To make a payment to a Key Portfolio umbrella employee, we need six pieces of information:
- Their full name
- A unique identifier (such as their Key ID, which you can get from your new starts report, or your candidate reference number)
- How many hours they worked (even if they’re paid a daily rate)
- How many days they worked, if they’re paid a daily rate
- The hourly/daily rate for their services
- Period end date for the work completed
Together, this information forms the ‘payroll instructions’. There are four ways we can accept these instructions:
- Our payroll template
- A spreadsheet of data from your own payroll software
- A remittance
- Our timesheets
To help you decide which method suits your agency best, here’s a little more information on each one:
Complete our payroll template
We will send you an Excel workbook (known as a ‘schedule’) to complete, which includes fields for you to populate all of the mandatory data that we need to process payments. From that information, the spreadsheet calculates the VAT and gross payments due. When you’re ready, you can send us the schedule by email or encrypted mail (just be sure to provide us with access instructions in advance).
Best for: when you want to make doubly certain that you send us all the required data in tried-and-tested format
Watch out for: it might involve a little more work for your Payroll team
Pro tip: keep a master template with all of your candidates listed on it. Each week, simply populate the payroll data for those who are due to be paid.
Export a spreadsheet from your payroll software
If you can download a spreadsheet of data from your payroll software, we should be able to accept it as payroll instructions – as long as it includes the five pieces of mandatory data and is in either CSV or Excel format. If this is your preferred option, please send us an example spreadsheet to test in advance of your first payroll run. If there are any problems, we’ll work with you to resolve them.
Each week, you can send us the spreadsheet by email or encrypted mail (just be sure to provide us with access instructions in advance).
Best for: if you can easily download this info from your payroll software
Watch out for: make sure you include all mandatory details, avoid switching columns around or adding/removing columns from week to week without letting us know
Send a remittance
You can email us a remittance for your contractors who needs to be paid.
Best for: if you only have a handful of candidates working with Key Portfolio, if your payroll software is built around a remittance process, if your remittances include all mandatory details
Watch out for: your remittances may not include all mandatory details
Get your candidates to complete our timesheet
Ask your candidates to complete our online timesheet at the end of each period, which tells us how many hours/days they worked and what rate they agreed for the assignments. Then, you can simply wait for our invoices to arrive. All that’s left for you to do is check them over and then release the funds to us.
Best for: minimising your up-front workload
Watch out for: inaccurate timesheets, forgetful candidates
On receipt of the payroll instructions, we will raise an invoice (unless we have a self-billing agreement in place) and send it to you. After that, all that’s left for you to do is release funds to us and we’ll pay your candidates.