21st December, 2018
If you’re providing payroll management services for clients, you’ll be preparing for mandatory payday filing already (well, you should be!). But you may not realise there are several, significant opportunities this change presents.
By taking a positive, proactive stance to payday filing, your business stands to gain from the shift, particularly if you have any interest in building out your payroll advisory or management services capabilities.
READ: Are you ready for the impact of payday filing?
Here, we highlight the most significant opportunities for you to be aware of, and capitalise on, as mandatory payday filing comes into effect.
Our research suggests that at least 25 percent of Kiwi SMEs are still unaware of payday filing, despite publicity from Inland Revenue (IR) and promotional activity from payroll software providers like MYOB.
Therein lies an opportunity for you as a trusted business advisor to provide valuable, timely information to your clients.
Help clients to understand payday filing, what it will mean for them and how they can get organised in advance. It’s a great way to position yourself as a thought leader in the payroll compliance area and show that you’ve got your clients’ backs.
Providing this type of advice will also help with client retention and provide opportunities to market your expertise to potential clients.
TIP: This type of value-add information is great in newsletters, blog posts, or in emails to clients. Also consider posting the information and sharing it more widely on LinkedIn (to your own network and into any appropriate professional groups you or your team are members of) to position yourself as a thought leader and expert by potential clients too.
Many businesses that do know about payday filing are feeling uneasy about the change in compliance and how it will impact them. This is an opportunity to offer your services as a payroll advisor.
Depending on your level of expertise, you could advise clients on payroll best practices, how to set up and maintain effective payroll systems and processes, and even review their employment agreements and ensure they’re accurately reflected in the payroll software.
If you don’t already, you could also refer MYOB payroll products. Your Partner Manager can help you get up-to-speed on our payroll product suite and any special offers available for you and your clients.
TIP: There are plenty of things you could do to promote your payroll advisory services. You’ll find a range of useful marketing resources for MYOB partners in My Success.
Payday filing presents a great opportunity to leverage off a compliance change to promote your payroll management services.
For many businesses, this could be the compliance change that finally drives them to outsource payroll management and processing. Our research shows many businesses already find managing their payroll stressful and time consuming, and they’ll be looking to avoid the extra filing time and potential headache that could come with payday filing.
Now’s a good time to reach out to any of your existing clients not using your payroll management services and explain the benefits of fully outsourcing payroll to you.
Also think about proactively marketing your payroll management services to potential payroll clients. If there was ever a time that businesses might be considering how to manage their payroll and potentially outsource it – it’s now.
If you’re currently working across multiple payroll software products, now’s also a good time to think about consolidating. Look at the benefits of using no more than two payroll products. One for smaller or less complex businesses, and a second for larger businesses or business’ with complex payroll needs.
The benefits of consolidating could be significant:
If you’re not already using our online payroll product, MYOB Essentials Payroll, now would be a good time to think about moving appropriate payroll clients to it*. With the introduction of mandatory payday filing, this is especially important if you currently use desktop payroll software to manage the payroll of smaller clients with weekly pay cycles.
The benefits of moving to an online solution like Essentials Payroll are numerous:
MYOB has been lobbying the IR for some time to simplify the process for our partners who manage payroll on behalf of clients.
The government now plans to introduce a change to more formally recognise the relationships between tax intermediaries, like payroll bureaus, and their clients. If the legislation is passed, from 23 April 2019, you will be required to either formally register with the IR as a payroll bureau or set up as a nominated person to act on behalf of each of your clients to continue filing on their behalf.
This change will allow registered payroll bureaus to file for more than one client at a time.
If you have any questions, please contact the IR’s Payday Filing Account Management team at paydayreporting@ird.govt.nz. They can explain the new registration process and give you further information about the legislation.
If you haven’t already, you can read our blog post that covers the impacts of payday filing on payroll services here. Or, take a look at our information for businesses here.
To find out more about payday filing and how MYOB’s online payroll software can make it quicker and easier for you, speak with your Partner Manager today.
*MYOB Essentials Payroll is designed for businesses with 10 or less full-time employees or larger businesses with less complex payroll requirements.
**PayAgent is only available for Essentials Payroll customers.