Dream Solution to Holiday Pay Nightmare

For some years the practice of paying notional holiday pay along with regular weekly earnings to workers on short term or zero hours contracts has simplified payroll administration for hundreds of employers. But last week the European Court of Justice ruled that it is illegal for employers to ëroll upí gross pay in this way.

There have been reports that as a result of this new ruling, keeping tabs on holiday pay for these sorts of workers will be an administratorís nightmare. But Brighton based Celerity Payroll Services has come up with an outsource solution to make the whole holiday pay process seamless and simple.

Director Mike Steer explains, ìOur bureau software lets employers nominate which of their workers are suitable for this kind of holiday pay accrual. We create a ëHoliday Pay Accountí for each of those employees. Each week, holiday pay is calculated as a proportion of earned pay and automatically credited to the account. Then, as paid holiday is taken, this is debited from the account. The status of each workerís holiday pay account can appear on their payslips and is clearly shown in the spreadsheet that prompts the employer for the following weekís hours. The result - no more holiday pay tears.î

Teresa Mitchell, Office Manager at the Abbey Staff Agency in Eastbourne agrees the Celerity approach will make a big difference. ìWe were dreading the thought of having to go back to the old way of monitoring piecemeal amounts of holiday pay entitlement in our busy agency, but Celerityís simple solution means we can leave the maths to them, while we get on with placing our temps.î

Celerity Payroll Services Ltd, established in 1989, runs the Payline Payroll and BACS bureau. The company, based in Brighton, is a BACS Approved Commercial Bureau. They have customers throughout the UK and specialise in providing fully managed payroll and BACS bureau services, where the emphasis is on making life simple for their clients..