Reply to: Exact Payroll

[youngguy]

Is that something that Google told you or from reading the reviews

Apologies, I was inadvertently misleading. Google auto pinged me to 'congratulate' me for having so many views of my review and it linked to stats and the actual reviews page.

The assessment of the reviews being fake (eg 5 people leaving positive reviews on the same day, with all of those people also leaving reviews all over the globe...for the same businesses) come from me, not Google.

[eek]

FYI
I just got pinged by Google as I left a review for Exact some months ago.

It appears they are now paying for positive reviews. At least a third of their reviews are 5* fake.

Ironically, they still struggle to maintain a 3.0 average.

Always worth remembering to check reviewer patterns and I've personally found - learning the hard way - off payroll org a little better for honest reviews (although not perfect as that can be anonymous), coupled with recommendations of those already on site when choosing a brolly.

Is that something that Google told you or from reading the reviews

And for recommendations of umbrellas - yep the best option is always going to be personal recommendation.

[youngguy]

FYI
I just got pinged by Google as I left a review for Exact some months ago.

It appears they are now paying for positive reviews. At least a third of their reviews are 5* fake.

Ironically, they still struggle to maintain a 3.0 average.

Always worth remembering to check reviewer patterns and I've personally found - learning the hard way - off payroll org a little better for honest reviews (although not perfect as that can be anonymous), coupled with recommendations of those already on site when choosing a brolly.

[cojak]

Yes....that's pretty much exactly what the last couple of Offpayroll reviews and Google reviews have said in the last week

Quelle surprise!

That’s the last one of those on here…

[youngguy]

Always been paid on time the correct amount at the correct time I have never had to phone them to sort anything out

Yes....that's pretty much exactly what the last couple of Offpayroll reviews and Google reviews have said in the last week

I must be the most unlucky (ex) customer in the world as they are still making mistakes for me and I left them 3 months ago. There is of course at least one other customer who is getting shafted, as their pension money is in my account .

[Thanos616]

Always been paid on time the correct amount at the correct time I have never had to phone them to sort anything out

[youngguy]

Interesting.

Looks like there is a small influx of positive reviews on Google as well as offpayroll.org in the last week.

It is entirely possible service is improving (I'm not with them anymore) .....however my pension company contacted me in mid April to say additional money had been moved into their pension holding account by Exact. I contacted Exact and said it wasn't mine and they may want to ensure it quickly made it whomever's pension account it was due for.

Never got a response.

This week my pension company told me the money is still sitting there waiting for Exact.

[WTFH]

Here’s an idea. Maybe if Exact would like to post as themselves to explain how they’ve fixed these issues rather than spamming the forum with ‘they’rrreeeee great!’ reviews, I might actually let them though…

They're probably running a competition for both their customers - whoever can get an advert up on here wins a prize.

[cojak]

Here’s an idea. Maybe if Exact would like to post as themselves to explain how they’ve fixed these issues rather than spamming the forum with ‘they’rrreeeee great!’ reviews, I might actually let them though…

[youngguy]

Final update as all issues have now been resolved and agreements reached on SAR etc (a relief to me and any poor person who had to read my entries on this thread).

After a somewhat lukewarm start, the FCSA had a conversation with the Umbrella. I don't know what was covered but I got corrected payslips and a P45 the same day. Fair play to the FCSA.

I suspect the Umbrella never assumed one person would/could make such a fuss. As I've said before, the industry is unregulated and low margin, high volume etc doesn't provide the best environment for customer focus, but I still remain surprised at just how much Exact managed to get wrong.... repeatedly.

That said, they've apologised and have stressed they are committed to improving. It will take some considerable time from my observations and online reviews suggest I am far from an isolated incident. I also think the CEO has a steep learning curve.

I hope they do turn things around; I think the more umbrellas available, the better it is for contractors (IF PSLs can be addressed). Time will tell

[youngguy]

I had rather hoped that at this stage I'd have a P45 and could draw this thread to a close.

I'll continue to document the litany of errors here as a record and warning for anyone considering using this umbrella.

Having been fobbed off by the few remaining staff that didn't leave or get sacked for gross misconduct (I kid you not) a new person turned up to schmooze me. He is very good at telling me I should feel assured as he is working with the internal team blah blah blah. I'm not sure he knows what he means and I know I don't. He is very good at ignoring all my questions and would likely go far in politics.

He also tried to send me a hamper as a "gesture of good will" but managed to send it to the wrong address despite calling me to confirm my address and sending me a letter (with my address on!). He then said I had told him the wrong address?! Essence of Bojo perhaps.

SAR : 63 days and counting.

Complaint: 6 weeks and counting.

Payslips: 9 weeks. I was told it would take Exact a week to re-run my payslips (6 timesheets, 4 pension payments). I received a new set of payslips - I have over 22 now - it took me 3 mins to see that my pension contributions on the payslips didn't match the actual pension contributions Exact had made to my SIPP. Upon rasing this I was asked to "state what pension I wished for". My reply was I wished for it to reflect reality. That was 11 days ago and I have had many schmoozy emails since but no one has told me how long I have to wait before I get another set of payslips.

FCSA: Useless in their first response.

Bonus today: Due to Exact Payroll mess ups, HMRC have removed my tax allowance for the year so I've just been hit with a £10.5k tax bill. I can't wait to try and sort that out with them when I have no record of my pay for the last 6 months.

[youngguy]

Update on my situation, should anyone else be searching this in future and thinking Exact are a sensible Umbrella choice: TLDR AVOID!.

Following the errors mentioned in this thread, Exact attempted to correct this, which resulted in my next payslip showing up spurious 'Expenses' lines. Nothing added up and all anyone could say to me was "That's how the system works".

After many conversations with many people, including their Head of Finance and Head of Payroll, they said they would re-run things. What they actually did was delete me as an employee before re-signing me up as a fresh person (I can't wait to explain that to HMRC). This removed all my payslips.

The CEO (who was the Head of Finance and appears to have just taken the company over) and Head of Payroll (who apparently left last week suddenly) assured me they would fix this within the week.

That was a month ago.

Since then they've ignored all emails and calls (8 emails, 4 phone calls). No responses and no call backs. They've missed responding to a SAR on time and missed responding to their own complaints process in time.

It appears the company has recently changed ownership hands and everything seems to be slowly sinking. For 2 days their IT systems have been undergoing "an upgrade" (hmmm, not sure if this is a cyber issue or the company is just silly enough to schedule a 2 day upgrade on a Mon and Tues?!).

I'm now waiting for my P45, but I ain't holding my breath!

[eek]

What constitutes a dodgy payslip? (Serious Q)

Payslip - not much

Pay Summary - I would expect to see 4 items against employer costs - Umbrella Margin, Employer NI, Apprenticeship Levy + Employer pension fully broken down.

What you may see is 5 items (hiding something) or no breakdown at all. And in that latter case it may or may not add up to the figure it should be (and it usually doesn't).

[youngguy]

They have on multiple occasions offered to provide FCSA with any payslips from FCSA members that are dodgy and the FCSA have never been interested..

What constitutes a dodgy payslip? (Serious Q)

In my case Exact made so many errors that they tried to correct them by adding faux lines to my next payslip - they've "refunded" money they previously took incorrectly in relation to tax and pension payments by adding it to the next payslip and calling it "expenses".

They got themselves in such a pickle they removed me as an employee from their systems entirely, set me up as a brand new employee mid year and will now - I presume - retrospectively generate payslips for the past year. A kind of mulligan if you will

Quite what those payslips will now say or how the paperwork will marry up to actual payments and to whatever reporting has already taken place to HMRC is anyone's guess....infact I am pretty sure Exact ARE guessing and making this up as they go along.

Suffice to say, they are an umbrella to be avoided.

[eek]

I suspect I already know the answer but....

Is there actually anyone an Umbrella can be reported to?

I'm still chasing money owed (due to them making errors and me needing refunds) and seeking correct payslips (their fudges to return money they incorrectly assigned to my pension ended up in spurious lines on my payslip referencing expenses which I've never had/claimed)

Exact have been so quiet and poor, I'd assume they are under cyber attack if I hadn't been told that their system is so old it isn't even cloud based


FCSA (ha)? HMRC? Two hopes?!

FCSA don't care - there is a firm that checks payslips at the requests of contractors and agencies. They have on multiple occasions offered to provide FCSA with any payslips from FCSA members that are dodgy and the FCSA have never been interested.

At least with Professional Passport, Crawford listens and then investigates.