Key Takeaways
- The same hours are commonly entered three or four times: on site, in a spreadsheet, in payroll, and in job costing. Only the first one is real.
- What should be automatic: time capture to gross pay, hours to job costing, and auto-enrolment contributions to the pension provider.
- What must stay manual and deliberate: RTI submissions to HMRC, auto-enrolment assessment decisions, and anything a person has to sign.
- Auto-enrolment duties are ongoing, not a one-off — assessment happens every pay period, and re-enrolment comes round roughly every three years.
In most UK businesses that employ people on site or on shifts, the same hours are recorded three or four times: written down where the work happened, typed into a spreadsheet, typed into payroll, then typed again into job costing so somebody can work out what the job cost. Only the first record is real; the rest are copies that can drift. Connecting time capture to payroll, job costing and workplace pension contributions removes the copies — and it is the one integration that pays for itself in a business with more than a handful of hourly staff.
Where the Hours Go Today
| Step | Who does it | What can go wrong |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Hours written down on site | Supervisor, on paper or in a message | Illegible, missing a break, guessed at the end of the week |
| 2. Typed into a spreadsheet | Admin | Wrong row, wrong week, wrong person, and now two versions exist |
| 3. Typed into payroll | Whoever runs payroll | Overtime rate misapplied; a correction lands next period |
| 4. Typed into job costing | Often nobody, so it is estimated | The job cost is now fiction, and pricing is based on it |
| 5. Pension contributions | Payroll, then the provider’s portal | Wrong pensionable pay, missed assessment for a new starter |
Step four is the expensive one and the one nobody notices, because nothing breaks. The job simply closes with an estimated labour cost, and next quarter you quote the next job from that estimate.
What Should Be Automatic
- Time capture to gross pay. Hours booked against a job, with the rate rules applied by the system rather than remembered: overtime bands, shift premiums, unsocial hours, travel time if you pay it.
- Hours to job costing. The same booking that pays somebody also costs the job. One record, two uses — which is the whole point.
- Auto-enrolment contributions. Employee and employer amounts calculated on the correct definition of pensionable pay and filed to the provider on schedule.
- Absence and holiday accrual. Especially for irregular-hours and part-year workers, where the calculation has changed in recent years and manual working out is where errors live.
- Starters and leavers. One record creating the payroll entry, the pension assessment and the system access, so nobody is paid after leaving or missed on enrolment.
What Must Stay Manual
Being clear about this matters, because “fully automated payroll” is a claim that should make you suspicious.
- RTI submissions to HMRC. Payroll software submits Full Payment Submissions and Employer Payment Summaries under its own recognition. That belongs in recognised payroll software, not in a custom system, and it stays a deliberate, checked action.
- Auto-enrolment assessment decisions. The arithmetic can be automated. The decision about a borderline worker — and the record of why — is a human duty with a compliance trail behind it.
- Anything anyone signs. Opt-outs, salary sacrifice agreements, contract variations. Store them against the person; do not generate them silently.
- The final approval before the run. A person should look at the totals and press the button. Every payroll team that has been burned once will tell you the same thing.
The right architecture is therefore boring: your operational system owns time, jobs and rates, and pushes clean figures into recognised payroll software, which owns HMRC. Nobody re-types anything, and the regulated submission stays where it is licensed to be.
Auto-Enrolment Is Ongoing, Not a One-Off
This catches growing employers more than any other part of it. Auto-enrolment is not something you completed in 2017.
- Every pay period, workers are assessed against the earnings and age criteria. Somebody who was ineligible last month can become eligible this month because they did overtime.
- New starters are assessed on joining, with the enrolment and opt-out window handled and recorded.
- Re-enrolment comes round roughly every three years, when eligible workers who previously opted out must be put back in and a declaration made.
- Records have to be kept and produced on request — which is trivial if the system holds them and unpleasant if they live in an inbox.
Because the current figures, thresholds and duties are set by The Pensions Regulator and can change, confirm the current rates and dates with them or your payroll provider rather than with any article — including this one. What does not change is the shape of the duty: assess every period, record everything, re-enrol on cycle.
What This Is Worth
Size it before you build it. Three numbers, all of which you already have:
- Admin hours a week spent transcribing timesheets and reconciling them, times a loaded hourly rate, times 52.
- Corrections per year — underpayments, overpayments, missed overtime. Each one costs admin time and a small amount of trust.
- The job-costing gap. Take three finished jobs, cost the labour properly by hand, and compare with what was booked. That difference has been in your pricing all year.
For a business with twenty or thirty hourly staff, the first number alone is usually several thousand pounds. The third is often larger and always more surprising.
This is the sort of integration we build on top of an existing payroll package rather than instead of it — see custom ERP for UK businesses, and what an HRIS actually is for where the people data belongs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should payroll be part of our ERP?
The time capture, rates and job costing should be. The HMRC submission should stay in recognised payroll software, which is licensed and updated for RTI. The right shape is one system owning hours and rates, pushing clean figures into payroll software that owns the filing.
Can workplace pension contributions be automated?
The calculation and the file to the provider can be, based on the correct definition of pensionable pay. The assessment decisions and the records behind them remain an employer duty, and borderline cases need a person and an audit trail. Confirm current thresholds with The Pensions Regulator or your payroll provider.
How often do we have to assess workers for auto-enrolment?
Every pay period, plus on joining for new starters, plus a re-enrolment exercise roughly every three years with a declaration. Someone ineligible last month can become eligible this month through overtime, which is why period-by-period assessment matters.
Why do our job costs never match what we paid in wages?
Almost always because the hours were entered into payroll and estimated into job costing, rather than captured once and used twice. Cost three finished jobs by hand and compare with what was booked; the gap has been sitting in your pricing all year.
Do we need timesheet hardware, or will phones do?
Phones do, provided the app records offline and syncs later. If capturing an hour needs a live connection, the hour gets written on paper instead and you are back where you started. That is the single most important requirement for site and shift work.
Want this looked at properly, with your own numbers?
Book a free strategy call. We walk one real process through your business and tell you honestly whether custom, cloud or off-the-shelf fits — including when the answer is to change nothing yet.
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