My bookkeeper is leaving. Help. You are in a spot of bother. Your bookkeeper is leaving. Moving to another job or retiring. It doesn’t matter. You won’t have the benefit of their services very soon, and you don’t know what to do. I am writing this as a real-life example of what happened to our client last year.
In a recent e-mail to Ger, she wrote
“Your staff are excellent and have made the loss of Jane so much more manageable”
Mary is a GP in a rural area up the country. She works like crazy, caring for her patients. Her practice manager, Jane, announced her departure last November. Inside, Mary was crying. What will I do now? Payroll is going to be a nightmare, and all the staff will leave if I make a balls of it.
I will bring you through how we stepped in to help and how this has worked out, with a focus on
- Payroll
- Cloud Accounting
- Cashflow
- Accounts
- Team
Payroll
Jane did the payroll, but wasn’t a qualified payroll professional. Payroll isn’t easy and best left in the hands of the experts. In her practice, Mary has several employees working part-time hours at different rates. She has locums coming in when she gets a rare day off. There would be travelling expenses from one surgery to another. And even vouchers for Christmas.
Confidentiality is key, and Mary can only answer queries at night. Patients are the priority during daylight hours. That can work for us as we work flexible hours. The key for us is getting this right the first time. That involves an up-front time investment to understand every employee’s pay. Plus, holiday entitlements, bank holidays and mileage expenses for employees and locums.
The big fear for Mary is that the payroll isn’t done on time and isn’t right either. There’d be a mutiny among the staff. This is her main priority. It’s not something she understands, and why would she, but she knows the value of getting it right. Revenue must be kept happy, too.
Payroll Package
The payroll package we use is Collsoft. Izabela, our payroll manager, is a whizz on this. She set up two payrolls for Mary as all her staff, bar one, are paid monthly. The other staff member gets paid every two weeks. She imported all the data from Thesaurus to Collsoft without a bother. Several payrolls later, and so far so good.
The first payroll is right and on time. Expenses, holiday pay, and public holidays are captured on the payslips. Payroll gone to Revenue along with the ERR reporting for vouchers, and travel expenses.
Main benefit
The main benefit for Mary is that her staff payroll is now sorted. If her team has any payroll queries, Izabela is on hand to help them. Having that resource gives Mary confidence. One less thing to worry about. Other benefits include
- We set Mary up for auto-enrolment by registering her business and setting up a payment method. Issuing letters from Collsoft to all employees confirming their registration
- Internal communication between payroll and accounts. Payroll and PAYE liabilities from Izabela to Éadaoin for a cashflow forecast. [see below]
- Confidentiality. All communication about pay, rates, benefits and entitlements is from us to Mary.
- ERR and all reporting to Revenue and MyFuture Fund is right and on time.
- Savings on payroll software and monthly support contracts.
Cloud Accounting
Putting a cloud accounting system in place using Xero and DEXT makes the numbers current. Invoices go to a dedicated account@ address for the business. From there, they go to DEXT. Any paper invoices that come into the surgery are scanned and go to DEXT. Bank statements feed directly into Xero. We review the invoices in DEXT and then push them into Xero.
The is out with the old and in with the new. A new system of looking after the numbers for Mary. We can match the payments in the bank to the invoices we have. If the payment doesn’t match, then there’s a missing invoice or an overpayment. If it’s an overpayment, then she can secure a refund quickly.
This ongoing monitoring of the bank account enables us to build up a picture of the business. Things like
- Suppliers paid and when
- HSE income earned and when paid
- Account balances for available funds
- Ensuring tax liabilities are paid on time
We don’t control the bank payments, but that’s something we can do. We do it for other clients once the client approves the payment schedule
Having all the information allows us to produce a cashflow forecast for Mary.
Cashflow Forecast
Éadaoin, Mary’s dedicated manager here, produces a 6-week cashflow forecast for Mary. It needs to be accurate as she has lots of outgoings. There are certain times in the month when cash becomes very tight. Mary wants to pay all her bills on time, keep Revenue happy and has enough left over for her own needs. In the forecast, she will have
- Expected income and dates of receipt
- Outgoings and payment dates. We have the invoices, and most are paid by DD, so we know the dates
- PAYE payment dates, the 23rd of the following month, but the payment will come out a few days later.
Armed with this information, she can see when available cash is low. She can delay taking her own drawings or paying a supplier a bit later than usual, given there’s a Revenue payment due.
Having up-to-date numbers and all the invoices and other costs enables us to forecast better. If the income is lower than we project, that could be an issue in the surgery. Paperwork hasn’t gone to the HSE on time or isn’t filled in at all.
Accounts
Having all the accounts information means we can do the 2025 account in February 2026. That’s good for Mary. She’ll know what her 2025 profits were early in the year. She’ll also know what her tax liability was for last year and the balance she’ll have to pay next November.
Once she knows her liabilities early in the year, she can plan to set funds aside and also plan pension payments. Not only that, but if she needs finance for a new piece of equipment or works on the surgery, the accounts are up to date. From a lender’s point of view, that’s impressive. A customer who is on top of their numbers with repayment capacity.
The old system was historic numbers for the tax man. Doing accounts in September every year for compliance purposes only. The new system has up-to-date numbers. Current numbers so she can plan, save, and even forecast to see the cash position for the next 6 weeks.
Team
Mary now has a dedicated and experienced finance team working for her. A payroll specialist and two accountants with tons of experience. [They are older than they look!] I’m even in the background for any tax issues that arise.
Jane’s job title was practice manager, and she had lots of jobs to do apart from accounts and payroll. She mucked in to help out Mary as much as she could. But what Mary has now is a finance function in her business that works.
There is no disconnect between the bookkeeper and the accountant. That’s all happening in-house. We have visibility over all the income and expenses and can track those for Mary. It enables us to get a super view into the business and spot trends around costs and earnings.
The service is no longer a once-a-year job. We’ve gone from
“Mary, your tax liability is €50k and here’s our fee, too” to
“These are what your numbers will look like in the next 6 weeks. Your liabilities at the end of this month are €25k, but you’ll have about €45k coming in on the 16th of February”
Summary
Jane’s announcement of her departure was a shock to Mary. With us stepping into the role as her finance function, it has given her more confidence. The numbers are looked after. My staff can go to Izabela with any payroll queries, and they’ll get the right answer. She has Éadaoin and Ger to lean on with any queries, and they are advising her throughout the year. It’s that partner in her business model. She knows what she’s paying and what services she’s getting for that. All agreed up front, so there are no surprises.
This is good for us too. We are providing more services and getting paid more. We can give better information and more insights into her business. Get her accounts done early and not during the September/October rush. Help her with decisions and be up to speed with new stuff as it arises, like auto-enrolment. It’s working out well for all sides. This isn’t a click of a button and, hey-presto, the magic happens. It’s working because there’s buy-in from Mary and her staff to get things right and be responsive to our queries.
There’s also a time investment on our side to get everything set up and right. I mentioned the various software above, which are great, but are no use unless they are in the right hands. Hands that set them up right from the start and know how to use them. That’s people for now, until R2D2 replaces us all!
So if you’re in the situation where my bookkeeper is leaving, help. There’s help out there. Or it could be that you want a closer relationship with your accountant and you’d love this type of service.
We love doing this stuff, and if this is something you’d love in your business, start here
