Self bill process?

[stacks]

got this through today...

Spring Technology are investigating moving to a Self-Bill process where instead of Limited Companies submitting invoices Spring uses the timesheet / expenses information submitted and creates a self-bill invoice on behalf of the Limited Company.

This removes the need for Limited Companies to produce invoices and removes the need for Spring to match invoices to timesheets /expenses which is a timely process and can currently delay payments.

We would like to know the views of the Limited Companies who currently invoice Spring if they would be willing to move to a self-bill process by answering the following two questions.



Anything to be wary of? anyone have any experience of using an agency that runs this way?

[n3il123]

Got that through myself this morning, not sure what to make of it tbh. Personally I think that it is a way for spring to cut a few more jobs in Brum, along with their internet portal.

Anyway surely if I have my own limited I would still have to create an invoice for the accounts anyway?

[Scaroth of the Jagaroth]

Yeah, load of bollox. In my (painful) experience, self billing just attracts a load of grief from HMRC come "payroll review" time. I send you an invoice, you send me the money. Spring's internal admin procedures are neither my concern or responsibility.

[Mordac]

Shouldn't be a problem, you can still produce an invoice in the usual way (e.g. print one off) for HMRCs benefit, you just don't need to send it to Spring. Think of it as saving you the cost of a stamp and the walk to the postbox.

[malvolio]

Or think of it getting you irretreivably wedded to their payroll system, a la Computer People and looking even more like an employee. Any such scheme must have an opt out (unlike CP's...), so either go along for the ease and the slightly increased chance of failing IR35, or do it properly. If you have your own company, tell them you will be submitting invoices in the usual way.

And if you do opt into oit, make sure you know how they handle VAT on expenses (again, a la CP) since many payroll systems will deduct it at source and you lose out.

[bfg]

Read this

got this through today...
Anything to be wary of? anyone have any experience of using an agency that runs this way?

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsP...MCE_MIG_009855

They can't do it without your Authority. Don't give it, if they do it anyway then report them.

There are several reasons that you shouldn't:

You have to pay the VAT on the invoice, if they issue one for £10,000 too much do you think you will get the money - but you WILL have to pay the VAT if it is not sorted before your period end and then explain the correction to HMRC when you try and claim it back.

If it is too small, is there any new contract term that gives you some other binding claim on them for the correct amount.

You no longer have control of how often and when the invoice is issued.

If the invoices are wrong, how do you prove what they owe you, can you sell the debt when they have paid the amount on the invoice and it is short.

If they have a cash flow problem can you be sure they won't have a 'computer error' that delays your invoicing, what if they go bust before the invoice is raised - do you have a fall-back to issue liability against them.

Unless you are 100% confident that they won't ever go bust and they will never make a mistake I wouldn't touch it with the proverbial 10 foot bargepole.

When my agent tried it the agent phoned me and gave me a load of waffle about how it was the law and I had to do it. He soon changed his tune when I sent the document above and stated clearly that they did not under any circumstances have permission to do this and if they went ahead I would report them to HMCE and they would lose the ability to do it for ANY contractor. There are several of us with the same agent at the same site and not one of us is on self-billing.

[DimPrawn]

Sounds like the slippery slope into becoming a perma-temp of the agency, IR35 fodder, and agency bitch.

Stay an independant business. Do not slip into this through the "it saves me printing an invoice and all that."

You have been warned.

[freshblue]

Self Billing

Is purely an accounting process.. in theory speeds up the payment process as they are not waiting to match time to an invoice.

[malvolio]

And are we bovvered???

I do not give a stuff about Spring's accounting practices and internal efficieny drives and nor should anyone else. That's their problem, not mine, and I run my business to suit me, nobody else. The trade off between a tiny amount on internal admin against making it harder to prove yourself to be outside IR35 is just not worth it IMHO.

[ladymuck]

My current contract is through Modis and I'm on their self-billing system. The main problem with it is that they supply a timesheet (poorly done in Word) that follows the calender month but their payroll processes are weekly. So, in any month that doesn't end on a Friday, I have to either wait until that whole week is over before getting paid, or get paid pretty much straight away for the full weeks and then receive 2/3 days pay the following week.

The whole system sucks and I have had many an argument with them about their appalling system that can't seem to handle something as simple as a monthly timesheet. I'm considering switching over to invoicing them, coz I already create an invoice each month for my records, it's no hardship to pop a copy in the post too.