• A methodical and organised approach to work.
• Good communication and interpersonal skills, to be able to contribute in team meetings and better understand our business as a whole.
• A drive and commitment to achieve in whatever task is set.
• An inquisitive mind. Ask questions!

DESIRABLE SKILLS

It would be great, but not essential, if you also have:

• Current bookkeeping experience, ideally using Xero. Candidates with bookkeeping experience will be favoured, as bookkeeping forms a regular part of the role alongside payroll.
• A recognised payroll qualification, such as CIPP, or an AAT qualification (or currently working towards one).
• Experience working with UK d…