Parasol - Employment Costs - extra charges??

[fred857]

I've been with Parasol for over 4 years and I have always been pleased with their service, and have trusted them to pay me the right amount and on time, which they generally did a good job of doing.

This month I decided to actually run through the calculations on my latest Parasol monthly payslip since they changed the payslip format back in October. My math skills aren't all that great but I discovered a charge which I couldn't account for. On the new payslip underneth the 'Parasol Margin' deduction line (£119.50 incidentally), there is another deduction line labeled 'Employment costs', this is a total of the employer NI charges, and in my case my pension contribution, cushty...or so I thought. But having calculated the 'er NI and pension contribution I was left with a mysterious unaccounted £128 charge which had been taken by Parasol from my invoice receipt.

I called Parasol to be told (in a very guarded manner) that the £128 charge is an extra deduction to cover Parasol insurance and operating costs - he was all a bit vague to be honest. That's very strange, I said, as I thought liability/indemnity insurance is already covered in my standard £119.50 fee. And any other charges would be complete news to me. Apparently not he said. I asked for a breakdown of the £128 to find out exactly what it represented. The Parasol guy told me that he would need to investigate and email me back the breakdown. He couldn't wait to get me off the phone.

I'll await their response tomorrow, but something doesn't feel quite right. I will update tomorrow.

[fred857]

I've figured it with the help of @Wary's explanation over on the other Parasol charging thread:

http://forums.contractoruk.com/umbre...ml#post1468212

I'll see what Parasol come back to me with tomorrow. But am feeling really disappointed in them.

[Yil]

I’ve reviewed the threads talking about Parasols rather opaque “Employment Costs” payslip line item and how it pertains to employers NI but I’d like to confirm that I understand the issue correctly:

Employers NI should be calculated as (for a weekly invoice cycle):
((Invoice Amount - £136 – Parasol Fee – Allowable Expenses) * 13.8) / 113.8)

However Parasol are not including the “Allowable Expenses” component of this calculation.

Is this summary correct?

[Wary]

I’ve reviewed the threads talking about Parasols rather opaque “Employment Costs” payslip line item and how it pertains to employers NI but I’d like to confirm that I understand the issue correctly:

Employers NI should be calculated as (for a weekly invoice cycle):
((Invoice Amount - £136 – Parasol Fee – Allowable Expenses) * 13.8) / 113.8)

However Parasol are not including the “Allowable Expenses” component of this calculation.

Is this summary correct?

Assuming they apply the weekly Employers NI calculation (i.e. a threshold of £136 as opposed to a monthly £589) and assuming you have no pension contribution, that seems correct to me. If they're applying a weekly calculation then I presume your invoices & expenses are weekly? It is these weekly amounts and their weekly fee that you should plug into the above calculation.

[The Spartan]

There's a few people on here who been screwed by Parasol's "Employment Costs" the best thing to do is leave and spread the word to anyone else who uses their service

[Yil]

There's a few people on here who been screwed by Parasol's "Employment Costs" the best thing to do is leave and spread the word to anyone else who uses their service

I may very well end up doing this but I want to ensure that I have my facts correct before I approach Parasol with this and give them a fair opportunity to respond!

[The Spartan]

I may very well end up doing this but I want to ensure that I have my facts correct before I approach Parasol with this and give them a fair opportunity to respond!

They'll probably give you the same response they gave to me the extra is to cover Payroll costs, SMP and SSP even though you'll never use them. Basically they're using it to cover their AWR costs even though they can claim 92% of it back.

[Nixon Williams]

They'll probably give you the same response they gave to me the extra is to cover Payroll costs, SMP and SSP even though you'll never use them. Basically they're using it to cover their AWR costs even though they can claim 92% of it back.

An umbrella company will effectively only be able to reclaim 92% of the SMP costs, they will be too big to reclaim any SSP costs.

[The Spartan]

Even so they weren't very forthcoming about it in the first place hence I left them

[The rebel]

was screwed by parasol

There's a few people on here who been screwed by Parasol's "Employment Costs" the best thing to do is leave and spread the word to anyone else who uses their service

They took my money and blame it on what they call 'employment costs'... never again with them.