Background and Main Purpose
The successful candidate will be responsible for all aspects of the College’s payrolls and will also be expected to take on a variety of other tasks within the Accounts Office.
Payroll at Winchester College is rather different to and more wide-ranging than that in many other organisations. It covers a broad range of activities and doing the job successfully will depend at least as much on being comfortable dealing with people as with the technicalities and minutiae of running a payroll system.
The College is a complex organisation, with a broad range of activities and a highly devolved management structure. It has 700 plus employees, which reflect the need to house, feed, educate and look after 700 children 24 hours a day, seven days a week during term time and to service its extensive other activities year round.
Employees have a wide variety of different working patterns and hours and this is reflected in their salaries and wages and their terms and conditions.
The Payroll Administrator is expected to deal with a range and variety of accounting and HR tasks in addition the payroll itself. The successful candidate will be expected to take the initiative and play an active role in gathering and shaping the information necessary to prepare for and complete the payroll successfully. In this, people skills, good organisation and the ability and confidence to think for yourself count for more than simple technical competence and the role will not suit anyone who is simply interested in quietly entering data.
The role deals with all aspects of getting people paid. This will demand extensive liaison with operating departments across the College and in particular working very closely with the Human Resources Director and heads of department to obtain the standing and variable information necessary to prepare the payroll. Diligence, an eye for detail and an organised and methodical approach are vital and absolutely necessary in the process of producing a payroll but in many respects, the people-skills aspects of the role are equally challenging.
Once the payroll is run the Administrator is then responsible for communicating the resulting information to all other interested parties. This will include dealing face-to-face with queries and problems from individual employees, many of whom may have little practical understanding of payroll and the rules and regulations within it operates, and providing financial, management and accounting information to the Accounts Department, the HR Director and other management and interested third parties such as HMRC, the College’s bankers and pension providers.
The successful candidate will be expected to keep the Chief Accountant informed of progress at all times and to work with him in ensuring all legal, regulatory, accounting and financial requirements are met. The post also requires the successful candidate to play an active and full part in the day to day running of the College accounts function, which comprises five people, reporting to the Chief Accountant.
The College is very much a community and the successful candidate is expected to understand and support the collegiate approach. All employees are encouraged to join in the life of the College and the unique opportunities it offers.
Principle Duties (not in priority order)
a) Sole responsibility for the operation of the College’s end-to-end payroll process. This includes one monthly payroll and one small annual pensioners’ payroll. This covers all aspects of payroll production, including data collection, issuing the payroll and reporting to the Revenue and other authorities. The HR/Payroll Integration system used is iTrent by MidlandHR.
b) Ensure compliance with HMRC requirements on all tax, national insurance, pension contributions and RTI and Apprenticeship Levy and Auto-Enrolment and calculated properly and accurately on timely manners.
c) Responsible for processing and analysing pension auto-enrolment, teachers’ pension and all other pension schemes.
d) Process monthly pension payments to pension providers, submit schedules and liaise with pension providers for any queries or issues.
e) Assist employees with their retirement application and pension withdrawal.
f) Create and maintain the payroll guidelines, policies and procedures.
g) Collate, compute and process of monthly and year-end returns to HM Revenue & Customs, including benefits-in-kind returns P11d and PAYE Settlement Agreements etc.
h) Responsible for dealing with any benefits-in-kind queries in relation to issues within payrolling medical benefit, other P11d and PSA.
i) Completion of monthly and year-end returns to the school’s pension providers.
j) Calculate sick and maternity pay and administer the school’s absence records working alongside with the HR Officer.
k) Liaise with the heads of department within the College, including providing timesheets and guidance to collect the monthly pay and timesheet information necessary to complete the payroll.
l) Work closely with the College’s HR Director regarding pay and hours, leavers and joiners, pay and conditions.
m) Deal effectively and courteously with payroll and pension queries from other College employees.
n) Work with the HR Director in reviewing and assessing the employment status (and hence need to deduct tax) from self-employed workers.
o) Liaise with and providing information to other members of the College’s accounting function and personnel staff to ensure that payroll information is incorporated into the College’s accounting and personnel records on a timely and accurate basis.
p) Running the payroll does not take up all the working hours of a full-time employee. It is estimated that the payroll function is likely to occupy 70% to 80% of a full-time employee. So the Payroll Administrator will be expected to carry out other accounting and bookkeeping functions. Currently these include:
• Responsible for creating journals for monthly investment accounting and termly total investment return for management;
• Responsible for analysing and filing employees’ salaries to the Life Assurance provider for premium renewals;
• File death claims, computed and analysed payments and liaised with the life assurance provider for any issues and policy changes;
• “Backup” person for purchase ledger accounts; and,
• Provide assistance with reconciling boarding house accounts.
q) Liaising with and providing information to other members of the College’s accounting function to help in managing the College’s cash requirements.
r) Assist and support other members of the Finance Department as and when required and provide cover on other activities within the department during holiday and sickness absence.
s) Perform such other tasks and functions as the Chief Accountant may from time-to-time reasonably require.
Person Specification
In writing this person specification applicants should note that although this role has all the traditional skills requirements associated with payroll as a business discipline those that can demonstrate the generic skill/ability to be trained are actively encourage to apply for the post as all appropriate training will be provided if required.
We are looking for the following essential qualities:
• Numerate and financially literate, demonstrated by their experience in a payroll, accounting, banking or related discipline.
• Keen attention to detail.
• Several years experience in a busy and dynamic work environment.
• Positive, organised and can do attitude.
• Flexibility and willingness to muck in.
• Be able to demonstrate an ability to show initiative.
• Communicate effectively with all levels of staff within the organisation.
• Good knowledge of Excel, Word and Outlook.
• Happy to develop and understand a data base system with a reporting function.
• Absolute discretion and confidentiality.
• Ability to be trained to take on the role.
Desirable qualities
• Worked in a relatively senior payroll administrator post with several years experience.
• Knowledge of iTrent HR/Payroll integrated system.
• Knowledge of pay and pension rules and regulations.
• Relevant CIPP payroll qualifications is favourable, though not essential.
• Hands on experience in a payroll, accounting, finance or banking environment.