If you have made the decision to change your payroll provider, you will now be faced with the task of ensuring the BACS facility is set-up to make payments to employees. Depending on your circumstances there will be two different routes to take:
No BACS facility currently in place:
If you are in this situation, this can take up to 6 weeks for your bank to process your application.
If you have made the decision to change your payroll provider, you will now be faced with the task of ensuring the BACS facility is set-up to make payments to employees. Depending on your circumstances there will be two different routes to take:
No BACS facility currently in place:
If you are in this situation, this can take up to 6 weeks for your bank to process your application.
The first thing you need to do is request an in-direct BACS application form from your bank, this form can be a detailed form to complete, if needed you should seek guidance from your bank relationship manager or new payroll provider on completing the form. This form will ask you details about your new payroll provider, such as their BACS bureau number and company name.
Once the form is completed, this will need to be return to your relationship manager at the bank, they will then process this application and link your school bank account to your new provider’s bureau number. When this is complete the bank will provide you with a Service User Number (SUN) which your new provider will need for their systems.
Although the bank has linked the accounts and provided the SUN number, it is strongly advised to test this link by send a small amount from the school account to a 3rd party account. (This could be a £1 amount to the new provider, which can be reimbursed)
BACS facility already in place, but linked to another provider
This situation is less time consuming, this process should take your bank 1-2 weeks to process as there is already an existing SUN number for your account.
Firstly, you will need to inform your bank that you wish to transfer the SUN number across to your new provider and provide the bank the providers BACS bureau number. When issuing this instruction be sure to keep the old provider linked to your SUN number until all wages and 3rd party payments they are contracted to make are fulfilled. You are able to have more than one payroll provider linked to your SUN number.
Once the bank has confirmed the link has been made, ensure that a test payment is sent by the new provider to confirm the link is established.
Although the majority of the work involved with setting up a BACS facility is with the bank this process should be one of the first when moving payroll provider. Any new prospect providers will be able to talk you through the steps and offer you support through the process.