Moving payroll provider mid-year: what to ask for

There is no rule that payroll must change at the start of a tax year. A mid-year move is routine, as long as the figures carried across are complete.

Ask the outgoing provider for

• Year-to-date gross pay, tax, National Insurance and student loan for every employee.
• Current tax codes and NI categories, including any week 1/month 1 flags.
• Pension scheme details, contribution rates and the auto-enrolment staging history.
• Copies of the last FPS and EPS submissions.
• Any outstanding attachment of earnings orders.

Get this in writing before you give notice, not after. A provider who has already lost the work is slower to answer.

Run one parallel period

Process the first period on both systems and compare the net pay line by line. A mismatch of a few pence is usually rounding; a mismatch of pounds is a missing year-to-date figure, and it is far easier to find now than at year end.