Reply to: which brolly company has the cheapest admin fees...?

[Contractor UK]

We're locking this thread now as it's becoming a bit heavy on the advertising.

[PayMatters]

One thing to bear in mind is that it is much cheaper if you opt for monthly pay.

For example our fees are £26.50 per week or £86.50 per month (gross).

On average there are 4.33 weeks in a month so our weekly fee equates to £114.75 per month (and our fees are on the lower end of the gross fee scale and includes insurances).

Another consideration is if you want same day payment.

There are still Umbrella Companies out there that will charge you £30 for a same day payment (i.e. if they receive the agency payment on the Friday, they will ensure it hits your account also on Friday).

There is a new bank payment scheme similar to CHAPS called FasterPay.

If your bank is a member (see http://www.apacs.org.uk/sortcodechecker/index.html) it only costs us £3 to send you a same day payment.

The net cost to you after tax saving is therefore approx £2.

Sorry too for the free advertising but hopefully these are valid points for you to consider.

Miles
PayMatters

[yeahrite]

safe broll

also make sure whoever you pick does not have 'cash flow' problems - if anyone goes bust kiss goodbye to your cash!

quite - and i hear orangutagfairy is in trouble - according to my accountant, anyway.

[brollyman]

Hear Hear!

Not sure if I'm allowed to advertise.... but I (and a small group of industry professionals) founded Springboard Umbrella last year. There you go - I'm out in the open now!

What you say about umbrellas is all spot on as far as I am concerned and I wish more of us were more transparent about fees and returns. I have noticed that many of the less well know firms do not quote their fees anywhere on their websites or if they do, they quote as a headline the net cost to a higher rate tax payer and don't even mention the actual gross charge. Not wishing to buck the trend, we also quote the net figure, but the front page of our website clearly quotes the gross figure. If we miss out on business as a result then so be it - we'd rather be open and honest, we're not out to buy business!

It's also true that no "proper" umbrella provider can get you more than any other. I'm pretty sick of providers selling their dispensations as the holy grail that allows their contractors to offset more expenses than their competitors. The dispensation is merely an accounting tool for us. The big boys seem to have cleaned up their act in this respect though there are still a few who oversell and I feel that it's not always company policy to do so and is more of a training issue with their staff when they are talking to contractors.

Before we went live to the market, we invested a great deal of money and time in ensuring that our back office and client facing systems were up to scratch. As a bare minimum we felt we had to have online registration, online timesheets and a comprehensive member's portal in place. Obvioulsy we speak to our contractors at the initial registration phase and give them guidance but from then on they can be fairly self-dependent and manage everything remotely.

In essence there's basically two things you can use to set the service of competing umbrella providers apart - their fees and their service. We deliberately pitched our fees mid market so we don't really have a huge advantage in that respect. However, and this is a big however, we feel our service really sets us apart. We started our business specialising in dealing with HR Freelancers so our compliance status has to be absolutly watertight and now we are dealing in all market sectors that hasn't changed. HR professionals are very hard to please and we seem to be doing a pretty good job so far.

Anyway, enough free advertising......

[original PM]

Obviusly I'm biased

evidently you are - who do you work for??

I have to agree though if the brolly offer

1) Prompt correct payment of invoices including taking into account any submitted expenses.

2) A swift and easy set up service.

3) Inclusive insurances (which they should as you are an employee and as such by law they need Employers and Public Liability - they should also offer profesional indemnity as a matter if course but not sure if all do)

4) A basic timesheet and expenses web portal - seriously this should not be difficult to create, host and maintain - however if they are a new small outfit as all of the current big boys once were then an online timesheet portal should suffice - expenses can be done on locked excel spreadsheets and e-mailed - not much slower if at all than an online expenses portal.

5) People who answer the phone when you call and who are committed to answering your query and not to reaching an internal KPI based on length of time on the call - I have vast expereicne of this and given that you never know what a persons query could be or how convuluted their tax history is you simple cannot put a timescale on answering this query. Oh and as we are dealing with payroll people on the end of the phone with basic maths skills may be useful.



Then all you will be comparing them on is price - oh and when you do call them ignore their 'net return' boasts - any brolly will give you the same net return if you give the the same invoice value, expense value and tax code (it is the law!) the only difference will be the fee they charge - and yes also watch out for the it is £xx after tax for a low/high rate payer - this is disguising the true cost - if they do this put the phone down as it means even they think their charges are too high!

My ten cents worth anyway

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

If its Perfect Payroll you're thinking about going with it seems they're banging on about maximising expenses claims. Same old same old.

IMHO yuo'd be better with your own company if you really want to save tax.

[brollyman]

£20?? Are you sure?

I'd be checking the small print if I were you. In their application pack they quote their net fee as £10.51 after tax relief for a higher rate tax payer. By my reckoning, that means their weekly fee is nearer £27 which is about the same charged by the likes of Parasol....

Also, they don't appear to have any sort of online service - everything seems to be done with paper such as timesheets and expenses claims and even the registration process appears to be manual. Even some some of the smaller umbrella companies have online registration and an online member's portal!

They also have a 1 week notice period - I would expect there to be no notice period with an umbrella company....

Maybe I'm picking holes but for the same cost you could use an umbrella that offers a fully online service, watertight employment contract, electronic processing of timesheets and expenses and online set up.

Obviusly I'm biased

[opronnie]

thanks for all the replies folks... a mate of mine who i've only recently bumped into on the contract i just started has been around the block with all the big boys and your comments are right that the cheapest often arent the best.... but also i dont think i get enough of a service from crystal as it is for the money i pay £119 per month on average!!!! bloody daylight robbery!.. i have been speaking to a couple of newer brolly companies and i tend to go by my gut instinct by the way i'm treated... i cant stand calling and waiting in a que to eventually get through to someone in a call centre whos been staring at her screen for 8 hours..... i spoke the firm my mate uses a new company perfect payments and they were really nice... they actually gave me some good advice re expenses and gave me some comparisons straight away... they sent me a pack and gave me a follow up call yesterday...£20 charge so not the cheapest but i feel quite valued as a new customer... i'll keep you posted...

[kookachoo]

I used to use Orange Genie back in the day, they were alright

[Beefy198]

So how much is insurance on average through contractor umbrella then?

[Svalbaard]

"There is nothing in life that some man can do a little cheaper or do a little worse.....those who consider price only are this man's lawful prey"

The moral - don't decide based on price alone, the cheaper umbrellas may charge extra for insurance and expense processing and may not have a fully online system meaning you'll be emailing or faxing timesheets and expense claims to them.

I agree but my experience is that it's generally a trade off.

Parasol are pricey with a flash front end but with sh*t service. CU are cheaper and while they may not provide all of the flashy bells and whistles they do the most important thing well - and that is answering all of my queries in double quick time.

[brollyman]

You get what you pay for...

"There is nothing in life that some man can do a little cheaper or do a little worse.....those who consider price only are this man's lawful prey"

The moral - don't decide based on price alone, the cheaper umbrellas may charge extra for insurance and expense processing and may not have a fully online system meaning you'll be emailing or faxing timesheets and expense claims to them.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Agree the CU service is excellent but they are putting their fees up to about £80 per month and this does not include any insurances. No explanation as to why fees are going up either...

Lisa... any explanation or just exploiting us?

Hi Svalbaard,

I'm hurt - we would never exploit you Thank you for the 'excellent service' comment which is much appreciated.

CU is one of the biggest and best know umbrella companies but we are also one of the cheapest, even with the rate increase, and I hope you agree that we still offer good value for money. As with any other company, if our costs of business rise we will have to, reluctantly, pass some of that cost on to our customers.

[Svalbaard]

Have to admit, I joined Parasol two months ago and they weren't as great as I'd been lead to believe so I'm back with Contractor Umbrella

Agree the CU service is excellent but they are putting their fees up to about £80 per month and this does not include any insurances. No explanation as to why fees are going up either...

Lisa... any explanation or just exploiting us?

[MPwannadecentincome]

also make sure whoever you pick does not have 'cash flow' problems - if anyone goes bust kiss goodbye to your cash!